Sigh! Day 20-22 Eat Local Challenge!

Day 20

Breakfast:  

The days are starting off really cold and dark.  I miss the option of cooking up my normal winter breakfast of oats porridge.  This morning, surprise!  Feijoa, lime juice, apple and guava smoothie (again!)  Sigh.  Yes, it's really quite delicious, but methinks even eating ice-cream every day gets a bit boring......

Mid morning snack: I am back at kindergarten, so we have a shared platter of rice crackers and fruit.  Sadly, I can eat only the feijoas as I am not sure of the origin of the apples.

Lunch:  Left-over veg stew and brown rice (Mike had an Indian meal, veg curry and rice, with lassi, as he was in Rotorua, and had my left-over meal for his dinner)

Afternoon snack: dehydrated pear (tasty, but can't eat too much of them in one sitting).

Mike's Rotorua lunch, local veggies curry and rice, and lassi.

Left over veg stew

Dinner:  

Mike was away on a business trip in Rotorua, and I did not feel much inspired to cook.  So I slummed it with 4 rice cakes, 1 topped with  beetroot relish and Mount Eliza cheese (locally made in Katikati), and 3 with home-made peach jam.  Then, still feeling peckish, I snacked on a carrot.   Still not satiated, I warmed up the rice flour-topped feijoa pie left-over and ice cream.  It never pays to slum it, so later in the evening, the cravings became a monster and I could no longer ignore the fact that I knew there was a packet of chips in the bottom of the grocery cupboard.  Feeling guilty, as I did not have my partner in crime to corrupt, like Eve corrupting Adam, I succumbed.  I sneaked a bowl of Salted Proper Chips (from Nelson) 777km!  Guilty, as charged!

Challenges:  

We usually try to eat healthier options, so Proper Chips is our junk food of choice – no nasty additives, but they come from out of The Zone, whereas Blue Bird chips are made in Auckland (in zone) but have MANY junky additives.  Do we sacrifice our health for the sake of eating local??

I went to a local fruit and veg store in Katikati and asked where their kumara were grown – the Indian employee said they were local.  I asked in Katikati?  He said, no, Tauranga (35km).  Are you sure? I asked.  Yes, from Tauranga, he assured me.  I asked and got same response for the butternut.  So I happily bought them.  Then as I was leaving, I spied some bananas and I said, pity bananas are not local.  He said, yes, they are local.  What?? Not grown here I said.  He replied with puzzlement, yes, but you can buy them locally!!  Totally misunderstood my questions, even though I had explained why I was asking these questions!!  So now I am not sure if butternut and kumara are indeed local or not!!  Anyway, the kumara sure tasted good baked!!

These are the challenges!

Day 21

Breakfast:

Smoothie (of course): feijoa, apple, lime juice and guava.  The red cherry guavas add a nice flavour, even if the seeds are milled into gritty additives in the smoothie.

Mid morning snack: feijoas and rice crackers at kindy.

Lunch:  

Brown rice, with stir-fried onion, corn, tomato and chilli, drizzled with avo oil, which I rustled up in the morning.  Usually, I would grab a couple of pieces Vogel's bread to toast at work - easy.  Now lunches take a little more time to carefully plan.

Dinner:  

Brown rice, baked sweet potato, with grated nutmeg and butter.  A green garden salad with market bought tomatoes, capsicum and garden-harvested cucumber.

For dessert, I experimented with baked figs, sprinkled with sugar and lime juice, served with sweetened yogurt.  It was definitely not my best experiment.  The figs were such a strange texture that I ended up eating the yogurt on it's own, though Mike enjoyed his, as did he enjoy the ice cream he had today from McGregor's roadside fruit and veg stall - Tip Top ice-cream with locally grown blackberry and feijoa.

Highs:

My First Aid instructor came to the house to collect feijoas and was blown away by the selection of fruit on our small intensive edible landscaped garden.  She left saying she was inspired to go home and design something similar for her 2 acres of land!!  I am always thrilled when we can inspire others to grow their own backyard supermarket!!

Day 22

Breakfast: 

Ricies!!  (Kid's rice cereal)  I discovered a bag in the bottom of the grocery cupboard!  Yay, something else to tantalise the taste buds with!!

Mid-morning: my usual smoothie – feijoa, apple, lime, guava and blueberries.  Super-delicious!!

Lunch: Brown rice and leftover sweet potato with feta cheese slice (made in Auckland).  A colleague looked at my uninspiring-looking lunch and made sympathetic noises.  It didn't look so exciting but tasted really good.  (Maybe, I was just really, really hungry!!).  I snacked on dehydrated feijoas and pears in the afternoon.

Dinner:  

Rice wraps with salad, avo, grated carrot and a green sauce (recipe)

Green Sauce Recipe:

Into the Ninja blender, place 2 handfuls basil leaves and several cloves of garlic, 1 tspn salt, juice of 2 limes and 4 Tbspn avo/olive oil and whizz till it forms a runny sauce.

2 rice cakes with honey to supplement the meal.

Baked apple with ice-cream

Challenges:

Really wish I could do healthier, more varied and interesting meals.  Like avo chocolate mousse – nice healthy snack with local avos but has ½ cup cocoa – too much to fit into 5% condiments category!

Shall we dance??  Only 8 days left of The Challenge!!