Unexpected pleasures of the new apartment: getting a glimpse of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House from the train on my commute, and the Snook charring tomato skins on the gas stovetop…
Tag: food
-
Photo Post
The Snook welcomed me home with a lovely dinner: pork loin, salad, and homemade rosemary-garlic potato chips. 😍
-
Photo Post
LOL – my “eat 30 plants a week” goal is really being tested in Singapore. They call this a “Wurst Waffle.” 😂 🧇
-
Photo Post
Picanha steak with homemade chimmichurri, green beans, and baked sweet potato. ❤️ He feeds us so well!
-
The Great Fruit and Veg Experiment – and app!
Photo by Iñigo De la Maza on Unsplash
A few months back, I read an article about how to be healthier that suggested you should eat 30 different plants (fruits and veg) a week. It’s not just about the vitamins you get from the food itself, but also about encouraging a healthy gut biome. “Holy moly,” I said. “I reckon 30 in a week would be tough.” Rodd was hyperbolic in his skepticism. “I don’t think there are 30 different plants in the world!” he joked.
I kept seeing this advice over and over though, along with shocking stats like this one from a recent Guardian article:
“Of the 6,000 plant species humans have eaten over time, the world now mostly grows and consumes only nine, of which just three – rice, wheat and maize – provide about 50% of all calories humans consume. Add potato, barley, palm oil, soy and sugar to the mix, and you have 75% of all the calories.”
Well, this simply wouldn’t do. I made a New Year’s Resolution to start tracking the variety of plants I eat each week, and I began jotting them down in a Note on my phone. I set a few rules: the item has to be relatively unprocessed (no counting cocoa beans in a chocolate bar!), and there needs to be a decent mouthful of it (no tiny amounts of spices). To my surprise, getting 30 a week wasn’t as hard as I feared.
A few things have helped. We’ve begun getting a box delivered from Box Fresh each week, which includes a wide variety of fruit and veg. So far we’ve been happy with the quality, though it does mean you have to plan your meals and eat at home so you get through it all. I’ve also been making a point of going into the office a couple days each week, and there’s always fruit there for a healthy snack. Overall we’ve been a lot more aware about getting variety, and I’ve consciously chosen options (like salad for lunch) that maximise my chance of getting new items for my weekly tally.
I’ve also moved on from the simple Note for tracking, and I’ve built myself a pretty spiffy app that uses a Google Form to collect data in a spreadsheet. That sheet automatically keeps track of the overall variety and the breakdown per week. It also creates the chart you see above, which should continue to update throughout the year as I add more items.So far this year I’ve eaten 79 different plants, and here’s a peek at the ones I’ve eaten most frequently:
Plants I’ve eaten every week this year: Cabbage, Coffee, Lettuce, Rice, Tomatoes. (I’ve lumped all lettuce into one category, but I’ve actually had several different varieties in there.)
Plants I’ve had nearly every week this year: Avocado, Capsicum, Carrot, Coriander, Cucumber, Potatoes, Red onion
Let me know if you’re interested in setting up something similar for yourself! I’d be happy to share my Sheet with you so you can set up your own tracking form.
-
My new ceramic grater
I’ve seen these ceramic graters being sold at every market and festival in Germany for the past year, and yesterday I finally got one.
It mushified a clove of garlic nicely, though getting it out again took some finessing. Rodd worked it out – you have to hold the grater on an angle and use the bristles of the brush to push down the plane of it.
I used it in my homemade ranch salad dressing alongside the Snook’s spicy baked chicken strips. (He used toban djan instead of the curry.) It was delicious!
-
Brussels Sprouts
I never ate Brussels Sprouts growing up; they were just never a thing that my Mom cooked. It may well be that the first time I ever had them was ten years ago at Porteño in Sydney. (They were were charred and tossed with bacon and they were the most delicious thing I’d ever had.) But apparently Brussels sprouts really were a lot more bitter 20+ years ago, before scientists figured out how to get high yields from less bitter heritage varieties. Huh. So if you think you don’t like them, you should give them another try.
A couple recipes I particularly like:
-
Photo Post
Arrived home to find the Snook baking biscotti to accompany his homemade chocolate pudding! 😍
-
A Trip to the Supermarket
You all seemed to really like my cost of living post, so let’s dive into something equally as mundane – German groceries and supermarkets!
If you follow me at all here or on social media, you know that the Snook and I enjoy cooking and make a lot of things from scratch. Back in Australia, we even renovated our kitchen so we could get in a bigger fridge/freezer. Our normal process was that every Saturday I’d plan out the menu for the week and then we’d both go to the store to do a single weekly shop. We also got a veggie box delivered every two weeks as well. A couple of times a year we’d go to Costco and stock up on bulk things, and we’d also hit up the Aussie Meat Emporium every now and then to stock the freezer with meat. We’d generally cook probably 4 or 5 days out of 7, freezing any leftovers. We’d usually alternate who cooks, though since I made the menus I’d usually assign the really elaborate things to Rodd. 😉
Once we got to Germany, we realised pretty quickly that this system was going to have to change. The main problem is that German kitchens (at least the ones in apartments) tend to be smaller and have less storage space than we were used to. The AirBnB we were in for the first 10 days had only a bar-fridge and barely any pantry space! When we started looking for apartments, we deliberately looked a place with the biggest kitchen and fridge we could find. The one we got is great, but it’s still smaller than back in Sydney. We’ve got two cupboards to use for dry goods, a couple small shelves over the stove for spices, and then a stacked fridge/freezer.
We tried for the first few months to stick to the once-a-week Saturday shop but we’d struggle to store everything. We also tried out a veggie box delivery service but had the same issue, trying to figure out how to cram most of it in the fridge. The solution, it seems, is to do smaller shops, more frequently. How very European! 🥖
Our current process is to shop every 4-5 days (avoiding Sunday because everything’s closed here), and we take turns making the menu and going to the supermarket. One nice thing is that there are so many options within walking distance of our place. The main supermarket brands here in Munich appear to be Edeka and Rewe (analogous to Coles and Woolies back home), and there are like four Edekas of various sizes in the neighbourhood. For discount stuff there’s also Aldi Süd (different Aldis depending on which part of Germany you’re in!), Lidl, and Penny. There’s also Amazon Fresh for same-day delivery, which was a life-saver when we arrived! We’ve also found a couple Asian and Turkish groceries nearby for specialty items. Germans are big on organic, so there are also Alnatura organic supermarkets and a few farmers’ markets around too (though they’re mostly shut down due to Covid). And if you’re curious, we’re still mostly under lockdown here so current rules are you have to wear an N95 mask in any shops.
But anyway yeah, a plethora of options. Our default is the Edeka in Theriesenhöhe, just a short walk across Bavaria Park, mostly because it’s the closest and we’ve got a good feel for what’s available. (Aldi/Lidl always feels more hit and miss with what’s in stock.) It’s not huge, but they really pack in a lot of stuff! After seven months, we feel like we’ve mostly got it figured out. A lot of stuff is the same as in Australia, but there are still some wacky differences we’ve found. Read on for lots of pictures and details…
-
Photo Post
Feeling about 96% recovered from tonsillitis. Woke up to the aroma of freshly baked soda bread (courtesy of the Snook), which I ate with honey from beehives at the AWS Munich office. 🍯🐝❤️ #beepeculiar @hereataws
