2013 - Page 11 of 14 - Sarah Wilson

how to slow cook lamb shanks

April 16, 2018March 19, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

There’s a chill in the air. I just put on a poncho (admittedly, over a floaty summer dress). And the light has softened in a dreamy Autumnal way. All of which is a flagrant invite to me to haul out my slow cooker and start stewing. I mentioned a few weeks ago that my food focus going forward is to share ways to consume food more consciously. It goes like this: food waste is the biggest environmental havoc-wrecker (it creates more greenhouse emissions than cars and cows) and we – the consumers – are the biggest food wasters. About half of all food produced is tossed out by us. It makes me weep…and get fired up.

If you want to get some great tips on how to conserve your meat better at home, check out the Target100 site. Although, a no-brainer solution is to slow cook your meat. How so? Four birds with the one stone:

* Slow cooking requires you use cheap cuts of meat.

You don’t use sirloin in a slow cooker. You use the tougher and bonier cuts – shanks, neck, shins, cheeks and so on. In other words – the bits most folk don’t buy. And, so, they’re cheaper. Which means you can then make more ethical meat buying decisions (ie pay more for organic and pasture fed).

* Slow cooking gets the most from your meat.

The slower cooking process extracts the juices, the cartilage, the marrow, the minerals – all of which are great for your health. But the bonus is that the entire meal cooks in this nutritional soup – nothing is wasted. Oh, and because it’s slow cooked, less enzymes are destroyed, in both the meat and vegetables. I’ve shared on why we need enzymes in our food before.

* Slow cooking means you can use less meat.

Well, it should. Because so much flavour and goodness is extracted in the process of slow cooking, you can afford to use less meat and bulk the meal with vegetables. I’ll be showing you some clever tricks for doing this over coming months…

* Slow cookers save time and energy and washing up.

Don’t be freaked out by the fact you leave a slow cooker on for up to 8 hours. A slow cooker uses about the same amount of electricity as a light bulb

Is your cooking oil making you sick?

March 26, 2013March 15, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

My mate David Gillespie has a new book out: Toxic Oil: Why Vegetable Oil Will Kill You and How to Save Yourself. David and I have chatted before (you can find that conversation here) about the central premise of this new book: that “vegetable oils” (or seed oils) are bad and saturated fats are what we should be eating. Which, of course, is the opposite of what we’ve been told by nutritionist and government bodies for the past 60 years or so. Which is, of course, the period in which “modern diseases” such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disease have been on the rampant rise. Draw breath.

But in today’s chat we’re going to keep it to (mostly) practicalities: which oils to eat, which foods to avoid at the supermarket and some smart food swaps to make.

Listen in:

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For those wondering whether to invest the time in our ramble, here’s a taste of what we cover:

* What oils to use for deep frying, for pan frying and for roasting.

* The clever rule of thumb for making sure you’re not oxidising yourself: everything you eat should contain less

An eccentric and some e-loveliness

October 23, 2018March 14, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

I have days when I resent blogging. I’ve been blogging now for almost four years, 3-4 posts every week, largely unpaid for my toils, sometimes uprooted by trolls. I wonder why I do it. Some days. I mean, why would any sane person expose their controversial brain farts, their innermost reflections and their ugliest fears to hundreds of thousands of strangers each month who are then free to pull apart such thoughts and farts among their friends and in their own heads? My family ask me this often in their unaffected, un-social-media’d way. But, then, they know I have always been a slightly unhinged personality.

But just as I’m about to throw in the towel, I get reminded of why I blog and why I’m so bloody blessed.

I blog because it allows me to help people. I don’t have dibs on myself. I’m largely a selfish, tight, hard-to-live-with, neurotic human. But I get the biggest kick out of helping other raw, open humans who, too, struggle at times just to get out of bed each day and go through the human experience. Nothing else matters. This is my dharma. And, as I say, just when I doubt myself – working as I do in my isolated, tight, selfish way – I’ll be reminded of said dharma. Someone will come up to me in the supermarket and tell me their story. Or I’ll hear about how a post I wrote connected two strangers on opposite sides of the world, who then helped each other out…generously, openly, lovingly.

This happened a year or so ago when a reader – Gordon – followed my advice to get a VA in a second-world country. Gordon was so touched by the VAs work and life story, he and his wife went to visit him in Thailand and helped him start up his own company, which enabled him to get married. Gordon and his wife went to the wedding, too. He shared this story with Jo and I. It made me weep at the time.

It happened again this week. SMACK BANG as I needed it. Reader Soula contacted me and asked if I’d mind writing to a young family member who was in hospital suffering from depression. She thought a note from me might cheer her up. She likes my blog and book.

I wrote to the relative. I checked first to see if she’d mind my sharing what I shared with her:

“I thought I’d just do a shout out to you and say I’m thinking about you. …I get low. Real low. I

Read more

cooling cucumber and yoghurt soup

August 10, 2018March 13, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

Here are a few food rules I subscribe to: eat stuff in season, when it’s cheap, and in contrast to what’s going on with the weather. The first two edicts are self-explanatory. The third might need some detail.

I eat in a “roughly Ayurvedic” way. I’ve written about how this works here. It’s mostly about eating to what your body needs, taking into consideration your “type” or “dosha”. I’m a vatta with a fair bit of pitta in me too. In summer, the pitta can play up. We get hot. Pitta types get hot and need to be cooled. Mine has been sweating it out a bit lately. And once one dosha is out, the rest get wobbly, too.

And, so, today, as we (here in Australia) sweat out the last of the summer heat, a simple cooling and hydrating recipe for the pitta in us all.

Cucumbers are the ultimate cooling food and are a very good source of vitamin C and caffeic acid, compounds that help the body prevent water retention, a problem that I am battling right now.

A few notes:

* Avoid peeling your cuces: the skin is full of fibre and is a good source of potassium and magnesium – all of which help with the hydrating process. Also, can I just say…what a horrific waste?? Further, skin maketh a chunkier soup.

slowcooked beef and coconut curry (plus 4 more cheap meat recipes)

March 15, 2013March 5, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

You’ll begin to notice, I reckon, that my food posts are going to take a certain tilt going forward. They’ve pretty much been leaning precariously that way for a while, right? My food journey is very much now geared away from fancy and will be aimed squarely at economical, sustainable, smart, ethical and nourishing. I’m going to focus on different techniques and approaches that achieve these aims.

pumpkn-curry — Spicy Beef & Coconut Pumpkin Curry, recipe below

So far I’ve been all about not wasting food and using up scraps in inventive ways.

Today, we’re going to look at cheap meat eating.

As you know, I’m an ambassador for Love Food Hate Waste, and the beef and lamb industry’s Target 100 sustainability program (connecting farmers and consumers and getting us all on the same page). I’ll be writing more on this over the next few months.

For now, though, I’ve enlisted my mate Anthia from Ovvio Organics to share a few recipes from her ebook I Am Food, which is full of sustainable conscious food for good health. I’m jumping ahead to recipes (before exploring the theory) because I want you to get excited…and to experience her book. We met ages ago at our dear friend Marty’s Longrain restaurant in Sydney (if you know the restaurant and want to do your bit when eating out, know that they adhere to sustainable principles in the kitchen) and have reconnected via my meditation teacher and training guru. She’s on the same page as me when it comes to cooking philosophies. We chatted, thus:

* Use lesser-known or less fashionable cuts of meat or the whole animal. My favourites are beef cheeks and lamb shanks. Anthia loves lamb shanks. Many less expensive, bone-in cuts tend to boast extra nutrients, gelatinous compounds, quality fats and minerals. You’ve read my views on bone broth, right? I love what Anthia does with her duck (below). She cooks it up, then uses it three ways.

* Slow-cookers are wonderful. They effortlessly tenderise these lesser-known cuts of meat. They’re cheap to buy

my simple home: 5 small hazards to avoid

March 3, 2013March 1, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

OK. Another installment in my new My Simple Home series. For those of you new to things, I’m doing a series of posts that follows my journey to create the cleanest, most eco, minimal home possible and sharing each step, figuring you might like to learn from the process, too. This time I’ve got building biologist Nicole Bijlsma to share a few of her favourite tips for cleaning up our home act. I asked her to share easy, everyday stuff – some simple, inexpensive swaps or choices to make.

As with every step of this process, I don’t advocate throwing stuff out. Me, I’ll be using up the things I already have (not tossing them), then switching to other options as they need replacing. I implore you to do the same. If you’ve lived with Ajax until now, it won’t kill you to finish up the bottle!

The salient points from the video are these:

1. Cleaning products. Use Microfibre cloths. Avoid ammonia, bleach, and fragrances. PS if you’re after some totally clean, lean and green cleaning products, check out below.

2. Packaging. Plastic containers – they’re not meant to be heated in microwaves or put in the freezer. Check the identification codes on your plastic – 2, 4, 5 are ok. Avoid the rest. Glass, or ceramic containers are best. Me, I use old glass jars a lot.

3. Baking paper. There are new concerns about baking paper, as the non-stick aspect is like non-stick teflon.. You’re better off using something like plain brown paper and a layer of coconut oil. This I didn’t know!

4. Digital alarm clocks. Don’t use a mobile phone as your alarm clock. Just don’t. Ever. Switch to a battery-operated digital clock.

If you’re visiting as a group or family, you’ll love this place…

I just don’t know anymore.