So anyway. Lately we have been making more and more vegetarian meals. Joey and I eat out for lunch once or twice a week and we almost always choose vegetarian options now. We found a fab little cafe in upper ferntree gully called Tastee Az that has the most yummy vegetarian meals (they serve meals with meat also) and we now go once a week to make our way through there very tastee menu! I highly recommend anyone in the area to go and eat there you won't be disappointed, plus the food is reasonably priced.
So in all this I have been thinking about taking the step back to being vegetarian once again. For me it would be primarily for health reasons, secondly for the environment and thirdly for the animals. Is it unethical if I chose to eat meat on the rare occasion? like when at visitors who just find it too hard? at social events when there is no other option? and once in a while to curb my steak cravings? Give me your thoughts :)
Now on to a yummy recipe.
I made a vegie quiche this week which was soooo yummy!
Here is the easy easy recipe I did this time.
I used a square baking tin.
Put down a sheet of puff pastry.
then layered in the cut up vegies
Tomato
mushroom
silverbeet
red onion
red capsicum
then some crumbled marinated fetta
then relayered the vegies again
then topped with more marinated fetta and some asparagus and grated cheese.
then mixed 4 eggs with a little milk and cracked black pepper and poured over the top.
bake in the oven til risen and firm and brown.
then eat!!!
It was really yummy!
This is it with just the vegies layered in. I got busy and forgot to photograph the rest!
the garden is booming along out the back. I need to retie the tomatoes and transplant a few of them.
I posted apic just after planting about 2 motnhs ago, they sure are doing well here!
Int he pic above you can see the main tomato bed at the front which also has some basil, chilli and parsley in it. All growing well.
Behind that is a bed with more chilli, spring onions, cucumbers, beans and some lettuce. also tomatoes that have sprouted from previous years seed in the soil that I need to transplant this weekend.
to the left of the picture not in the built up beds I have zuchini growing and pumpkin and parsley and mint. to the right I have strawberries and another pumpkin (the pumpkin is a smaller variety that wont take over the garden hopefully! Its already flowering too.)
the back bed is the main lettuce bed which also has carrot and parsnip growing now and more silverbeet and radishes.
I'm really disappointed about the front beds, everythign is still not growing and just dying off :( I figure I am just going ot kep adding to the soil and keep trying. I probably should buy and do a ph test to see what is up with it.
Oh I picked and ate a snow pea yesterday. I was lamely excited by it :) pity the plant is out the front and joining the others in dying off so not sure if I will get much more thsan the one pea off it!
5 comments:
Hi Susan :-) Your garden looks excellent, and that quiche looked divine! Yum. With regards to your front garden, waht do you have planted in it? Snow peas are a cooler weather plant and as soon as the weather warms up they stop flowering and look crook - I pulled mine out a couple of weeks ago. Could that be the issue with the other plants?
We used to like a good steak occaisonally too, perhaps our bodies craves the iron but they taste damn good too. It's pretty rare we eat red meat these days though, and when we do it's usually at someone else's house. We don't make a fuss about it, I choose something else if they have a buffet but otherwise we just eat it. We are fortunate that there is a biodynamic beef farm not far from here so if I were buying steak that's what I'd get. More expensive of course, but the fact that the a) it's a "treat" and b) that the cow was humanely raised (On grass! In a paddock!) makes it easier to enjoy, if that makes sense? I've been reading a lot lately about how animals and meat eating fit into a sustainable future, and while I will continue to eat a majority of vegetarian meals, I feel that there is a place for a limited amount of organic, free-range, humanely slaughtered meat as well. Cheers, Julie.
Hey Julie, in the garden the snow peas were planted frirst a while ago.
but i also planted silverbeet, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, zuchini, celery and corn and nothing is doing well. they just arent growing.
I'll take a pic tomorrow to show you what they look like.
Hi Susan,
I guess if you're becoming a vegetarian for health reasons then having meat occasionally would be okay - you would be classified as a flexitarian :-). When I became a vegetarain 3 years ago it was for ethical reasons - though at the time I still thought I might need/want to eat meat when out socially - but I never have and frankly can't stand the thought of it now. Like Julie suggested if you want to eat meat (and animal welfare is important) make sure it comes from a good source and not a feed-lot - like most supermarket meats.
Having said all that - cutting down meat can only be good for your health, your finances, the planet and the animals - sounds like a winner to me :-).
Libby
I don't think there's anything wrong with eating vegetarian the majority of the time and still having the occasional steak....you do what you think/feel is right for you :)
Your vegies out the back look healthy, sorry to hear that the front ones aren't doing so well...
Happy beef makes better steaks. The same goes for our hogs and chickens. I still have a hard time taking our livestock to the processor or when we clean our birds. You'll have a hard time converting me to a vegetarian, but to each his own.
Peace
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