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Recipe: Puré de espinaca (spinach mash)
Puré de espinaca is such an easy and middle-class recipe that I’m almost ashamed of posting it. But it brings warm memories of my childhood and of food from home. Eat with roast chicken, burger patties, fried eggs… whatever you fancy!
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Product review: Fine Fettle Eats
I’ve been a Fine Fettle customer for several years now. Their flats have been a life saver when travelling, and an awesome healthy anytime snack. I’m always thrilled to try their new products at the farmers markets. This time the new kids on the block are Eats. Eats come in the universally recognisable instant ramen cups. After brief flashbacks of MSG-laden camping food, I picked up the cups to look at the label. These instant meals are based on dehydrated vegetables and contain no gluten, preservatives or oil. They are also vegan and contain mainly quinoa and legumes with different seasonings. The contents come in a sealed plastic bag inside…
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Product review: Kooee! jerky
Jerky and macadamias are my go-to snack when I need something nutritious and portable. My favourite macadamias are Hand’n’Hoe (I buy them at the Eveleigh farmers market) but I’m still looking for the “perfect” jerky. I was researching some things (read: wasting time) on the net when I came across Kooee! jerky, which caught my eye thanks to their short list of gluten-free, refined sugar-free ingredients. This jerky is made in Tassie using top quality Cape Grim grass-fed beef. The current flavours are smoked chipotle and sesame ginger. I love the packaging, both visually and functionally. The serve is not huge but you can reseal the bag in case you…
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Product review: Chrissy’s Cuts sausages (plus recipe inside)
Chrissy’s Cuts sausages are made with quality cuts of meat that come from ethically farmed free-range and grass-fed animals. In addition, they do not contain any fillers, flours, nitrates or additives. I love her tagline “because meat shouldn’t be a mystery”. The current varieties on offer are beef brisket with smuggled greens and pork shoulder with bacon and maple syrup (killer combo!). I got a pack of the latter to sample. As you can see from the photo below, the ingredients list is super clean. Instead of just cooking the sausages and throwing them on a pile of coleslaw (my default modus operandi), I decided to use them to make…
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Recipe: Egg & olive salad
More egg salad madness! This variation includes olive oil mayonnaise and olives, a combo that is very familiar for Peruvians. If this variation doesn’t appeal to you, try the egg & cucumber or egg pesto recipes.
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Recipe: Egg pesto salad
Another egg salad recipe. I told you there were more variations coming! (see the egg & cucumber variation here). This version includes two of my favourite sauces (pesto and mayo), which for some reason I never thought about mixing together.
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Recipe: Egg & cucumber salad
We’re not big on egg salads in Perú. Yes, we have “huevos a la Rusa” (Russian-style eggs, a spin of the classic Olivier salad) but not the typical chopped egg salad as it’s known in the anglo world. Now that I’m doing the AltShift experiment, egg salad has entered my breakfast menu. I made the mayonnaise with organic avocado oil, which gave it a very cool green colour as you can see in the photo below. This is a basic recipe with cucumber. There are infinite variations to this recipe; I’ll be posting more in the future.
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Product review: Absolute Biltong jerky
It was a sad day when I found out that the jerky I loved and bought regularly was halal. Luckily, a quick internet search came up with an alternative that is grass-fed, gluten-free and explicitly not halal. I got a bunch of different flavours to try: venison (plain), beef (plain and pepper), emu, and water buffalo. Seasonings include GF soy sauce, red wine, a tiny bit of brown sugar, salt, spices, and tabasco. Coming from consuming a brand with a lot less ingredients, it took me a while to get used to the bolder flavour. It’s not bad, just different. Out of the meats I tried, I found the emu…
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Recipe: Majado de plátano con choros y chorizo (smashed plantains, mussels and chorizo)
Last time I went to Tienda Latina to buy food for my birthday I noticed they had sliced and pre-cooked ripe plantains in the freezer. I grabbed a bag without even asking for the price and started thinking what to do with them. It didn’t take me too long to decide: I wanted to make a version of majarisco, a dish from the North of Perú that features plátano majado (smashed plantains) and seafood. To keep things simple, I used frozen mussels and chorizo (also bought at Tienda Latina) for this version.
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Product review: Ecobar raw energy bars
Shout-out to my classmate Rob who posted a picture of Ecobars on Facebook. I’ve been wanting to try cricket bars since I heard about Exo bars 1-2 years ago, but they were not available in Australia. Now we have Ecobars, made with cricket flour, perhaps the most sustainable source of protein. I bought these for $3.95 each at Healthy Living. The currently available flavours are mango orange and chia spirulina. We liked both and no, you cannot taste the crickets. Maybe because the flour is not one of the top ingredients, which also means the bars are higher in carbs than protein. Ingredients in the chia spirulina bars are: dates,…
