Day 53

More Zucchini Recipies
Here is a great Blog I came accross with more zucchini ideas for those of us who have teenage sons who are getting sick of zucchini and savvy about sussing out when the food on offer is created from it - even cake!
http://walnutspinney.blogspot.com/2008/08/zucchini-chips-great-way-to-use-up-lot.html

Baked zucchini chips
2 medium zucchini cut into1.5cm slices
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
generous pinch salt and black pepper
2 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese
2 egg whites

Preheat oven to 245 degrees C
combine in a bowl bread crumbs, seasonings, and cheese. Put eggs into separate bowl, dip zucchini slices into egg whites and then coat with bread crumbs. Put zucchini slices onto baking tray and bake in oven for 5mins then turn over and bake for a further 5-10 mins or until brown and crisp.

Wild Yeast
A very cool website all about baking bread with a recipie for a sour dough starter see -
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/   So my next mission is to start a sour dough culture for replacing our store bought yeast from NSW. But it sounds a bit like babysitting, so I might wait until we run out of the dry yeast in our freezer.

Sad Fridge and Pantry

I just noticed how sad my pantry is looking at present, we are slowly eating and drinking our way through our stores, the spices are particularly low now, and we have run out of black tea (so sad for visitors).

The fridge is sad too, looking very diminished. I actually feel comforted when my pantry is full to the brim with products, and I feel uninspired when I open the fridge and it is 1/2 empty. I wonder if this is genetically coded from my parent's memories of enduring rationing during the war?

Speaking of rations reminds me of a conversation Michael and I are having about staple foods. Foods like sugar, salt, spices, cocoa, rice, flour, coffee, and tea, were available even before the industrial revolution, so they must have been stable enough to export by ship. In which case it is reasonable to assume that even after peak oil causes oil prices to soar enough to make air freight a thing of the past, there will still be shipping via sail boat, or some modern adaptation of wind powered vessel. In which case, we might not have to give these foreign items up, although they will be very expensive, especially spices, coffee, and cocoa.

Unexpected changes

The other unexpected change in our household is the lack of recycling and rubbish we are now producing. I noticed yesterday (rubbish day) that both of our bins were only half full. The last time we put out our recycling bin was 3 weeks ago, the rubbish bin 2 weeks ago. We are usually full of recycling after 2 weeks. I put this down to less packaging as we are purchasing less processed foods, no boxed cereals, no biscuits, no crisps, no corn chips or rice cakes, no dips, no crackers, no canned foods, less juice, no cordials, and no Lilydale free range chicken. I had not considered that less waste would be a side effect of our new diet, one more reason to stick with it!