Food

Since I started cooking a lot, my diet has changed drastically. The first things I learned how to cook were quite heavy, fat and meat intensive affairs or very boring stir-fries. I can make a damn good lasagna or chili, but that's not the kind of food I wanted to eat every day. I started venturing out and trying new recipes, cooking with a lot of chicken, dabbling in some fish, but I found that I relied a lot on some core protein and a pretty predictable carb. We had a lot of pasta and rice and it got a bit boring. Over the past two years I've really tried to switch to cooking with whole grains and cooking pretty much vegetarian food at home. When I go out I almost always order meat, but at home most dinners are vegan with the odd egg or two here and there. When we have guests is when I expand a bit and try out new meat recipes, or when I have a bit of extra time on the weekend. Our main pantry is full of spices, various grains, lots of beans and tins of tomatos. Usually with just one or two fresh vegetables we can rustle up a pretty good dinner. I've even influenced a few friends to go this route. Something people always ask me though is what we eat and somehow I can never think of anything apart from some kind of stir-fry. In an effort to remember what it is we do eat, I'm going to try to document our food as often as I find the motivation to do so. The thing is, I don't cook using recipes anymore. I've pretty much established what flavours I like to cook with and usually things come out okay. Sometimes it's a bit weird, but Pete is used to having odd meals and doesn't even bat a lash when I tell him to throw seemingly incongrous food into the pan anymore. Hopefully this saves me time when I give Michelle my dinner reports!