mincing around

I've been having some adventures with mince this weekend (kinda ironic I'm blogging this so soon after veggie post), cooking some new kid friendly, veggie full, easy and cheap mince meals. The food mags seem to have responded to the recession with mince meals, so I adapted a couple of them.

First up Saturday night was homemade sausage rolls (I made mine with veggie mince, but everyone elses' with veal mince). The difference with this homemade variety was lots of added veggies - grated carrot and zucchini, chopped onion, garlic and shallots, lemon zest and also some low fat cheese. Sparky ate it all up, Scout not so keen - I think I might use the zest more sparingly next time as I think that was his issue. Still ate a good amount. Tomato sauce had by all.

Tonight, we had savoury mince, an old favourite from childhood (I had something else this time, but will have to try a veggie version I think, after tasting the sauce for this one). Bhaer had never had savoury mince!!!! Bhaer and Sparky loved it, and Scout went pretty well. Lots of finely chopped veggies and onions thrown in, with lean beef mince, and a sauce made from soy sauce, flour, beef stock, and a french onion soup packet. I served it up on toast- Sparky had his first go of using a knife and fork properly. Scout was given the toast as finger food and the mince as spoon food. He enjoyed that! And Bhaer was so enamoured of his first taste of good ol savoury mince, he went back for seconds.

veggie tales

I am using my blog to announce that post breastfeeding (2 years!), I have reverted to vegetarianism again.

I find though, that I have a more relaxed attitude towards this than previously. I guess this is partly because I have spent 4 years out of the last 5 eating meat. I have a policy of eating meat when I am pregnant or breastfeeding, as I prefer to give my children the bext nutrition possible, and not take any chances. Although I think it is better to avoid meat, for humanitarian and environmental reasons, still I do value human life over animal life, and so there are times when I think it is justifiable to eat meat. Last time I went back to vegetarianism after my eldest stopped feeding, I was much more back and white about it, but this time, I have not been as rigid. I eased myself back on, rather than say, have to go do a new grocery shop immediately, and I have been OK with friends feeding me meat, as they wouldn't know I was back to being veggie, though if they asked I did say I was veggie again. And I have allowed myself to have the occasional bit of fish. I think I am seeing my actions in the big picture - that if for some reason some meat passes my lips on the odd occasion, it won't detract from the good I am trying to do with my vegetarianism.

What I don't consider a reason, though, is my convenience - so it is back to cooking some double meals - with meat for others and none for myself.

piccie from freefoto.com

my vegie patch

a friend blogged about the success or not of her patch. We have just planted ours! (well a friend has done it for us...) . In ours so far is :
lettuce
tomatoes
basil
rosemary
spanish onions
coriander
parsley
thyme
marjoram
lemon thyme
snow peas
and we also planted 3 olive trees
as I look at it a leaning to the mediterranean.

and the fledgling lemon tree that was in the front yard when we moved in has finally borne fruit (not many).

so I will keep you posted on our progress.

also, on the inedible front, just planting some natives near the council strip - banksias, grevilleas and bottle brush - all with flowers shading from cream through to amber.

I am very pleased with the grey green foliage of the natives and the olives (I'm kinda anti bright green - its un australian somehow)