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Food Week - Day 3 - homegrown ingredients are the key

Edited BY

G P Kennedy

Fried Snapper with homegrown lime


Simon and Espe – Perth, Australia


 So this is my first article here, my name is Simon and I am Espe’s husband. I have been drafted in as her replacement as she is flat out with work and the kids at the moment and I think she needs a break!

 

 I’m 51 and live in Perth, Western Australia and I’m an Engineering Surveyor.

 

 It has certainly been a strange few months but as the Global Pandemic rages on life in Perth seems to be getting back to ‘normal’. Australia now only has about 450 active cases and we only have about 50 here with none of those people in hospital.

 

 Pubs and restaurants are starting to re-open with limited capacity and our kids are back in school. Apart from a bit of social distancing when out and about and no live sport on the TV it almost feels like COVID-19 was all a bit of a bad dream…

 

 ...until you look at the news and see what is going on in the rest of the world. There are now nearly 2 million cases in the USA and that is the population of Perth. It seems like Brazil and Russia are trying to catch up and the UK seems to be in a real mess.

 

 One of the phrases often heard here is “Wow we really dodged a bullet” and that certainly seems to be true. Just this morning it was announced that New Zealand now has no active cases. Certainly our geographical isolation has helped us enormously but I think that most people here have just taken the situation pretty seriously and just ‘done the right thing’.

 

 So here we are in the middle of this crisis and things really just seem…kind of normal. I know that they aren’t in the grand scheme of things but there is a strong belief here that we are past the worst and it seems every day brings an easing of the restrictions that have been in place.

 

 One of the strangest things that has happened in recent times here has been the panic buying and hoarding of a few months back. For a while it was totally crazy and many food items were very difficult to get. Eggs and flour were impossible for a while.


Our fruit and vegetable garden - Perth, Australia


 We are lucky as we have a little bit of land and decided to get some chickens and we grow our own citrus as well as a fair few vegetables and herbs.

 

 I do most of the cooking at home so I found myself looking in the freezer, fridge and pantry and thinking of ways to cook with what we had as well as what we could grow rather than what we wanted. After all, this is how we used to do it before supermarkets appeared with food flown in from all over the world.

 

 I think I made an unconscious decision to try and include something home grown in every meal, even if it was just herbs or limes. It really does make you think about what you are cooking and whether you need that ingredient you think you do.

 

Our chickens


 We live in a small old town in the hills outside Perth and have an amazing community that helps and supports each other. One of the best things is the ‘Share Shed” where you drop off things you don’t need or have grown and pick up things you do or that you cant grow. No money changes hands and there is no guilt for taking and not giving. It’s truly amazing and you can pick up some fantastic ingredients there. One such was some amazing pomegranate

 

 This got me thinking and before long dinner was sorted!

 

Pan fried snapper with lime (our own)

 


Quinoa with lime, rocket (ours), goat cheese and pomegranate.

 

Oven roasted carrots with chickpeas (canned) with cumin, garlic and paprika.

 

Green beans with sesame seeds.

 

Onion, chilli and tomato jam with balsamic vinegar.

 

 

 Turned out to be nice and the kids loved it, which is a good sign! I can supply a more detailed recipe if anyone is interested.

 

 Stay safe, stay happy and keep cooking!

 

 

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