What to eat when you eat alone.

Bacon. Avocado. Peas. Tomato. Cous cous.
I call this lunch.

Because I study from home, and because it's cold and rainy outside, I have to try and find things to have for lunch that are more substantial than vegemite on toast. Because, honestly, I could totally live on vegemite toast. No. Doubts.

This is a bit more substantial than vegemite toast. For starters, it's got veggies in it. And it only takes about 10 minutes to make. That's a win/win in my books.

It has a sweetness from peas, saltiness from bacon, creaminess from avocado. I don't think the tomato adds much other than to make me feel like I'm eating lots of veggies.

Cous cous salad
Serves one very hungry person.

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup uncooked cous cous
1/4 cup frozen peas
2 rashers of short cut bacon
1 roma tomato
1/2 an avocado
1/4 tsp tumeric
salt and pepper to taste

Grill the bacon until crispy.
Meanwhile, put the water and tumeric and a splash of olive oil in a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
When boiling, take off the heat and add the cous cous and peas. Cover and set aside.
Cut up the tomato and avocado and crumble the bacon.
When the cous cous is done (about 6 mins), add the tomato and avocado and bacon.
Mix it all up. Tip it all into a bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Obsessed with soup.

Sometimes I get obsessed with things. Lets call them fads.

When I first got The Shins album Kissing The Lipless, I played it everyday until I couldn't listen to it any more. Even now, I still can't listen to it. I ruined it for myself. I do this with lots of things. Running, for example. A few months ago I became obsessed with running. I ran every second day for a month, until one day I woke up and decided that I just didn't want to get out of bed. And I haven't run since.

At the moment, I'm obsessed with soup. I usually have Wednesday off work, so I go to the grocery store and buy whatever vegetable is on special and in season. Cauliflower. Sweet potato. Spinach. I make a big batch of soup and freeze some of it so that I can eat it for lunch during the week. Eating soup makes me feel healthy and full and wholesome.


A while ago a saw a recipe for baked potato soup. It sounded delicious but much too much effort. Little did I know that it wasn't made of baked potatoes, but was supposed to imitate what a baked potato tastes like. So last night when I felt like soup, I searched for this recipe and found two completely different recipes that claimed to make the same thing. So I just winged it in the end and it was a Success! I have to admit, though, that the extra bits on the top were my favourite part.

Potato and Bacon Soup.
4 spring onions
1 medium onion, diced
4 (or more) bacon rashers, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
5 cups of stock or water
3-4 tbsps sour cream

Fry the onion in a little olive oil in a heavy bottom saucepan, on medium.
Meanwhile, dice the spring onions. Adding this in with the onion, keeping a little bit of green for garnish later.
Add half of the bacon and all of the garlic and cook until everything is soft.
Add the potatoes and stock. Turn the heat up and bring to the boil.
Then turn the heat back down and simmer until the potatoes are really soft, about 30 mins.
Stir in the sour cream and cook for another 2-3 mins.
At this point, I mashed my soup with a potato masher, because I wanted it to stay a bit chunky. But feel free to blend it in batches in a blender.
Taste for seasoning (mine needed quite a bit of seasoning, but it depends how salty your stock is).
Fry or grill the remaining bacon until really crispy.
Top the soup with crispy bacon, diced spring onion, grated cheese and sour cream.

Bacon Bruschetta.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it already, but I work in a cafe. It's in a bit of a touristy area, but everyone who works there is really nice and the customers who come in are really nice and generally we have a nice time. The only thing that worries me, is that I don't really know what most of the food tastes like. And because all of the food looks really nice (small vocabulary, much?), I think I need to do something about this. But there is one problem. No one really likes going to work on their day off, or hanging around after work when they finish.

But I've taken all these (minor) problems into my own hands and have decided that I will make all these dishes at home. I'm constantly asking the chefs what ingredients they are putting into the meals so that I can learn how to make marinated fetta, veggie burgers and aioli, and now is my chance to use these techniques I've learnt and to share them with you.

So the idea for this bacon bruschetta comes directly from the cafe. Theirs is a little different from this one: they add some roasted red capsicum and marinated fetta, but the idea is the same. Mine really is just a BLT with a fancy name, but that doesn't make it any less tasty. Even Rooney liked it.



Bacon Bruschetta.
Serves 2

4 rashers of smokey, organic bacon, rind removed
1 olive ciabatta roll, halved
1 tomato, sliced
1 tbsp pesto
big handful of lettuce
1 tbsp homemade aioli

Grill the bacon rashers until crispy. While you're waiting, toast the roll on each side. When these are both browned, spread half the pesto on each half of the roll. Top with tomato, lettuce and then the bacon. Drizzle with aioli. Season with fresh pepper. Try not to let your cat touch it.

Pasta with bacon, lentils and silverbeet & a snow story.

At about 9:00 this morning, my Mum rang me to ask if I wanted to go to the snow. Of course I wanted too.
It snowed so much yesterday. It was the coldest September day ever. And here I was thinking it was spring. Silly me! And after a cold morning walking through the snow, all I wanted to do was eat pasta. (The above photo was taken on my phone, thats why its so baaad).

Pasta is my go-to meal when I want something quick and homey. This dish reminds me of something that Dad cooks - black-eyed peas with spinach and bacon. I love spinach and bacon together (I always forget that spinach and silverbeet are different things), they're a perfect couple. Like coffee and cake. This recipe had heaps of left-overs, which is perfect when you're studying, because you don't have to cook lunch. If you're like me, you'll just eat the cold leftover pasta straight out of the saucepan. What? You don't do that? My friend Leah and I used to do it all the time. We'd eat cold spaghetti straight out of the tin when she first moved out of home and none of us had jobs. I don't really eat tinned spaghetti any more, but I do still like to eat cold pasta.

Recipe:
serves 2 with leftovers
Adapted from delicious. Magazine

3 rashers of short cut bacon, diced
4 big leaves of silverbeet, chopped
1 250g tin brown lentils, rinsed and drained
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup chicken stock
500g short pasta, i.e. penne
knob butter, optional
parmesan to serve

Cook the pasta in a big pot of boiling, salted water for 12-15 mins, until al dente.
In a fry pan, heat some olive oil and cook the onions, bacon and garlic until garlic is soft.
Add the silverbeet, lentils, tomato and stock and cook until spinach is wilted and soft.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Drain the cooked pasta and stir in the knob of butter.
Add pasta to the sauce, stir and serve with parmesan.