Eating Simply

Now we've started on our 'Living Simply, Eating Simply' challenge life seems somehow more connected. Connected to the earth for our food and the house for our shelter.

It may sound a bit 'off the wall' or wacky, but it is really helping me appreciate what we HAVE got. When we moved to this large farmhouse we went a bit mad, buying things to fill the space.....we've discovered now we don't need them. Luckily lots of them were bought from car boot sales and charity shops, so we are more than getting our money back by selling them at the car boot sales through the summer.

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The Eating Simply is the easy bit at the moment. The Kitchen Garden and the polytunnel are virtually throwing food at us. Last nights meal was Mediterranean style vegetables and lightly smoked salmon on a bed of brown rice. All the veggies were grown ourselves.

For any of you interested in the recipe -

Simply chop onions, courgettes, peppers into chunky bits, add some small tomatoes and throw into an open casserole or any shallow pot. In a jug, or jar put a couple of tablespoons of a good oil, some finely chopped garlic, a few dried chilli seeds and any other tasty bits you fancy, mix or shake well together and pour over the veggies, making sure everything is coated.

At this stage you can pop it in the fridge and it will sit quite happily for a few hours with the flavours mixing, or you can put it straight into a medium oven. It takes about half an hour to cook, if you remember, give it a good stir about half way through, if you forget it doesn't really matter, the top veggies go a bit crisper and the bottom ones stay wonderfully moist.

We usually serve it either on a bed of Brown Rice or Cous Cous, so that all the lovely juices have something to soak into. It goes beautifully with salmon or Garlic Kievs, but is a meal in it's own right with a chunk of crusty bread to wipe your plate with.

This is an easy meal with veggies straight from the garden, but also one that can be made with all those leftover bits and pieces in the fridge at the end of the week that have gone a bit soft or lost their 'sparkle'. The roasting intensifies the flavours and makes even the dreariest of veggies yummy. Experiment with the veggies and the oils, and have fun....we do!!

Sue xx