vegetables

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Review: Off to the Market – Alice Oehr

Off to the Market

Alice Oehr

Scribble Kids Books

ISBN:9781925849790

Description:

Sunday is market day. We are looking for pumpkin, apples, eggs, and bread. What else will we find? Where did it come from? And what will we make with it?

Learn all about produce in this delightful child’s tour of a food market, full of fun facts, delicious new discoveries, and charming characters.

A loving ode to the people who bring food to our table and connection to our community, from acclaimed artist Alice Oehr.

My View:

A prefect first reader! This book of bold bright colours with eye catching stylised images is the prefect book for your first readers
(or bubs who sit on your laps as you read and point out) and talk about the markets, fruits and vegetables, shopping. Great for discussions about colours, shapes, counting, and general language development.

I do love the colour pop and the stylised images! Your little one will love it too.

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Post Script: The Good Carbs Cook Book – Dr Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie & Philippa Sandall

Good Carbs Cookbook

The Good Carbs Cook Book

Dr Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie, Philippa Sandall

Murdoch Books

ISBN: 9781743368169

 

Description:

100+ simple, delicious and satisfying recipes to keep you feeling fuller for longer.

Good carbs are essential. They supply the feel-good, taste-good fuel to keep you strong, boost your energy and help you stay healthy.

 

The Good Carbs Cookbook helps you choose the best fruits, vegetables, beans, peas, lentils, seeds, nuts and grains and explains how to use them in 100 refreshingly nourishing recipes to enjoy every day, for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and dessert. The recipes have short ingredients lists, are easy to prepare, quick to cook, long in flavour and full of sustaining goodness, so you feel fuller for longer. There is a nutritional analysis for each recipe and there are tips and helpful hints for the novice, nervous, curious or time-starved cook.

 

 

My View:

This book celebrates the notion “Eat foods made from ingredients you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature.”(p.9 Michael Pollan) and if you adopt this principle you cannot go wrong as Dr Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie and Philippa Sandall demonstrate.

 

This book is full of useful advice, tips on cooking, storing, nutritional information on the featured ingredients and its “hero” recipes. In the introduction Barclay et al list 10 Things they “Love About Good Wholesome Carb Foods” – let me share that information with you:

  1. We love the way they power the brain.
  2. We love the way they fuel the body.
  3. We love the energy they give.
  4. We love the good stuff (vitamins and minerals) that comes with them.
  5. We love their keep-it-regular fibre habit.
  6. We love preparing meals for family and friends with them.
  7. We love traditional foods they put on a plate.
  8. We love the variety and pleasure they bring to the table.
  9. We love the way they feed the world.
  10. We love their lighter footprint on the planet.

 

 

I heartily agree with all of the points mentioned above. This book ticks all my home cooking needs and more (particularly points 6 and 8).  I can’t wait to try out some of the recipes here and to share some of the recipes with you. This book is a keeper.

 

 

 

 

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Post Script: Supertato – Run, Veggies, Run – Sue Hendra & Paul Linnet

Supertato

SuperTato –  Run, Veggies, Run!

Sue Hendra & Paul Linnet

Simon & Schuster Australia

ISBN: 9781471121036

 

Description:

It’s Sports Day in the supermarket and all the veggies are in training. Everyone has been practising hard and is ready and raring to go. However, a new competitor joins the event, accompanied by The Evil Pea, and is determined to win all the prizes. Things don’t seem quite right… but will Supertato be able to foil his nemesis’ plan in time?

Another laugh-out-loud story from the bestselling, award-winning Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet.

 

(For Ages 2 +)

 

My View:

This one is already a hit with my grandson. He loves the eye catching bright colours, the metallic finishes, the fun illustrations and recognising the fruits and vegetables he eats (broccoli is one of his favourite foods). Add a simple and fun script; when I read this to my grandson I can’t help adding “to toot to do” – (me trumpeting) each time the caped Supertato makes an entry J

This is a fun and engaging book!

 

 

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Post Script: Complete Book of Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit in Australia – Matthew Biggs, Jekka McVicar and Bob Flowerdew

complete-book-of-vegetables-herbs-and-fruit-in-australia-9781925456080_lg

Complete Book of Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit in Australia

Matthew Biggs, Jekka McVicar and Bob Flowerdew

Simon & Schuster Australia

ISBN: 9781925456080

 

 Description:

Encyclopaedic in scope, The Complete Book of Vegetables, Herbs & Fruit in Australia is the definitive sourcebook for growing, harvesting and cooking your own fresh produce at home.

 

Featuring over 100 different herbs, 70 vegetables and 100 fruits, this magnificent guide will help, encourage and inspire novices and experienced gardeners alike. The coverage is phenomenal – from growing tomatoes throughout the year, to the great variety of potatoes you can grow in your own backyard, and there are herbs that can be grown in even the smallest of spaces.

 

Written with Australian consultants for Australian conditions with lavish illustrations and information that is easy to read and find, every gardener can discover the origins of plants, how they were named, their medicinal, cosmetic and culinary uses, and most importantly, how to cultivate the right plant to ensure a bumper crop. This is a real must-have for every gardener or cook.

 

 

My View:

If you are interested in having a home vegetable garden, or even an orchard or herb garden then this book is for you!  If you buy one gardening book this year – for yourself or as a gift –buy this one- you will have all your needs met in this one book!  (And this makes a great coffee table book for those who don’t have green thumbs).  J

 

This is a great resource – divided into useful easy to read sections

 

Vegetables A-Z

 

Herbs A – Z

 

Fruits –

Orchard fruits

Soft, Bush and Cane fruits

Tender Fruits

Tropical and Sub Tropical Fruits

Shrub and Flower Garden Fruits

Nuts

And

Practical Gardening tips.

 

With real life (plant) images, information on varieties, cultivation, propagation, harvesting, pests and diseases, culinary uses and a recipe or two relating to the individual plant – all the information you need is here to get started.

Start planning your garden today and remember to feed the bees – plant blue and purple flowering plants and herbs and you will have a bee friendly garden in return the bees will happily pollinate your crops for you!

 

 

 

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My Garden is Yellow the Colour of Summer

Summer has just arrived and with it comes the wonderful summer crops I am so looking forward to; tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, sweet potato, cucumbers, capsicum…The garden is alive with colour.

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Zucchini with Ants – a study of nature.

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Wildflowers aka weeds

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Tomatoes aka Kasundi, pasta sauce, salads,

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Day One of the Green Juice Challenge

Today being the 1st of May is the start of the Seven Day Green Juice Challenge – a challenge I have wholeheartedly embraced; drinking one glass of fresh green juice a day for seven days. I will have my juice at lunch time. I expect by the end of the seven days I will extend the juice drinking to a full juice fast – I have carried this out in the past and felt many benefits .

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I think the first thing I need to do is take a trip to our local growers Market on the weekend –  whilst we have plenty of fresh green leafy vegetables growing in our garden at the moment , the apples and pears I bought at the supermarket are woeful – soft and insipid, and there were no lemons to be found.  A supermarket with out lemons – that is unheard of! ( Our lemon tree is just about to start being productive and we plan to plant some fruit trees this year) It will be good when we don’t have to rely on the supermarket for our fruit and vegetables.

So raise your glass and sit down somewhere comfy and read a good book –  I have just a few waiting to be read courtesy of the publishers and The Reading Room