Spicing up my life

Day 8: It feels great to be back to my usual energy levels. Tuesday is my day completely to myself and with my new training program, I have scheduled it to be a long bike ride. But life sometimes just gets in the way of these well intended schedules. After dropping off the kids at school, I got home to discover my youngest had left his school hat behind. So back in the car, up the hill, as just as I got to the classroom I remembered it was my rostered day to help with reading. There goes that long bike ride... But I so love being in class with my Squidget and meeting all his new buddies.
Breakfast - given plans for a long bike ride, I had made myself a poached egg. I really felt like something crunchy and toast-like under my egg. So I slowly baked some of that crust from the grain-free nacho mix. I put it in the oven, spread out as thin as I could, and baked it for 35 mins on 150oC. It didn't have the required crunch, but it did make my brekkie more satisfying.

Lunch - After my bike ride I really didn't have time to make a pretty lunch for my blog. I had already poached a chicken breast, so I fished that out of the stock it was bathing in, sliced it up, added half an avocado and a Lebanese cucumber, then drizzled the whole lot with that amazing Anchovy Sauce. Gosh it looked a mess, but tasted superb. 

Dinner - I have a very dear friend who has a farm. It holds cattle and sheep, lots of kangaroo and even an obnoxious alpaca. Now it's illegal for them to "farm" the kangaroo, so no joy there, but their lamb is to die for. When invited recently to dine on some of their own produce, I felt a special affinity for the lamb on my plate, as I had personally shepherded it on one visit. I feel so at home being back on a farm working with the animals. Knowing where your meat is sourced from can really guarantee better quality meat and an understanding of what it takes to bring this produce to market. In honour of great lamb I made a simple, very family friendly meal of chump chops pan-fried in some grass-fed butter, roasted purple sweet potatoes (brilliant; the boys thought they were normal potatoes as the inner flesh is pale cream), roasted cauliflower and steamed broccoli. The whole lot was dolloped with this recipe I found in our newspaper, using one of my favourite chilli pastes - gochujang. I buy it in my local Asian grocery store. I also dry-roasted some sesame seeds and cashew nuts and added them to the garnish.

To the dressing, I added 1 tsp of sesame oil and 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar. I didn't use the rice wine vinegar.