Just a few days ago I took these pictures on one of my morning walks. I remember it was a very cold but beautiful sunny morning. I wore one of my warmest winter jackets. The other week, during the winter school holidays, I saw one morning a lot of movement around this little playground. A father arrived with two children; some other children belonged to some women standing around close by. I sat for a while on on of the seats near the playground. The women were busy talking to each other. I was just observing, not talking to anyone. I kind of blended into the landscape, nobody taking any notice of me. I would have loved to take some more pictures, but I did not dare to.
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Little Lucas is three today. We are going to see him and the family tomorrow at Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney. Alternatively we might all go to the Powerhouse Museum if the weather turns out to be too bad. It could be very windy and wet. But we hope it is going to be all right tomorrow. Yesterday there was widespread snow all over New South Wales, even a bit into Queensland! However very close to the coast, where we are, there was no snow.
On the fifteenth of this month it was three years since Gaby died. Peter wrote some beautiful commemoration again into Facebook.
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I love to spice my food with Madras Simmer Sauce. The green pieces in the picture are Kale!
We saw already the whole six-part TV series Glitch on iView after having started watching it on ABC TV. It is a fact that we soon got hooked. So we continued watching it online. Last night we watched the last part of the series.
I googled some information about it. Here is one of the write-ups:
“The national broadcaster is staking its claim in the high-concept, big cast, epic drama scene with Glitch, its new six-part series available in full on its iView service from July 9.
The first episode hits the ground running as small town police officer James Hayes (Patrick Brammell) is called to a graveyard to investigate a “disturbance . . . . “
Today, the 1st of September, is the first day of spring in Australia. For the time being the rain has stopped. Actually we had quite a bit of sun yesterday but still with some chill in the air. When we returned from Sussex Inlet two weeks ago Caroline bought us four beautiful looking tomatoes.
The oranges came from our orange tree.
The oranges fresh from the tree taste delicious.Our first meal at home after returning from Sussex Inlet.
On a Friday in August we bought some vegetables at the markets in Wollongong.
We also like kale very much
A meal with KaleOur Driveway on a rainy Day in August 2014
Kale or borecole is a vegetable with green or purple leaves, in which the central leaves do not form a head. It is considered to be closer to wild cabbage than most domesticated forms. Wikipedia
I copied underneath some pages about kale for your perusal. First I want to relate now some of my recent experiences with kale:
After having had a look at the above you are probably convinced that kale is very good for you. Apparently kale is getting more and more popular in Australia. We did buy a bunch of it the other day at a greengrocer’s in Thirroul. It was only three Dollars, which we thought was a very good buy. Today we bought another bunch here in Dapto, costing us five Dollars.
Today’s bunch was a Hydro Produce. Does it mean it is free of pesticides? I hope so. When Caroline gave us a bunch of kale the other day, this was probably organically grown kale. Caroline usually buys organically grown vegies. Out of Caroline’s kale I made a meal for breakfast. I had a few boiled potatoes which I cut into small pieces. Then I hacked the kale leaves into tiny pieces. I also cut some fresh red capsicums into pieces. I used two frying pans: One for the potatoes with the kale pieces, the other one for the capsicum. I sauteed everything in organic butter. I transferred the cooked capsicum to the big frying pan. Then I used this smaller frying pan to do some scrambled eggs in. Once everything was served onto plates these looked rather colourful: Sauted potato pieces, tiny green kale pieces and pieces of red capsicum on one side and beautiful yellow scrambled eggs on the other side. I like to eat food that looks colourful like this! 🙂 When I cooked this breakfast we still had Caroline and Matthew with us. They praised my cooking which made me very happy.
Today we had another sunny but very cold and windy day. Exactly the sort of winter day where some hot comfort food is very much appreciated. We still had some slices of kassler (smoked pork). Normally I do not like to cook any meat together with my vegies. However Peter wanted the kale cooked together with the kassler. And he wanted it cooked a long time (the German way) so it would be quite soft. So the kale with slices of kassler in it was cooked for a long time. In the meantime I also boiled some potatoes to go with the meal. I added some butter and pepper to the kale. My slice of meat I did not eat for lunch. I left it on the side for eating it another time. Peter did eat two slices of kassler with kale and potatoes. I could see that he loved it a lot. We each had a can of beer to go with this very enjoyable meal. For desert we had some preserved sour cherries topped with a bit of organic yogurt and some custard. After lunch Peter served some espresso coffee with a piece of chocolate. Delicious! 🙂
Isn’t it amazing that we, being ‘poor’ pensioners, can afford great meals like these? As far as income is concerned we really do belong to the people with the least money. Still, we think our lifestyle is not poor at all, in fact we always are grateful how well we can live with our bit of money. Plus we have on top of the Australian pension a tiny German pension. This extra tiny pension helps us to do occasionally a bit of extra travelling. Our government thinks, it is about time we all learned to get by with less money. But I think most pensioners would find it very hard to make ends meet if the pension was to be adjusted to a lower level.
Providing comprehensive support for the body’s detoxification system
Researchers can now identify over 45 different flavonoids in kale.
WHFoods Recommendations: . . . . At a minimum, include cruciferous vegetables as part of your diet 2-3 times per week, and make the serving size at least 1-1/2 cups. Even better from a health standpoint, enjoy kale and other vegetables from the cruciferous vegetable group 4-5 times per week, and increase your serving size to 2 cups.
Kale is one of the healthiest vegetables around and one way to be sure to enjoy the maximum nutrition and flavor from kale is to cook it properly. We recommend Healthy Steaming kale for 5 minutes. To ensure quick and even cooking cut the leaves into 1/2″ slices and the stems into 1/4″ lengths. Let them sit for at least 5 minutes to enhance their health-promoting qualities before steaming.
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Kale and Pesticide Residues:
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in their 2014 report, Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, conventionally grown kale are contaminated with concentrations of organophosphate insecticides, which are considered to be highly toxic to the nervous system. While they were not among the 12 varieties of produce most concentrated in overall pesticide residues (and therefore not part of the EWG’s traditional “Dirty Dozen”), the EWG felt that this organophosphate concentration was relevant enough to bring attention to kale. They actually renamed their produce category of concern from “Dirty Dozen” to “Dirty Dozen Plus” with kale, collard greens, and hot peppers being the “Plus” conventionally grown produce. Therefore, individuals wanting to avoid pesticide-associated health risks may want to avoid consumption of kale unless it is grown organically.
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Apparently all this is in kale in good, very good or excellent amounts:
vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C , manganese, copper, vitamin B6,
fiber, calcium, potassium, vitamin E, vitamin B2, iron magnesium, vitamin B1. omega-3 fats, phosphorus, protein, folate, vitamin B3″
Please go to the link if you want to find out more about the exact amounts.
Originally I copied nearly everything but then I shortened it quite a bit so the post won’t be so very long any more.
AuntyUta 