Abercrombie & Feast

We’re here!  We’re alive and kicking and exploring.  I don’t have the ability to upload any photos yet, so this will be short and artless.  But I wanted to stop by here to let you all know what’s been going on with our big adventure.

We have been riding trains, drinking traditional cask ale and eating fish and chips.  We have been watching soccer in local pubs and walking miles along the Thames river.  We have been exploring ancient castle ruins and brand new High Street shops.  We have been reading and recovering from jet lag.  We have been trying to cook in our small serviced apartment and eating old fashioned pastys on cobble stone streets. 

We think we’ve found an apartment in the gorgeous town of Winchester.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.  Andy’s got a job in nearby Southampton, which is amazing and exciting (especially in this economy!)  We’re settling in nicely so far.  I even bought 4 towels yesterday… an optimistic gesture towards our future home, I think. 

Our luggage isn’t here yet, and the thing I am missing most is not my collection of shoes or my box of accessories (though I am missing those a great deal)… it’s my big red cast iron pot!  So, though generally things are looking very promising, there are still a few things to sort out! 

I’ll keep you updated as we slowly ease our way into this new life.  In the mean time, start planning your trips to visit!

I don’t eat the food on airplanes anymore.  I spend a LOT of time on planes, and I’ve eaten a LOT of airplane food in my life.  But, about 2 years ago, I decided I had had enough airplane food to last a lifetime.  I understand that costs are tight and that airlines have to make food that appeals to a huge demographic, but that doesn’t mean that I have to eat it ever again.  Most flights are uncomfortable enough without having to eat the food they serve!

So now, I pack my own food for all flights, especially any long-haul flights (Sydney-LAX or Sydney-London).  This makes the flights far more enjoyable.  Rather than sitting in my teeny, somewhat cramped economy seat, dreading the arrival of the puck of chicken with goopy sauce, I now look forward to my in-flight meal-times.  I pack a variety of different foods to snack on at different points in the flight.  There is usually one hearty salad or small sandwich, some fruit or veggie sticks and a treat.  Some people are surprised that I bring my own food.  They think that you can’t carry food on to a flight.  Just so you know, you CAN carry on food- it’s no trouble at all.

I flew from Atlanta to Sydney last November and I brought along a spinach salad, a small sandwich made with leftover Thanksgiving turkey, some carrot sticks and a small container of Christmas cookies that my mother and I made the night before my flight.  I took the roll and the cheese and crackers from the airline meal tray and a small bottle of red wine from the drinks cart.  What a feast!  Having the right food during a flight can make you feel so much better while in the air, and help you feel less tired and worn-out when you touch down.

As I type this, I am preparing our food for our flight from Sydney to London.  Andy likes to have a fairly hearty meal during the flight (the protein makes him feel better during the flight), so I’m making a chick-pea, chorizo and tomato salad.  Delicious, easy to eat and full of fiber and protein.  I’m also bringing along some purple grapes, a fruit and nut mix and some chilli rice crackers.  We’ll eat the yoghurt and fruit salad that they serve for breakfast as we descend into London and we will arrive in our new country feeling much better than if we’d spent the last 24 hours eating bland pasta or chewy beef on rice.
Here’s the recipe for Andy’s favourite carry-on meal.  It is dead easy and doesn’t need to be re-heated before you enjoy it mid-flight.

Chick-pea, chorizo and tomato “salad”

Serves 2 (fairly large servings)

2 links of chorizo or other spicy sausage, chopped into little pieces
1 tbs olive oil
2 cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 fresh tomatoes, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat a frying pan over medium heat.  Add the olive oil to the pan and allow to warm up.  Add the chorizo and allow to brown and crisp up on the edges.  Pour the chick-peas into the pan and stir around.  Allow the chick-peas to warm through.  Add the tomatoes and allow to cook for about 5 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste.  EASY!

As a kid in elementary school, I had the most boring lunches of all of my friends.  Lunch-time at Pulaski County Elementary School would come around and we’d all file into the new cafeteria… the one with a wall of windows and a stage at the opposite end.  We’d sit on our tiny plastic circle seats and unpack our various New Kids on the Block, My Little Pony and Jem and the Holograms lunch boxes. 

My friends all brought exotic and forbidden lunch-time goodies, such as peanut butter on white bread, potato chips and Fruit Roll-Ups.  God, how I coveted those Fruit Roll-Ups!  Chewy and plastic-y and really, really sweet… I would watch my mates wrap the Fruit Roll-Ups around their fingers and eat them off slowly. 

My own lunch box would never contain white bread.  Ever.  We were a whole-wheat family.  I always had fruit for lunch, often slices of apple that my mother would dab with lemon juice so they wouldn’t turn brown (I thought that brown apple slices were “Like, gross and rotten!”)  Sometimes I would get crackers and cheese, or celery with peanut butter… those were good days.

I believe that my love of fruit and veggies began way back at PCES.  Although I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, I’m so grateful to my mother for giving me such healthy lunches.  The lunches she packed for me back then inform my food choices every day.  Even though I thought I wanted Fruit Roll-Ups like all my friends, I now look at the packages of plastic-y food on the supermarket shelves and I’m not tempted in the slightest.

Now, instead of Fruit Roll-Ups, I prefer Spinach and Cheese Roll-Ups!  These are great fun to make and really good to eat.  They are simple, you can adapt them to whatever you’ve got kicking around in your fridge and they are crowd pleaser.  I made these a few Fridays ago for our dinner and served them with a warm lentil salad.  I halved the recipe and still had too many, so we had the leftovers for breakfast the next day.  The only meal I haven’t had them for is lunch… but I would be thrilled to find these Roll-Ups in my Jem and the Holograms lunch box any day. 

Spinach and Cheese Roll-Ups
(Adapted from Delicious Magazine)

The filling for the Spinach and Cheese Roll-Ups

Makes 16
250 grams frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained to remove as much excess liquid as possible
1/2 cup chopped feta cheese
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
4 sheets puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 180C or 350F.  Line a baking tray with baking paper or wax paper. 

Combine the spinach and the cheeses in a bowl and “moosh” with a fork until well combined.  Taste for seasoning.  The feta cheese is fairly salty, so you might just need a pinch of pepper. 

Lay one sheet of puff pastry on a cutting board and slice the pastry in half length ways.  Then cut each half diagonally in half again, so you have 4 long triangular shapes.  Repeat with the remaining puff pastry as you need it.

Place a heaped tablespoon of the spinach filling at the widest end of each triangle.  Roll the triangles up, from the widest end to the most narrow end.  When you’re done, they will look a little like croissants. 

Place the prepared rolls on the baking tray and brush with egg.  Bake for 20-25 mins, or until puffed up and golden.  Serve warm.