A2K – A Seasonal Veg Table

A2K – A Seasonal Veg Table

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Orange Curry and Orange Ginger Apple Loaf Cake

We woke up early to go to the supermarket to top up on fruit and vegetables, along with other basic essentials. When we got there just before 7am, noticed that had changed the time of opening to 8am. We drove back home empty handed. I must admit, I was a bit anxious. It was my first time leaving the house.  Surprisingly the roads were busy as if we were going into work, which was unusual.  D commented on how busy it was, I stared out of the car window at the windows of the houses we drove past, displaying colourful rainbows. I wasn’t sure what this was about, but when I got back home I did a search and learned that pictures of rainbows have started springing up in windows after schools had closed in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and primary schools are encouraging pupils at home to put up paintings to “spread hope”. It was genuinely heart warming to see.

No rainbows in my window though…instead in my home was this Orange Cake and Double: Sweet Potato Curry. I say was, as I made it early this week. 

D picked up a load of oranges to make juice with his manual juice maker, but typically I end up having to find ways of making the most of ingredients he picks up. 


So this egg free Orange Ginger Apple Loaf Cake was one way that I found myself using some of those oranges, but as I went to make the cake I realised that I did not need to use the whole orange – only the zest!  The cake also contains mixed dried fruit, black treacle aka molasses. 

The Double Potato and Pepper Curry with Chickpeas was made to use up what we had in the house. I found the Double Potato Curry a little sweet, so squeezed the juice of half of zested orange into it for liven it up a little.  It definately perked it up a little for my tastebuds. 

The  Orange Ginger Apple Loaf Cake was reminisce of steamed pudding or even closer to malt bread which is dark and squidgy, full of dried fruit. The recipe was adapted fromThe Vegetarian Gourmet: Easy Low Fat Favourites cookbook.  This was nice to eat warm (reheated in the microwave), but by day four it began to feel a bit dense and stodgy so we fed it to the birds, by the following day it was all gone. Nothing at home is going to waste, it rarely did before so I can contineu to feel smug in that knowledge. 

Brazil Nut Banana Muffins

Well this is week three that I along with many other people in the world have been in social isolation and working from home.

Its the first time I have been fortunate to work for an organisation, that has permitted me to work from home. Its not always been like this, a couple of years ago I worked for an organisation that pressured me to come in from my rural location to the city when we had ‘The Beast from the East’, even though all public transport from where I lived had been cancelled, afraid of being stranded I ended up taking annual leave that period. I am thankful that I now work for a considerate employer, I know that not everyone has that.  

In fact both D and myself have been working from home.  Its easy to get distracted with all the homely comforts, but we are disciplining ourselves.  D works from one room and I work from the other, the only time we cross paths is for lunch or in the kitchen for a cuppa.  And please don’t be impressed with our expresso machine above, we have hardly used it! Its become more ornamental than useful. 


This brings me onto my Brazil Nut Banana Muffins.  I made these in the first week of social isolation.  The recipe is adapted from Heidi Swanson of 101 cookbooks from her Super Natural Cooking.  I didn’t have all the ingredients to hand, for a start  I only had one leopard spotted banana. So I halved the recipe quantity and topped off with brazil nuts as I did not have the recommended pecans.  These were surprisingly good, especially the crunchy Brazil nuts which I haven’t had in a long, long while – felt like a treat!  

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