Chicken soup for the vegetarian soul...

What do vegetarians eat when they have a cold? :(

I feel sooo sick. But I can practically feel the antibodies building up and by His stripes I'm healed.

Anyway, what am I supposed to eat when swallowing hurts? I can't eat chicken soup.

I don't want to eat msg or additives, so packet soups are out, but I can barely stand, boiling a pot of water is all I feel up to.

Here is my "Chicken" and sweet corn soup.

Ingredients:
1 tin of corn kernels
1 tin of creamed corn
2 teaspoons of grated/minced ginger
1 crushed clove of garlic
1 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 litre of vegie stock (if you are supermama then you have litres of the stuff in your freezer right? oh well, just check the label for numbers first.)
1 tub of firm silken tofu, sliced into cubes or mangled pieces depending on how sick you are.
1 tsp cornflour
1 egg, lightly beaten

NB: if your principles are too strong to resort to opening cans, feel free to chop up massive amounts of corn. however if you are sick, you need to take it easy, well that's how i rationalise it anyway.

Tip everything (except for egg) into a pot, bring it to the boil, remove from heat, then stir in the egg.

If you have the energy, sprinkle some chopped shallots on top. Otherwise, take a bowlful and retreat back to bed.

Talking about Jerry Coleby-Williams and potato substitutes. Here is a link to his post about plaintains.

ABC Gardening expo

I forgot to post about The ABC Gardening Australia Expo.
We went on Saturday, the 18th.
It was great. I wanted to see Jerry Coleby-Williams and HH wanted to see Colin Campbell. We love the TV show and the website is so useful, it is the first place I go to for gardening tips and info. Northey St City farm had a stall there, and they had a couple of chooks in a chook tractor, that mesmerised my son. We bought too many books and plants (me), ate junk (my son), drooled over huge ride on mowers and mulchers (HH), and basically had a good time.

Jerry Coleby-Williams did a talk on survival foods. It was really interesting. Basically, he gave a whole heap of subtropical alternatives to potatoes. Potatoes can be hard to grow in humid weather, but sweet potato, yams, arrow root etc, just look after themselves. He also talked about a couple of things I'd never really considered, the plaintain and green (unripe) pawpaw! I had to try green pawpaw, I have a huge tree full just sitting there. We don't really eat our pawpaws. The ripe fruit is not that great, we have the yellow kind, I prefer red pawpaw, also we rarely beat the fruit bats to it anyway. That night, I cooked some up, without telling the boys. It tasted sort of like sweet potato. They totally ate it, no complaints. It's surprisingly good, we will do that again.

We also joined The Digger's Club, which I had been trying to talk HH into for ages. When he saw thier stall and talked to one of thier sales people he was finally convinced. I think the free seeds pulled him over the edge ;)