Lessons to be learnt from a Vege Casserole

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night with a flash of the bleeding obvious and I am still giggling.

Getting all your ducks in a row is an important part of business growth.

One of the biggest ducks to have lined up is your own personal health and vitality.

I’d have to say that I’ve let that slip since moving to the country. A recent trip to the fabulous Prahran Markets in Melbourne City (where I used to shop when I lived in this trendy inner city suburb) reminded me of the way I used to care of myself before I leapt into the dream.

Back then I had a corporate pay cheque that ensured I could walk out of that market with a shopping jeep full of organic food and vegetables without thinking twice about how much it had just cost me.

During my journey to build my dream there were times in the early days when all I had money for was what I’ve lovingly dubbed the 3P’s =

1. Porridge
2. Pasta
3. Peanut Butter Sandwiches

You could buy a lot of the 3P's for $10 when on welfare payments. There was one horrible week I remember, when the only reason I had peanut butter sandwiches was because the local Bakers Delight store put a voucher in my mail box for a free loaf of bread. I wrote in to thank them for that voucher some months later and the owner was blown away that they had made so much difference to my life that week.

So somewhere in the nightmare I created in the early days I lost touch with vibrantly healthy food and ate what I could fit into an impossible fiscal situation. That certainly didn’t include eating take out or Maccas or KFC –it hasn’t been that I’ve been eating badly, I just haven’t been eating optimally and I have lost touch with is the joy of healthy, vital organic food. Now I’m ready to get back to that place and only accept food made or grown with “love” because I know it’s the answer to my next step up the ladder of success.

Sometimes the answers are right in front of us and don’t require a lot of effort to change. I live in foodie heaven and many of our farm gates probably supply Prahran Market – I’ve just got to get back into the habit of making trips out to their on site stores and making vital food a priority.

Health Coach Susan Living has been helping me get back into appreciating vital health. Susan’s enthusiasm for vital health and zealous support of “anything green” has been getting me get back on track. Who thought you could put spinach in your morning juice!

Part of my “homework” this week has been creating and implementing a healthy eating plan that will fit into my sometimes manic schedule. So I had a lovely time over Easter at the Castlemaine Farmers Market purchasing organic veges from the incredibly passionate vegetable aficionado at the Fernleigh Farms stall. Surrounded by all this enthusiasm I was pumped up to come home and start my vegetable casserole, guaranteed to rid sluggish livers of bad vibes.

Any of you who have met me personally will know that I’m not a domestic goddess – I can cook if I put my mind to it – but my future preference is a butler who will take care of all that. But the vege casserole recipe was pretty idiot proof really and went something like chop up healthy veges and herbs – put it in a casserole dish, add homemade vege stock and put it in the oven (my kind of meal!).

Everything was going well until I was required to place 3 tablespoons of LSA (ground Linseed, Sunflower kernels and Almonds) into the bubbling aromatic mix.

It immediately went all gluggy. So gluggy in fact I just picked the big bits out and the compost bin got the rest.

I was highly perplexed by this because I’d made a smoothie a few weeks back and the same thing happened – add LSA – glutinous maximus mess! But LSA is only ground up nuts – it really shouldn’t do that ............ so what was I missing?

In business we need to become multi taskers and we are constantly asked to put in time saving measures and do things once – do them well – all those good pieces of advice. I am a master at finding ways I can save time and automate and do several things at once, but it seems you also need to have a good memory to avoid unexpected knock on effects.

Some time ago I had been enjoying fruit smoothies for lunch (note the chuck it all in at once process I’m so fond of) and in my infinite wisdom had cut down the processing time by adding my Psyllium Husk Fibers to my container of LSA to save time.

Psyllium (Sellium) Husks do many good things for the body but at base level they are a bulking agent which helps with constipation.

So there was the learning lesson in the vege casserole – if you are going to multi task – at least remember what you’ve multi’d or you’ll end up in the poo :-)

Luckily I just picked out the big bits and discarded the sauce part or I could have been in BIG trouble this morning – because a smoothie only requires ONE scoop – THREE tablespoons would have really messed with my system.