It’s Sunday and I’m sitting in my lounge room watching Gilmore Girls. (I assure you I have moved since my toast this morning.) I’ve been a bit erratic with my postings on here. Likely due to life. I don’t find it easy to always have the time and the energy to write regularly anymore. I was even discussing with my friend the other day that it can be hard. Blogging can be hard. I’ve also been pondering in the back of my mind (along with ten thousand other things), is my blog what I want it to be? Am I writing what I want to write about? Is it consistent?

When I started Broccoli and blueberries (under another name, and website domain), I wanted to share my love of food. My love of being in the kitchen, cooking delicious meals and baking wonderful things. I wanted to share my nutrition expertise and teach people how to nourish their bodies. I wanted to write about my food experiences, to remind everyone that food is more than just fuel. I find food really special, and it’s a large part of my life. Right now as I write this, I have two small pumpkins in the oven which I will stuff tonight. On the stove, basmati rice is cooking in chicken stock. Later on I plan to combine the rice with lamb mince and wonderful things like pinenuts, cumin, coriander, extra virgin olive oil, and then I’ll pile it into those glorious pumpkins. Oh how I am obsessed with pumpkin

When I started this blog I wanted to be genuine, and I wanted to be true. I feel I have done this.  As for consistency? It’s far from consistent. A while back I shared my thoughts about the inconsistency of my Instagram feed, on both Instagram and Facebook. That feed is a reflection of my life. This blog is somewhat a reflection of my life (more food, and less Orange is the New Black). I’m writing what I’m feeling. Whether it is to share a recipe I’ve put together ad hoc, to settle something in the nutrition world, or share about a food adventure. It’s in not particular order, just random. A bit random, like broccoli and blueberries.

So today I’m sharing a little food adventure story. It’s about my birthday.

Quite a while ago, I was reading Heidi’s blog apples under my bed. I love reading about her food adventures. She mentioned putting together a baked potato bar at her baby shower. I thought that was such a great idea. Everyone loves a baked potato right? I know the spud train in my hometown is VERY popular..

There was one stage when I wasn’t such a fan of the potato. Quite sometime ago. Like pre-dietetics degree. A little bit of the carbohydrate thing (I cringed and died a little on the inside as I wrote that) and more of the white potatoes are bland. Then I met the sweet potato. It’s now on the shopping list almost weekly, whether it’s with my mexibowls, a side of chips for fresh fish or as a loaded sweet potato.

So for my little birthday drinks, I decided rather than doing something like a BBQ and salads, we opted for a potato bar. Such a great idea. It was so easy to prepare and put together, it takes minimal time to serve whilst entertaining, and allows people to load it up in line with their preferences. I highly recommend you do it.

We opted for brush potatoes for consistency of size and ease of preparation. Whilst something like a mince dish such as chilli con carne or the like is cheap and easy, we chose pulled beef and pulled pork. We did not cook this one from scratch – you can purchase these from a supermarket which only required you to put it in the oven for ~45 minutes and then you pull it apart yourself.

To go with the potatoes and meat of choice, we also had homemade garlic butter, cooked bacon pieces, cooking chorizo pieces, cooked capscium, corn, tomatoes, spinach, coleslaw, pineapple (always), cheese, sour cream and sweet chilli sauce. 

All that was missing was pumpkin.

Emma xo