Why blog?... and roasted curry powder

Jeremy, my husband and I have two children, Elijah and Eraliya.  I am a happy stay at home mum and a thermomix consultant. Before I took on the title of housewife, I was a MRI radiographer at the Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. Therefore I have no training in selling a product, and thankful that the thermomix sells itself. We moved to Newcastle last year from Melbourne for Jeremy’s work and we felt it was a calling from above. Therefore I had to resign from the job I loved and leave our families (that we loved!), hence my entire child minding privileges. I would love to work part-time but child care is an issue. Therefore I thought of doing thermomix consulting as it is flexible and I can work when Jeremy is home. It is hard work but I enjoy learning and sharing about healthy eating. I became interested in this after having kids and want to feed my kids ‘good’ food most of the time. Elijah has quite a few allergies, so it is quite important in my household. Thermomix allows me to make most food from base ingredients, avoiding additives, quickly and at low cost... and now I’m a thermomix consultant and how life changes!

 I was born in Sri Lanka but have been in Australia for nearly 20 years. Although I ate Sri Lankan cuisine most of my life, I lost the love for it in my youth and preferred other cuisines. I had no interest in cooking it as there were plenty of Sri Lankan cooks at home and I would rather cook Jamie Oliver’s lemon roast chicken. Since I married and moved out of home and particularly now that I live interstate; I don’t get free deliveries of rice and curry enough to last a week. Now I miss it and salivate thinking about my grandmothers eggplant curry, my dad’s lamb curry and my mum’s coconut sambol with string hoppers made with rice flour. For up to a year after I gave birth to my babies; I can count the times I cooked myself with a single hand and what a privilege that was. Now I am on a journey learning to cook like my grandmother or at least hoping and still getting used to having to cooking everyday!

After owning a thermomix, I have learned a lot about healthy eating and loving it. We mostly eat vegetarian food and minimal amounts of dairy. I never realised that my ancestors mostly ate vegetarian food, were never accustomed to much dairy and used minimal amounts of wheat. Sri Lanka was built on red rice, they say! They used coconut for everything, from food to building. With the introduction of a Western diet, imported and processed foods; Sri Lankans are losing their roots and getting sick in the process. My dad talks about the time when they closed the main coconut mill in Sri Lanka and millions of coconut trees were cut down because the new and cholesterol free vegetable oils were taking over the market! What a sad day that must have been. This false marketing has lead to a sicker nation. Recently Sri Lanka built their first dedicated cancer hospital. Now I am going back to my roots and finding recipes my family uses. I figured they had it right all along, eat whole grains (rice with the red husk and its ground flour), plenty of vegetables cooked in coconut, with spices that have multitude of health properties and cooking with coconut oil. I created this blog to share some of the recipes and information I stumble upon as I am finding we are all trying to get back to this way of eating healthy food from nature.

 To get started in curry cookery, you need a good curry powder. My family generally uses two types of curry powders; a raw curry powder which is generally added at the start of the cooking process and a roasted curry powder.  You can purchase our family traditional roasted curry powder from our online store here.

SRI LANKAN PUMPKIN CURRY (TM) - Recipe here