I spent Saturday down at my fathers pharmacy helping clean up the liquifaction and damage from the recent Christchurch Earthquakes. After well over a week of waiting for the civil defence cordon to be lifted we were keen to get in to the pharmacy and start the clean up process as the building had been declared structurally sound by an engineer.

It was not until Saturday that I realised just how annoying liquifaction damage actually is – it had flooded up through a drain in the store room and filled up filing cabinets with silt and flooded computers. It is bad enough having it up your drive way, but I really feel for those peoples whos homes or businesses have been filled up with this sandy muck.

Around 12 of us but in a full day scrubbing, mopping, cleaning, dusting, vaccuming, picking up stock, throwing out damaged stock and lifting fallen stands and displays. This was the most exercise I had done in around 10 days which points out just how much an earthquake, lack of water and sewage can change your daily routine.

Anyway after a day of hard work I was pleased to be treated to a gluten free chicken pie (calories unknown) from Kb’s fresh from the warmer… delicious!

It has been 5  Days since the earthquake struck and lack of showers and availability of food has made my diet pretty relaxed to say the least. I need to stop dress/bordom eating chocolate… specifically pineapple lumps. I was so wired I was up until 3am which is not the best idea for my frazzeled nerves.

There is still not water at my house so I am trying to cook things that involve doing few dishes and cook bulk meals so I do not have to cook every day.

Yesterday I made a bulk risotto with hellers Merengez Sausages which I boiled then used the stock water to cook the risotto, this way I only used one pot full of water and one pot to cook.

1 Pack merengez sausages

1 cup peas

1 capsicum diced

1 onion diced

Can of pasta sauce

1 clove garlic (diced)

2 cups risotto rice

Olive Oil

Cook Sausages in water then chop and put water aside.

Cook onion, rice, garlic until the onions are soft, add capsicum and 1 cup of water place on high until water starts to boil then reduce to a simmer and stir until the sausage water is absorbed. Add another cup of sausage water and stir until absorbed, add the third cup of sausage water, sausages and peas and stir untiil absorbed. Add the jar of pasta sauce and season with salt and pepper.

Leave to sit for 15 minutes for rice to absorb all the liquid.

Even better cold the next day

Nice with a side of steamed Brocolli

Dad has just sent me a link to the damage at the pharmacy post the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake.

What a mess.

As some of you may know I am based out of Christchurch, New Zealand. Yesterday around lunch time we were hit with a 6.3 Violent earthquake. Thankfully my family is all accounted for, healthy and alive! But my heart goes out to any of you with family unaccounted for.

As for my flat, I now have a new floor storage system and only 1 dinner plate left to eat off. My Bedroom door seems to no longer fit in it’s frame and we are currently without water and woosh (my internet provider is down).

Driving to my parents house to cook some breakfast I noticed a sink hole in the middle of the road so big you could fit a small car into it by pioneer gym.

I have just heard my father’s business is a mess with liquifaction coming up through the concrete floor and stock ruined by the sand and water – I aim to go and help with clean up in a few days when we can get into the building.

Much love to all those in Christchurch! Stay positive and we will get through this together!

xoxo lucy

Stepped on the scales today and am down to 74.9 (the .9 is important hehe) Down from 79.9

In the weekend I caught the blackseeds concert in sol square in Christchurch. It was really nice to go out for a drink with friends and listen to some amazing music with such a cool crowd of people. The concert started at 2pm I arrived around 5pm and waited with some friends for the blackseeds who started at 8pm.

Blackseeds Christchurch

One struggle I have when going out earlier for a few drinks is finding a low cost drink (other then water) if I want to have a few without blowing my budget out.

I found bulmers pear cider at one of the smaller bars which was available for $9 and I got almost two glasses out of the bottle.

From past research it appears cider is gluten free (I hope) so this was a delicious, cold and cost effective drink for me that night.

The blackseeds finished up around 9:30 and my friends headed to a local restaurant for kebabs – I am a little scared of getting glutened by turkish food so I opted to grab 2 chocolate bars from the bus stop on the way home (which I regretted as I stepped on the scales monday morning).

I love music, good friends and a cold cider – all in all this was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday!!!

I have just been cooking up a storm, I had a craving to make something with the few ingredients I had in my cuboard and came up with a great little dish made from Capsicum Pesto, GF Spaghetti, and butter beans which I followed with a side of steamed brocolli and feta.

Basically I find when I eat gluten free pasta it makes me want to go to bed I get so tired. So as a way to counter act the starch I decided to only use 1/2 the recommended serving size (in this case 1/4 packet of san remo gluten free spaghetti instead of the half a pack recommended as a serving).  To fill my pasta out a bit (as I was low in veggies) I decided to use half a drained can of butter beans I had lying around in my cupboard .

Over all the end result was delicious! I smothered it in freshly cracked pepper and a little salt and had the perfect pasta meal without the tiredness.

Gluten Free Capsicum Spaghetti with Butter Beans Recipe