Oven ratatouille
So this is basically just ratatouille, but it takes less attention (because you roast the vegies in the oven) and it tastes better (because you roast the vegies in the oven). The perfect day for this would be a cool day during the summer, just after you’ve been to the farmer’s market and got a...
Roasted red pepper and chickpea soup with mint
This soup’s story starts with me and Emily, last Saturday, going to a new-to-us brunch place. Our plan was to walk down to the cafe in question, then over to the nearby K-Mart to buy Christmas lights, then up to Psarakos Grocery (the big fat Greek fruit-and-veg mecca on High St), then home again: a...
A day of varied domesticity
Garden: We have 4 enormous tubs, 3 large pots, and a couple of middling sized pots filled with potting mix and/or various vegetable matter. For the big tubs, I raked up a heap of leaf litter and filled them 1/3 with that, 1/3 with chopped lucerne, and 1/3 with organic potting mix. There’s more lucerne...
Stewed fruit
More on the “recording stuff I cook and eat, even if it’s not that exciting” theme. I often make stewed fruit, but I haven’t written about it here, yet, I don’t think. I sometimes joke that I have “childhood fruit trauma”, which means that although I like fruit, I don’t much like eating it if...
Not quite kedgeree
I’ve been thinking a bit about why I have this blog and what I want from it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really have any pretentions to being a Food Blogger per se. I don’t think most of what I make is very original or special, and the quality of my...
Preston Market! (and a tabbouleh recipe)
It’s a while since I did one of these, but today was my first Saturday market trip since moving back to the Preston Market area, and I got so much good stuff I wanted to post pics. It’s the first time I’ve seen decent looking stone fruit in the market, though it’s still early days....
Fried red rice with kale
This fried rice was very much inspired by Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks, and a little bit by the Asian (especially Indonesian) food that I’ve been enjoying since coming back to Melbourne. It was also a way to use up a partial bunch of kale (cavalo nero, specifically) that had been sitting in the fridge...
Sage, apple, and cheddar omelette
Is this weird? It’s what called to me in the kitchen today, when I staggered in there hungry but feeling sick and unhappy from out-of-control seasonal allergies. 1/3 fuji apple, thinly sliced a few thin slices of red onion butter 3 eggs handful grated cheddar sprig of parsley, minced a few sage leaves, minced pepper...
Mediterranean chickpea and kale soup
This is just one of my many variations on onion-tomato-legumes-greens. The base recipe is just those four ingredients, and you can vary the beans (chickpeas, lentils, cannellini, borlotti) and the greens (spinach, chard, silverbeet, kale), not to mention the texture and what it’s served with, to make endless variations on a meal that is almost...
Fennel and orange salad
No photo for this one, alas. Just noting it to keep track of what I’ve been eating and cooking. Fennel and oranges are very much in season at present, so this is the perfect salad for this time of year. 1/2 bulb fennel, very thinly sliced 1 orange, peel and pith removed, quartered, and sliced...
Homemade muesli
According to my (shiny! new!) housemate, muesli is very hip these days. Well, I was into it before it was cool. If that makes me a muesli hipster, so be it. I mentioned a shiny new housemate. Actually I have two of them. I recently moved back to Australia and into a house with two...
Chickpea, pumpkin, and Israeli couscous stew
This is my entry for Presto Pasta Nights, hosted this week by Chaya at Sweet & Savory. I make a variation of this vegetarian, North-African-inspired stew quite often, but this time it’s a little different because I decided to add Israeli couscous directly to the mix to make a one-dish meal. Unlike the better-known tiny...
