If it's hot outside, cool pasta salad mixes up with most anything to hand Soup is well known as an ingredient catch-all most of the year but in the hottest summer months, save for a nod to great gazpacho, I say cold pasta salad can fill the same role just as well. Boil any pasta you have around then run it under cold water immediately after to stop the … Read More →
Grind Only As Needed You’re going to need this blend of typically Mexican spices for the next few posts. After utterly failing to convince people to mix by volume and ‘feel’, I’m bowing to pressure to provide exact weights of how I make MY version… or at least how I made it today. It will certainly change over time, … Read More →
Personal size cornbread is gone before it has time to go stale Cornbread is easy anytime with only a few pantry staples. From idea to eating in under an hour – half that with a little practice. Only problem is that it doesn’t stay fresh very long and is best eaten right out of the oven or most certainly before the day is over. If you can’t … Read More →
Best not to count how many you eat in one sitting Prime grilling season has arrived again and around my kitchen that means “street” tacos cooked over charcoal. The fire is the easy part particularly once you have all the ‘extras’ sorted out. In my case those include a vat of garden-fresh salsa, some well seasoned beans, a little lime and coriander enhanced crema, and a … Read More →
Ugly Yet Delicious - The Next Test Will Be More Attractive I had a spare cauliflower in dire need of use so thought I’d do a first run and test on a simpler one-pot, hands-off oven baked aloo gobi. That’s a mild potato and cauliflower curry to the uninitiated outside India or too distant from a good take away joint. By using the whole head and … Read More →
Don't be afraid of the deep, dark spice Brownies are as much about texture as they are flavour. Whenever I’m trying to dance those two attributes around each other in a recipe I inevitably think of the buzz that chiles can add to the tongue which leads me to experimentation. Where better to try than inside a chocolate sponge laced with other exotics? … Read More →
Mystery Winter Supply Lines I have no idea how these peppers got to my local market in the midst of winter but I’m not complaining. Whatever sleigh brought them here is welcome relief from the doldrums of cabbage and potatoes. Since they were a bit wrinkly and demand is at a low point this time of year, the whole … Read More →
About to be salsa My salsa catalogue has numerous entries. Some accommodate the seasons, some entertain strange ingredient lists, and others still are made for quick convenience. After weeks of my annual garden-inspired pico de gallo indulgences, I took a few extra minutes today for a quick bit of roasting to make another favourite when tomatoes are plentiful. Before … Read More →
Pay no heed to the watermelon spectator in the background What to do on a hot and muggy afternoon? Make ridiculously hot pepper jelly of course. With thunderstorms threatening I don’t really want to be the tallest thing out in the middle of my field holding long metal gardening tools (and shouting “all Gods are bastards” while wearing copper armour in the Terry Pratchett vein) … Read More →
One spoonful changes everything When a cook in Asia wants to add a zing to dishes, they often reach for a familiar jar in the pantry that is little more than blended garlic and chile. Both benefit from time spent percolating together. Two flavour birds with one stone as it were. The west has discovered this secret and now … Read More →
If Aztecs and Egyptians Cooperated I can’t say with even the remotest degree of historical accuracy that ancient cultures made hot spiced drinks in winter but it’s a fairly certain bet they mixed up something with punch for whacky ceremonies as well as sitting around fires on chilly nights. Drinking chocolate with a kick is something you really should be … Read More →
Winter comfort for you and the cows Cold days call for hot food and nothing satisfies quite like a bowl of homemade chili. The history of the dish is well documented (and debated) so I’m not going down that path. Instead I’m going to bend the plethora of recipes out there into my vegetarian ways by using textured soy protein (TSP) with … Read More →
