#chili

pasta salad If it's hot outside, cool pasta salad mixes up with most anything to hand

Cool Comfort

Posted on Aug 12, 2022

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 →

Mexican spice blend Grind Only As Needed

Concentrated Mexican

Posted on Jan 16, 2022

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 →

jalapeno cornbread Personal size cornbread is gone before it has time to go stale

Smaller Is Fresher

Posted on Nov 8, 2021

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 →

Street Tacos Best not to count how many you eat in one sitting

A Taco In Each Hand

Posted on Jun 26, 2021

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 →

coconut aloo gobi Ugly Yet Delicious - The Next Test Will Be More Attractive

Whole Cauliflower Coconut Aloo Gobi

Posted on Oct 21, 2020

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 →

chile garlic sauce One spoonful changes everything

Chile Garlic Sauce

Posted on Dec 30, 2015

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 →

tsp chili bowl Winter comfort for you and the cows

Overnight Chili Dreams

Posted on Nov 3, 2015

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 →