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 →
Concentrated Mexican
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 →
Smaller Is Fresher
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 →
A Taco In Each Hand
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 →
Whole Cauliflower Coconut Aloo Gobi
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
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 →
Overnight Chili Dreams
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 →