I’ve been writing on here for more than 9 years now. Many things have changed and evolved along the way—priorities, methodologies, ideas—but one thing remains intact: I still forget to cook my rice. Just thought I’d point out that some things are still familiar around here. (A nifty trick – once the rice is cooked… Read more »
Pumpkin hummus. The usual crew: chickpeas, sesame (I use seeds; not store-bought tahini), lemon juice. To dial up the natural sweetness of the pumpkin, we roast it in the oven until soft and yielding. Halve a whole head of garlic, wrap in foil, and add to the roasting tray along with the pumpkin. Once… Read more »
When things are quiet around here it’s usually one of two things: I’m eating the same thing on repeat, or my 35-year-old body is giving out with toddler sleep regressions. Thankfully it’s the former this time around. This is an easy side to make and it features heavily in our meal rotations. Even easier if… Read more »
I have the hardest time categorizing recipes – is this a salad or a side? I’d wager that it’s a side more than a salad, but you add a bit of grilled meat or serve some Turkish eggs alongside and it effortlessly transforms into a substantial main. You first make a simple marinara: garlic, tomatoes,… Read more »
My cooking has been (unsurprisingly) hurried these past few months. Quick effortless meals are what I’m after: paneer kofte, flatbreads and mezze style dips for lunch with family, a quiche loaded with spinach, ricotta and feta, pressure-cooked curries and dhals, and of course, oven-roasted everything. Quick meals and sides without compromising on flavour. This is… Read more »
This won’t come as a surprise at all. Even if you’ve only seen a tiny glimpse of my posts these past few years, you’ll know that I’m a bit obsessed with tapenades. Especially the olive kind. A traditional tapenade (Provencal, I believe) is served as a spread to be slathered on bread, or used to… Read more »
At this rate, I may as well make it official, pivot into a ‘breakfast only’ website and not worry about my lack of enthusiasm for anything else. If you’ll stick around, I promise to make it worth your while with (more!) French toast variations and nestling eggs into anything that even closely resembles a sauce…. Read more »
We make sure to get a good rotation of fruits and vegetables into our diet and not eat the same thing every week. So in this pursuit, I bought a whole load of figs when I chanced upon them. And then broke my head over what to make before they rotted on me. Typical. Nothing… Read more »
This is (an inadvertently vegan) roasted red pepper and tomato sauce that uses cashews for creaminess in lieu of cheese, cream, or other forms of dairy. It’s very versatile and can be used as a pasta sauce, pizza sauce, chip dip, spread, or even as the base in baked dishes (eggplant involtini coming next). Basically… Read more »
Sloppy joes and burgers. Although both use meat, vegetables, beans or a combination as their base and both are served on buns, their similarities end there. Sloppy joes are cooked in a sauce—the consistency is that of a thick bolognese—while burgers are formed into patties. Burger patties usually rely on binding agents like eggs and… Read more »
I always need to have beets in stock. I don’t know if this mindset came about after the lockdown or what, but I feel reassured knowing that I have a few kilos of them in the fridge. This sentiment doesn’t apply to carrots and potatoes which, realistically speaking are more versatile ‘basic’ vegetables. It’s reserved… Read more »
More oven-roasted veg! Plantains this time but I also have an oven-roasted taro on here, and have already tackled the elephant in the room. Basically covering all my bases—and tubers—with this fool-proof method of cooking them. Taro is my personal favourite in this category of starchy veg but they are admittedly fiddly. They need to… Read more »
Here’s how I decide what to cook: I shop for things that are fresh in the store/market, and then rack my brain to find different ways to use them up. More prosaic than you might have thought, but that’s the truth of it (or at least most of the time). Sure, I meal plan and… Read more »
I think it’s high time I put this harissa recipe out there since it’s all I’ve been on about since last week. We ate it in and on everything from paneer köfte wraps, to roast chicken, and.. the pièce de résistance: an Ottolenghi inspired flame-roasted aubergine and whipped paneer dish which might possibly be the… Read more »
Disclaimer: I’ve used regular Indian chilli powder in this recipe, and not gochugaru, the traditionally used Korean chilli flakes. I’ve done my fair share of sourcing gochugaru in the past, but have since realized that the few Korean dishes that I cook and use them in actually work well with our more ubiquitous Indian variant…. Read more »
