End of winter, it’s been a hard few months, and I don’t often get sick, but I feel like I might. Phó is my go-to dinner when I feel like I need to ward off I-don’t-know-what. This isn’t a real Phó, but it’s got that ginger/garlic/chili/anise/cinnamon/lemon grass spice profile that my immune system seems to crave.
Sometimes I make something and I think, I know with practice that could be easy, but it is nice enough to be bothered practicing? This one made it through the test. If you are really pressed for time you can use bought wonton wrappers. I find them in the fridge section in my supermarket.
The Tuesday Night Vego Challenge this week had to feature snake beans. Now I have them coming on, the poor old Blue Lakes and Purple Kings have dropped right out of favour, left to mature for seed for storing. Snake beans are more tropical than most bean varieties, adapted to the tropical summer monsoon belt. They like hot wet weather.
I’m not a huge fan of tofu because soy beans contain a number of compounds that can cause health problems, it takes a fair amount of processing to get tofu from soy beans, and they are one of the most genetically modified and unsustainably farmed crops on the planet. Nutrisoy and Soyco are a couple of brands that don’t use genetically modified soy beans.
If you’ve visited here before, you will know my thoughts about kangaroo as the red meat of choice for Australians. The recent controversy about live cattle exports has brought it to the front of my mind again.
Many middle-eastern recipes use goat meat, or lamb that is from breeds much less fatty than Australian lamb, and the spice profile is designed for stronger flavoured game meat. It means they often work well for kangaroo.
Bream is not one of my favourite fish, but it’s one of the easier ones to catch, and Lewie likes fishing. I could never get appropriately excited about the catch until I discovered just how easy Thai Fish Cakes are to make