Green banana flour. This has been a quest of mine for a little while. My coastal subtropical climate is all wrong for wheat or rice or most of the staple grain crops that anchor our Western diet. I can’t even really follow Irish tradition (and Peruvian before that) and use potatoes as the calorie base – potatoes are a seasonal treat here rather than a year-long storing staple. It’s easy…
Tromboncino or zucchini, cheese, eggs, onion of some kind, something tart, something salty, something aromatic, little bit of flour, salt and pepper. Mix together, top with grated cheese, bake. Serve hot or cold, with a salad or in a lunchbox, a single serve size or a baking tray full for a dozen serves. You want a bit more detail you say?
It’s a small but very powerful change in the way you cook: start from what you have – what’s in season, what’s in excess, what’s at risk of going to waste. So, what got me thinking of this today is the spring glut of spring onions in my garden, and my new favourite breakfast – Korean style sourdough spring onions pancakes. They’re crispy, flaky, flavourful without being too oniony, fast,…
Ladybeetles, like most insectivore pest predators, need a supply of nectar to go with the proteins in an aphid diet, especially if they are to lay eggs and breed. This patch of carrots went to seed at exactly the right time. Umbelliferae family – carrots, fennel, celery, parsley and their relatives – have flowers that are perfect food and attractants for lady beetles. The lady beetles will enjoy the task…
Orecchiette is one of my favourite ways to use (and preserve) eggs. This batch is for a dinner party. Homemade orecchiette, frozen ahead of time and just cooked straight from frozen while the guests are eating starters is a lovely low stress, low cost way to make something special for a tableful of people.
I skite that I grow nearly all the fruit, veggies, flowers, eggs, herbs we eat for less than two hours work a week, with almost no bought inputs, and that this stares down the meme about home grown tomatoes being $100 a kilo. But this morning in the shower I started wondering if I was gilding the lily, if it was really, literally true. So many tiny, almost incidental inputs…
We picked two ten-litre buckets of coffee berries this week from our suburban coffee bushes. This is the first serious pick from half a dozen…