Sometimes I think we overelaborate recipes. Last night I made a Middle Eastern style stuffed eggplants for dinner, and it was good, but when I compare it with tonight’s Pasta alla Norma, I think it was over-elaborated. In-season produce needs so little. Pasta alla Norma does justice to eggplants – so good, so much better than you would think for something that simple.
I try hard to avoid gluts. It was always a goal even in rural homesteading with lots of room, but I’m even more motivated now in suburbia, where every glut is using space that could have been saving a trip to the supermarket. But I don’t mind full day in the kitchen every so often if the product is worth it.
I have one of those huge, chaotic families that are impossible to describe to someone else. And tomorrow, we’re all gathering, (outdoors, under marquees), for Christmas lunch. This year, my contributions to the table nearly all come from the garden, one way or another – icecreams made with real egg custard, passionfruit for the pav and the punch, green salad, rosemary oil sourdough crackers, and this seafood sauce.
I forgot about the party. I had half an hour to get a plate together to take. Woops. This is such a good, easy, fast recipe, and if you have sourdough culture going and rosemary in the garden, it’s all but free. And they are really good.
Remember fridge pickles? This is just another variation on that theme, and a really good way to use up cabbage if you are finding that the cabbage moths have ramped up to a level where the last of them have to be harvested now. If you want quick and easy, ready tomorrow, very delicious, failsafe, and will last for at least two or three weeks in the fridge (but you…
My nasturtiums are seeding already. Not all of them – the ones in full sun flower most profusely and set seed first. But there’s enough…
All my cabbages are maturing at once, and it won’t be long before it is a race between the cabbage moths getting them and them bolting to seed. So we are eating lots of cabbage. And this is one of the best ways I know. to use lots of cabbage. This is highly inauthentic Okonomiyaki – please don’t @ me, real Japanese cooks. This is Okonomiyaki featuring what I have…