The thing I am finding about the Tuesday Night Vego Challenge is that the range of healthy, from scratch, vegetarian dinners you can make in half an hour is much bigger if you put a bit of pre-thinking into it. Proving dough, soaking beans, salting eggplant all take only minutes to do, but you have to do them ahead of time.
In just a couple of days it will be Halloween in the southern hemisphere – the traditional festival marking the point when the day length levels out again, and we start the 3 month period of short days. The days will slowly shorten now until the shortest day of the midwinter solstice, then slowly lengthen again until the beginning of August.
Sadly this isn’t one of my better examples of photography! I’ve been waiting all year to post this recipe. Chili con Kanga is good on its own, but this time of year there is a little window of time when avocados, limes and coriander are all in season together, and the salsa with it makes it sensational.
I love my kitchen. It has a great big central kitchen bench in the middle of an otherwise very compact space (in a very compact house). I means cooking can be a social activity – several people can chop and stir and roll and fill at once. Kids can sit up at a stool and be involved, and if they play it right get to listen in on adult conversations.
We have bulk chilis at this peak of the chili season. I’m not a huge fan of preserving – I’m lucky enough to live in a climate where if we eat seasonally, we can eat fresh all year round. Freezing takes lots of electricity, canning takes lots of work, and most preserves have more sugar or salt than I really need. But of course there are exceptions!
Just because they look like party food doesn’t mean they can’t be really healthy, low fat, midweek dinner food. And I love the social aspect of all just sitting round the table sharing one platter, rather than individual plates. Everyone has their own favourites. Conversation flows. It’s nice.
I haven’t done an “In Season” post for months. This was first posted in April 2010, and it reminds me how the seasons turn, a familiar cycle that you can look forward to every year, every year a little bit different, every year a lot the same.