The silver beet looked so gorgeous this morning, and the patch needed thinning. And the basket just filled and filled. Spankakopika it has to be.
Every year in my community, as part of our winter solstice celebrations, we have a gift giving ritual. We draw names out of a hat six weeks earlier, and hand make a gift. This year, Garry drew me and made me these bellows for my slow combustion stove.
Maybe a week more of mango gluttony, then it’s over for another year. So here’s the mango upside down cake recipe, so I remember it for next year.
My favourite dish to take to a party is always little tarts. They make such easily transportable finger food, so easy, and they look so party-food. Simple shortcrust pastry, lightly blind baked, then half filled with a slightly lemony cheesecake mix, topped with mango jelly. Recipe:
If you are a vegetarian, probably better if you don’t click. We hit a wallaby on the way home a little while ago. It was just on dusk, right when the wallabies become most active, and it just jumped out right under the van.
Okonomiyaki are a Japanese cabbage pancake, and if you are conjuring up images of British boiled cabbage or bubble and squeak, you’re on the wrong track. Okonomiyaki are comfort food, crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, not very cabbagey at all. Recipe:
My caulis are getting away from me. I could, I should, harvest them while they still look like perfect supermarket caulis and give the extras away. But we’ve developed a bit of an addiction to roasted cauliflower, and the slightly blown ones make the best roasted cauli.
This makes just a dozen little canape sized rolls, not baked but shallow fried so they come together fast. Recipe:
It’s hard to do justice to a ragu in a photo, especially when it’s a winter dinner and there’s no natural light. But a ragu in the slow cooker is bliss to come home to on a winter night, and there are a lot more vegetables in this meal than appear.
This is just my Pumpkin and Feta tartlets baked as a pie instead, and with the feta crumbled over the top rather than blended in with the egg mix. And with an olive oil crust, though you could just as easily make it with a wholemeal shortcrust pastry instead. Worth a post though because it was so good.