We were all flooded in over the weekend, so we invited neighbours for a curry night. Curry nights are a great kind of potluck dinner, needing no co-ordination, and allowing people to go simple or as gourmet as they like.
We actually managed to harvest olives this year! Some years – most years in fact – we’re a bit too slow. I play chicken with the birds and lose. I like black olives better than green, so I wait and watch the trees, laden, ripening. Then one day, just at the point where I’m thinking best not to risk waiting any longer, I check and they’re all gone. All….gone.
I had many thoughts in mind for the platter this week – lots of different produce in glut and lots of occasions for sharing. But in the end I had one of those weekends where time just runs out and I found myself ditching all the cordon bleu options and going for very quick and easy. This is not the super healthiest of recipes but it’s a way of turning…
My platter this week was centred around a bowl of smoky eggplant and pomegranate dip, sort of like babaganoush but with pomegranate instead of lemon juice.
I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about gazpacho, until I realised it was the look of it, not the taste, that was uninspiring. The problem with gazpacho is always the colour. If you use red tomatoes and capsicums, but then mix them with green cucumbers and capsicums, you end up with a kind of khaki that doesn’t look very appetising. But its the season of red and gold, and in…
I spent a couple of hours making corn vadai and azuki vadai and eggplant and beetroot pakora and zucchini muthia, and I really needn’t have bothered cos there were two clear favourites on the platter, and they were the quickest and easiest ones – the muthia and the pakoras.
The thing I love about snake beans is that you pick all these today, and tomorrow there’s the same amount again. And the other thing I love about snake beans is cutting them into finger lengths, lightly blanching, and dressing with a garlic-olive oil-balsamic-soy-honey dressing while they are hot.
Over 40ºC (104ºF) again yesterday, and it looks like it will get up there again today. But meanwhile, if life gives you lemons a good permaculturist makes lemonade. So if life gives you a heat wave, a good permaculturist forgets making tomato passata and puts all that lovely solar energy to work making sun dried tomatoes instead.
Over 40ºC (104ºF) again yesterday, and it looks like it will get up there again today. But meanwhile, if life gives you lemons a good permaculturist makes lemonade. So if life gives you a heat wave, a good permaculturist forgets making tomato passata and puts all that lovely solar energy to work making sun dried tomatoes instead.
The Recipe: Chargrilled Summer Vegetables with Grilled Garlic and Yoghurt Sauce