I can do this in half an hour from scratch if I have put the beans on to soak in the morning and use a pressure cooker to cook them. And if there are still embers enough to just put another bit of wood in the slow combustion stove when I get home of an evening. If you start with cooked beans, it should be easy to meet the Tuesday…
I’m not a very authentic cook. I cook by feel, working from the base of what I have in the garden and what is in season rather than from a recipe. With the result that I often have to do the research afterwards to find out what to call it!
Sometimes I make something and I think, I know with practice that could be easy, but it is nice enough to be bothered practicing? This one made it through the test. If you are really pressed for time you can use bought wonton wrappers. I find them in the fridge section in my supermarket.
I’m starting to pick the first of the season’s real spinach. I have silver beet growing most of the year – there’s a couple of months in midsummer when it’s a bit too vulnerable to fungus diseases, grasshoppers and bolting – but with successive planting I can get it most months. And it will substitute nicely for spinach in most recipes. But there are some recipes where only real spinach…
No time for shopping, no creativity for interesting cooking, no patience for lasting more than half an hour. But when I’m this busy, I really don’t want to eat junk food – I can’t afford to get sick or run down.
This is the second of my potato harvest Tuesday Night Vego Challenge recipes. I often have lots of these tiny chats in my spud harvest, and they’re the best bit. Add some egg for protein and avoid loading up with mayonnaise, and it’s a healthy and very delicious dinner.
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.
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.
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.
If you don’t grow endamame, you can find them frozen in Asian grocers apparently. They’re a traditional Japanese favourite. Or you could substitute beans or peas just cooked until they are al dente, or anything really – besides the endamame, it’s the dressing that makes it.