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.
This is a bit of a Tuesday Night Vego Challenge rules cheat. Now the days have started really lengthening, even the geriatric chooks are laying so handmade pasta with real eggs was in my mind. And then I was looking for a cake tin deep in the back of the shelf and came across a fluted flan tin that I forgot I had. And in a moment of inspiration realised…
Saag is the dish I order whenever I go to an Indian restaurant, and this time of year, with silver beet and mustard both in bulk in the garden, one of my home cooking regulars. I posted a vegetarian Saag recipe a few weeks ago, in the Tuesday Night Vego Challenge series. This meat version is, sadly, no more photogenic.
Saag just isn’t photogenic. Unfortunately, because it is very delicious, and I have bucketloads of silverbeet (chard if you are not in Australia) in the garden at the moment and saag is one of the very best recipes I know to use bucketloads of it (and still want to come back for more tomorrow).
At the moment I am giving away armloads of silverbeet to visitors and using every silverbeet recipe in the repertoire, but any day now I expect the grasshoppers to arrive and the urge to bolt to seed to win out and the bounty will be over. Seasonal eating. Make the best of it while it lasts, then leave it off the menu till next winter.
I’m not a huge fan of tofu because soy beans contain a number of compounds that can cause health problems, it takes a fair amount of processing to get tofu from soy beans, and they are one of the most genetically modified and unsustainably farmed crops on the planet. Nutrisoy and Soyco are a couple of brands that don’t use genetically modified soy beans.
I’ve never got into the habit of cooking ahead. But this one, when I make it I make a decent sized batch and we eat it for a couple of lunches and dinners. It’s just as good cold as hot and good enough to still look forward to the third time.
Five serves of vegetables a day doesn’t seem like that much. I love vegetables and eat lots of them. But it’s amazing how easy it is to miss a day or two.
For perfect poached eggs, you need very fresh eggs. You can add vinegar to the water, get it swirling into a little whirlpool, do whatever you like, but you won’t get perfect poached eggs without very fresh eggs. Fresh eggs cook in one little mound with the white all staying together and a yolk that is high and has a glaze of white over it. The white sets while the…
This is one of my favourite recipes for a “meal tree” for a new mum.