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.
The Tuesday Night Vego Challenge this week had to feature snake beans. Now I have them coming on, the poor old Blue Lakes and Purple Kings have dropped right out of favour, left to mature for seed for storing. Snake beans are more tropical than most bean varieties, adapted to the tropical summer monsoon belt. They like hot wet weather.
This is a recipe for people who like their chocolate dark, who like expresso coffee and olives and beer and marmalade.
Many middle-eastern recipes use goat meat, or lamb that is from breeds much less fatty than Australian lamb, and the spice profile is designed for stronger flavoured game meat. It means they often work well for kangaroo.
We celebrated New Year’s Eve at a barbeque with neighbours. It’s one of the things I love about living in a functioning community – socialising within walking distance. I could go on about greenhouse footprints but really it’s enough that I can drink half a bottle of red wine and wander home in the starlight wishing happy New Year to the owlet nightjar that lives on the way!
I’m planting another round of all my root staples – carrots, parsnips, spring onions, beetroots – starting seeds off in the shadehouse, and planting out the seedlings started last month. If I do just a tray like this every month, we have a good steady supply. But my main little task today is to dig up some turmeric to take some rhizomes for planting.
This pumpkin and chick pea curry is a good one – tasty, easy, healthy, low fat, using the pumpkin and the chilli, and also the other seasonal glut of the moment – lemons. It also has turmeric in it, and the more I hear about the health benefits of fresh turmeric, the more I like using it.
It’s getting a bit cold now of an evening for barbeques, but my partner still loves fishing. Fish soup is a great way to make a dinner party of the catch, and using the whole fish – head, bones and all – I feel like an ethical predator.
This all started with an item in the Sunday papers about how women really should do weights training. I looked at the weights, but that idea lasted all of about two seconds.
I had to do this recipe. I like the rhyme just too much! Vindaloo is a hot curry though, whichever way you look at it. You can reduce the chili and pepper a little bit in this recipe, but if you don’t like spicy food, probably best to go for a different curry entirely than to try to mellow it out too much.