This isn't the real thing, or not quite the real thing. I make it with 3 ingredients - pasta, butter, parmesan - gloriously mixed together. For other recipes you almost need a chef's training to get the consistency right. I just mix the butter and parmesan with the pasta and a little pasta water.
This gorgeous and quick pasta dish of 3 ingredients – so unusual in today’s current fashion of long ingredient lists - is often called Fettuccine Alfredo, although it’s original name was Fettuccine al Burro.
Traditionally this dish did not include cream – the sauce was an emulsion between butter and parmesan. However, of course, the American version is made with cream, butter and cheese. Choose which ever version you prefer. But look for simple recipes, not ones that have, say, cornflour in it 😶
It is said that in the 1020’s Alfredo, a restaurateur, was trying to find a dish that his pregnant wife, who had lost her appetite, would eat. He added cheese to a simple pasta-and-butter dish and she loved it. When he introduced it to his restaurant it became popular around the world.
A few things from the weekend cookup. First, Rajma, a kidney bean curry. This was so awesome that I'll make it again soon. Not usually a great fan of kidney beans, this dish might have changed my mind.
I cooked the kidney beans in the #InstantPot, so easy and convenient, and perfectly cooked.
The house smells peppery! Making a huge amount of Milagu Cauliflower (Pepper cauliflower) for the weekend and the freezer. I'll freeze containers with rice, curry and dal, for grab, heat, eat meals during the next week.
To tempt or inspire... Salty Macadamia and Golden Syrup Biscuits
We don’t eat many sweet things around here, especially sweet baked goods – perhaps a little more in Winter than Summer. It is not that we don’t like them (we LOVE them even tho our preference is for savoury food), but biscuits and cakes are basically sugar and butter held together with flour, right? Also, we don’t cook with eggs, so that limits our range as well.
But in the depths of winter we want a few more sweet things – rice pudding, apple crumble, golden syrup dumplings, and some biscuits for our cuppa.
I made a slight variation, adding coconut and a little bicarb soda (which adds a little more colour and chewiness to the biscuits). I’ve also sprinkled a little salt over the top before cooking for a delicious sweet-salty taste.
The biscuits are not unlike ANZAC biccies, starting from a base of oats, flour, golden syrup and butter. This combination is so Australian. But the technique and other ingredients differs a little. In ANZAC biscuits, when made well, the flour is partially cooked by the hot butter mix and boiling water. This changes the texture considerably. But in this recipe, the mixture is cooled before adding to the oats and flour. It makes a remarkable difference.
It's a funny thing about papaya and pawpaw - they are often confused as both fruits are called pawpaw in many regions. In truth they are not related botanically.
The confusion arises because in Australia and some other countries, they are different varieties of the same tropical fruit species.
Papaya is the one with orange to red flesh and is narrower than pawpaw. Pawpaw flesh is yellow and the fruit is generally larger than papaya.
Anyway, either make great salsas and salads, They also have green varieties that are great in summer for tangy dishes. In this not-so-good pic from the archives, we used ripe pawpaw for a delicious salsa.
Pawpaw (or is it Papaya?) Salsa
Take some chopped pawpaw and mix with Thai basil leaves, chopped fresh red chilli, shredded fresh young ginger and sliced shallots or red onion. Toss with green coriander leaves. Dress with a mixture of lime juice, jaggery or palm sugar, and toasted sesame oil.
Someone said the other day that preserved lemons were out of fashion. They might be, but not in my kitchen. It is harder to find really good ones, tho, so it is a boon to make your own.
Some dishes need a tangy dressing – salads appreciate it, and Brussels Sprouts really pick themselves up when they come within cooee of a tangy dressing.
We roast Brussels Sprouts and serve with a dressing with preserved lemons and spring onions. If it is the season, we toss in cumquat juice and peel. This salad is AMAZING.
I think every country person of my era grew up eating junket as cows were aplenty and therefore milk was abundant. How easy to make a dessert with a couple of cups of milk, a junket tablet and some sugar? Easy, mostly healthy, cheap.
When I made this, it was decades since I ate junket and, to be honest, I didn’t know if the supermarket would still stock the tablets. But they did, to everyone’s surprise! Junket is a little like custard, a little like flan filling, a little like sweet tofu, but it is none of these. It is a milk-based dessert, made with vegetable rennet, usually sweetened and flavoured. Here I topped it with some macerated strawberries and passionfruit.
Did you know that junket actually used be served to the sick in hospitals? It is nutritious and easy to digest, so it was perfect hospital food. Why have so many hospitals changed to unhealthy desserts these days?
The name of junket comes from the fact that it used to be made in a rush basket, the Medieval Latin word for which is iuncāta, the French jonquette and the Middle English jonket.
I got the dish made today that I wanted to make, and oh my goodness it was kinda exceptional.
I made Indian Coriander leaves and Mint chutney, and then Date chutney. Meanwhile par-boiled potatoes were roasting till crispy.
The potatoes were drizzled with yoghurt, the two chutneys and garam masala. Then they were topped with coriander leaves, diced carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, red capsicum, onion, radishes, pomegranate kernels and beans sprouts (that I made yesterday).
Finally, a sprinkling of chaat masala and lots of thin sev.
The tastes of Indian street food, and so many textures and flavours. Plus the roasted potatoes were uber uber good.
A busy little bee this morning in the kitchen. Packs of nuts and seeds made up for the next month. Also packs with my smoothie ingredients in it (just add almond milk or coconut water, fruit and some good oils) - again for a month. The top shelf of the fridge is full with these little containers, looking so cute.
Tomato-Coconut Chutney made. And there will be some more khichdi later. I am feeling the need for simple, healthy food atm. #IndianFood
Also, a tray of eggplants roasted, ready to be peeled and pulp put into the freezer. #LifeIsGood
🍇 The grape vine leaves are just perfect for using now - for cooking dolmades, mushrooms, yoghurt pie, and wrapping things like tofu, paneer, cheese before grilling. The leaves are young and tender and just the right size.
🍇 And also for drying and powdering. I found out a few years ago when I was making a lot of dolmades that the leaves dry really easily, even without help, just on the kitchen bench. So, as they are edible and flavoursome, I decided to powder some. It was such a success that I dry leaves each year for powder.
🍇 So the dehydrator has 5 full racks, at 35C (with some added tarragon that I couldn't help picking) - it won't take long, perhaps an hour for drying off the moisture from washing, and another max for drying.
🍇 I remove the stem, and for leaves with a tougher middle vein, some of that is removed too. Just fold the leaf in half and use your fingernails. Scissors can also be used.
Oh the joy of a sip of hot hot soup on a cold cold day - or indeed of cold cold soup on a hot hot day.
What is your favourite?
I love it so much, probably because we always had soup when I was a kid. Growing up in a country town we had a huge vegetable garden and orchard, a cow for milk and chickens for eggs. We always 3 courses - soup, main, dessert. We never seemed to have much money, or maybe it was my mother's frugal ways.
Soup is the friend of people who need to stretch their dollar further - stocks can be so flavoursome and made from next to nothing.
Surplus veg can be converted to soups, left-over cooked veg can be pureed into soups, a variety of non-veg items can be added to any soup.
Soups can be thinned or thickened. A large pot of soup can be used as a base for days of soups, changed up slightly on each day.
These days, rice, noodles, pasta, lentils, dried beans also make a regular appearance, although these were not yet popular in Australia when I was a kid.
Wadiyan (also spelled Varian and Badiyan, and called wadi for short) are large balls of dried lentils, particular to the cuisine of the Punjab. They are sun dried spicy urad dal balls that serve to spice a dish and also to thicken the gravy. They are very spicy and each bite sends a burst of flavour to your tastebuds. They are also quite meaty in texture, and thus a good option for your non-vegetarian friends.
This dish cooks the wadi and potatoes (and sweet potatoes - my addition) in a tomato-onion-spiced gravy for a relative quick, definitely easy meal. Wadi go very well with potatoes, but can be cooked with other vegetables too.
Here I have used a mixture of potatoes and sweet potatoes, or you can use butternut and potatoes. These mixtures are not really traditional, but work very well in the modern kitchen.
Because the Punjabi wadi are extra spicy 🌶️ , not a lot of other spice is needed in the dish. I sometimes forget this and end up with an EXTRA spicy meal! 🥵 🔥
The problem with food fashions is that really useful ingredients get put aside, left behind, left on the shelf. Remember cream cheese? If you are of a certain age you will recall the cream cheese dips. I had a particularly flavoursome one that involved chilli sauce, a jar of sweet and sour vegetables and loads of coriander leaves. It was quick, easy and magnificent.
But over time, cream cheese has lost its appeal in the food world. It is pretty much ignored in place of feta, ricotta, cream, tahini, avocado and other creamy and fashionable ingredients. In our kitchen, however, cream cheese still has its place on the refrigerator shelf amongst these other beautiful ingredients.
It isn’t a dip today, but the recipe is for a spread that we are making with cream cheese. It is so easy it is hardly a recipe. It is cream cheese mixed with orange juice and pecan nuts. Yum. Add some grated zest as well.
Use the spread on crackers, or on slices of fruit. If you would like to use it as a dip, simply whip it until it becomes lighter.
I adore dishes that can be made in 10 mins or under. This is an easy pasta dish – delicious – that is the perfect week night dish. It is great for lunches too, if you are at home. Put the pasta on to cook, dice the avocado, make a herb-garlic oil, mix all together and serve.
I am not much of a breakfast eater, and in general prefer the savoury options common in Northern and Eastern Europe, and those of India and S.E. Asia, to the sweet and sickly options of the West English speaking countries. Don’t get me wrong, I love a true French croissant with jam, and sometimes pancakes with honey (or sugar and lemon juice). I even have a large container full of my overnight oats mix on standby for mornings when I am super hungry as there is no other cereal in the house. But mostly we either skip the morning meal or prefer something more savoury. Even the overnight oats is unsweetened beyond the dried fruit and dried citrus that it contains.
Breakfast Rice and Raisin Porridge
This breakfast, however, is a little sweet – it has raisins in it – but is rice based, so that is a plus. It is for the days that I do crave some sweetness. Rice is ground to a coarse mix then cooked with the dried fruit. Cinnamon is added to bring a warm sweetness to the dish. You can sweeten it more with your sweetener of choice – I’ve always loved Golden Syrup. It is also great with spiced glazed apples or poached oranges and vanilla ricotta.
Rice porridge is mostly made for breakfast but in this house, it can be eaten at any time of the day. It is a great Winter dessert when your cupboards are bare. Rice and raisins – there isn’t anything more simple. Top with cream and fruit.
This dish can also be made savoury – omit the raisins and cook with Indian spices. Gorgeous. Use spices that you might use for Upma. Top with cashew nuts sauteed in ghee.
I made some pumpkin-carrot soup in the InstaPot yesterday, and it was perfect from my brain-addled state of illness. I had a couple of bowls.
But I guess you can't expect 8 mins of high pressure cooking to replicate the deep flavours of longer slower cooking on the stove, where the aromatics and spices have time to develop flavours, and you can add as you go.
I have a cupboard full of flavourings that I've made from the garden and other stuff that I pick and choose from when I am cooking. Hard to replicate that in a pressure cooker, I guess. Or maybe I just haven't learn the techniques yet.
If I have the energy today I'll make an eggplant dal dish with the slow cooker function.
Another wonderful dish from #PlantBasedIndia. No pic, unfortunately - I am cooking later and it is too dark and too hurried for pics.
So Marcha nu Shak, Capsicums in a peanut-sesame-chickpea crumble. Oh my! First a mix of well-crushed peanuts, whole sesame seeds and chickpea flour is toasted till darken. Then bite-sized capsicum pieces are sauteed until soft and browning. Finally spices and the peanut mixture is added with a little water so that it clumps and becomes like a crumble.
These are some of the most delicious fritters that we have made. The soft bite of the cauliflower with the spices is a warming mouthful that you won’t forget quickly. Here we have served them with yoghurt with short mung sprouts and herbs.
They are the sort of fritter you can have for a meal, as a snack (make them smaller), or packed in a lunch or picnic box. Or shove them into some pitta bread with hummus and tomato for a great afternoon filler with a cuppa tea.
They keep a couple of days in the fridge (think – after school snack), and are best eaten either at room temperature or heated slightly in a warm oven. The batter will also keep a couple of days in the fridge if you want to cook on demand.
These are not your usual fritters. These are packed with cauliflower and spiced with cinnamon, cumin and turmeric. As a dipping sauce, they are served with a spiked Greek yoghurt.
Of course, I have switched out the eggs in the recipe for my usual egg replacer in fritters – 1 Tblspn chickpea flour, 1 Tbslpn or a bit less of cream and about 0.25 plain or lemon eno per egg.
Towards the end of the season, broad beans will often grow pods without seeds – the flowers have failed to germinate. I still use these pods – they are great chopped into vegetable fritters or patties, simmered and served with a yoghurt or tomato sauce, or, like today’s recipe, battered and deep fried (SO DELICIOUS). I make a standard batter with plain flour with a little eno or baking soda added to lighten the batter and make it quite crispy.
You don’t have to wait till the end of the broad bean season to make these – they can be made any time you are shelling broad beans. Don’t waste the pods if they are in good condition. If you’ve grown your own beans the pods are likely to be tender during the whole season. If you are buying pods, use your own judgement as to when during the season the pods become too tough. Cut larger pods into smaller pieces.
You will thank me for this idea, it is delicious, and uses parts of the vegetable usually discarded. Always go for no-waste where possible.