A Life (Time) of Cooking

Fast Food

April, 2008 - October in Nth Hemisphere

Recipes

November, 2007 - May in Nth Hemisphere

  • If you make your own paneer, it is quite easy to take some out of the fridge, pan fry it, drizzle some honey over it and some flaked almonds, and call it dessert.
  • Take some button mushrooms. Remove their stalk and slice the stalk in 2 lengthwise. Heat some oil and butter, or some ghee, just a little, in a pan and throw in the mushrooms.
    Throw some bread in the toaster, or cut a thick slice of Turkish bread, or split a lovely fresh rye roll.
    Flip the mushrooms over, and add a tomato, cut into small cubes, some lovely celtic sea salt and some black pepper. If you have a little fresh lemon zest, grated, add that too. Allow to simmer for a couple of minutes.
    Through in some finely chopped parsley, stir, and pour out onto your bread or toast. YUM.
  • Take those oven dried capsicums that you made a month or two ago. Slice tomato and cucumber thinly, and arrange on a plate. Drizzle good virgin olive oil over them, with some celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Then crumble the dried peppers and sprinkle the crumbles over the salad. Serve with bread and feta cheese.

Recipes

Eating quickly and simply

October, 2007 - April in Nth Hemisphere

  • Keep some Oven Dried Tomatoes around and through them onto some pasta, into a salad, or mix through couscous for a quick feed.
  • Quick salad for lunch: take some firm tofu, sprinkle or rub it with a spicy mix such as Garam Masala, cut into 2cm cubes and dry fry or saute in a little ghee or oil, and toss onto some of your favourite salad greens.
  • Take a punnet of cherry tomatoes, bright and red. Slice in half and place in a medium bowl. Sprinkle with celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drizzle over about 1 Tblspn of good extra virgin olive oil. Mix with your hands, and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
    • Pile on to some thickly sliced wonderful bread and add shavings of cheese. Call it lunch or light dinner.
    • OR you can sit it on top of some salad greens, or some wilted garden greens such as spinach.
    • OR serve it in a pile, surrounded by sautéed tofu squares and sprinkled with some zaatar or dukkha.
    • Add to the tomatoes garlic, herbs or spring onions. Chilli for a kick.
    • Stir in to congee, serve over hot rice, or on a steaming bowl of pasta.
    • With the hand blender, blend it into a salsa, or a sauce, or a cold soup.
  • Make soup. Choose pumpkin. I love butternut.Take some stock out of the fridge, peel the butternut and cook in the stock with any additional flavourings you have around - some garlic, bayleaves, ginger, cumin, cardamom or nutmeg, rosemary leaves, onion, a turnip goes well with pumpkin, half a lemon - anything that makes sense.I love adding a chilli, a tspn of cumin seeds and a handful of red lentils or tiny yellow dal.When the pumpkin is well cooked, blend with a hand blender, add pepper (it will take quite a bit) and some sea salt. Serve in a white bowl, drizzle with a good quality olive oil and sprinkle with coriander leaves. 20 minutes of not much work.

Recipes

  • Rice Rolls - Pick some up from your local Asian shop. They steam in a few minutes - just long enough to chop some herbs, grate some carrot and mix a sauce. Yum. See the post for details.
  • Squared Tofu - flavour plus in sautéed tofu squares

September, 2007 - March in Nth Hemisphere

  • Pizza! Keep some dough in the freezer, ready to roll out, top with thin sliced eggplant, home made tomato paste, pesto, goats curd, gorgonzola and parmesan. Yum!
  • Toasted sandwiches of baked beans and cheese slices. So disgustingly yummy on a cold cold night.
  • Take a tofu square (buy fresh tofu from the market), steam it for a few moments, cut a little pocket into it, fill with finely grated cucumber, daikon and carrot, some bean sprouts and then top with sweet chilli sauce. YUM!

Recipes