In My Kitchen - August 2016

By August, I get a little tired of winter.  But it is not the weather getting me down this week.  It is the flat tyre and the medical appointments and all the weeds in the garden.  Hang on, yes the buckets of rain earlier in the week are to blame for the weeds!

I have had a few bursts of tidying up recently.  I decided to tidy up all the papers and spills under our fridge magnets.  (Check out how messy - and out of focus - the fridge was a few years ago.)  Above you can see a close up of some of my feminist magnets that make me smile.  My favourite is probably still the one that says "if it's a man's world, let him clean it".  I also like the one that reads "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" because it reminds me of being a child and trying to work out what this meant on my sister's badge.

Here is a view of the whole fridge magnet collection.  Well most of it, not including the freebie magnets we have picked up at businesses.  Those are around the other side of the fridge.

A favourite purchase recently is this Jamie Oliver baking dish.  I have had my eye on it for a while and once it came down in price I bought one.  I have used it a few times and it looks gorgeous and cleans up nicely.

I snapped a picture of my compost at the community run organisation where I drop off my fruit and veg scraps if I can get organised.  (Not always but I do it regularly.)  It struck me as pretty with all the different coloured scraps.

I was curious about Veganaise when I saw a jar at Smith & Deli because I have often seen it mentioned but never tasted it.  It is pretty good, and probably the best commercial vegan mayo I had tried.  Though I think I prefer my home made vegan mayonnaise.  I would make it more but I just don't use mayonnaise much.  It took me a while to break open this jar.

The sandwich beside the Veganaise is one that I loved recently: home made sourdough bread, veganaise, cranberry sauce, freshly grilled leftover besan fritatta (I added nutritional yeast, lemon juice and tahini), grated carrot, sliced cooked beetroot, rocket and avocado.  So so so good.

I also tried a kale aioli with the Veganaise.  It was a recipe in a magazine which blended kale, mayonnaise and garlic.  I served it with a Fry's falafel burger with some fried potatoes and rocket on the side.

We have had a few breaks lately.  Sylvia snapped her glasses in half.  That is what happens when you keep bending them!  Fortunately we have a second pair from when I thought she had lost her glasses and they were in her bag all along.

I have also had a run of bad luck with blenders.  My Froothie blender's blade fell out.  Luckily it was under warranty.  I have received a blade replacement kit but not found time to work out how to put it in my blender.  I know we live in a digital world but it would be nice to have instructions or a url for instructions in the box.

Sometime before this, the bowl attachment of my hand held blender ceased to work.  I have put my food processor away in a cupboard in hope I could get by without it.  However the bowl attachment to my hand held blender was too small.

So I finally bought a hand held blender (Braun Multiquick 7 Hand Blender 777) that has a larger bowl attachment.  I found it on special at a local department store last month.  I finally got around to using the bowl attachment and have used the stick blender a few times.  I just need to test some pastry in it and then I am hoping I can say goodbye to my food processor.

I am trying to incorporate more bowl meals into my diet.  This one was made some weeks ago but I think I had leftover fried purple cabble.  I roasted potatoes, pumpkin, and zucchini and boiled some sprouts.  It was served with overnight sourdough bread and a Japanese sesame dressing.  The dressing had looked really tasty but was quite mild so I added lemon juice, garlic and salt to give it the sort of bite I like in other tahini dressings I have made.

We had a family lunch for my brother's birthday a while back.  My mum made a roast dinner and we had a fine spread of desserts.  Mum made pavlova and Guinness chocolate cake, my sister in law made cute blue iced cupcakes and I made grubs.  I decided to make them because 1) I was time poor, 2) I had a packet of gluten free tea biscuits that needed using up, 3) we had a packet of Marie biscuits that Sylvia had "accidentally" opened, and 4) who doesn't love condensed milk, cocoa, biscuit crumbs and coconut!!!

Dropping off goods at an op shop (charity shop) always runs the risk of bringing more home.  I could not resist these gorgeous glasses which  were quite pricey for an op shop at $3 each but I love the colours and the etching.  Sylvia has decided that green is her favourite colour suddenly.  (Lots of fun finding clothes in a wardrobe of pink and blue.)  So she has taken possession of the green glass when she can.

Continuing with Sylvia's embrace of green, she had a yen to make a green pasta necklace.  I had thought I needed to cook the pasta in green dyed water and then dry it.  Fortunately I checked online first and found I just needed to put pasta and a little food dye in a ziplock bag and rub it all over.  So much easier!

More bowl food.  This was made on a day when I had little time or inspiration and put together what I could from the fridge.  It turned out rather well.  Fried onion, mushroom and tomato, leftover rice, carrot sticks, rocket, beetroot and a big dollop of hummus.

Finally, despite life being busy, I am delighted that The Age newspaper has reintroduced the Samurai Sudoku to The Good Weekend magazine on Saturdays.  I rarely get through a whole one but I have been enjoying doing them when I can.  On the above occasion it was a salad sandwich for lunch with some overnight sourdough bread.  It is a perfect way to relax and makes me say long live hard copy newspapers!

Maureen is taking a break from hosting the In My Kitchen event but you will find bloggers still posting peeks into their kitchen.  She is hoping she will be back next month.