In My Kitchen - September 2023

The Spring has sprung etc etc.  August was an odd end of winter.  Warmer than usual with us eating better with fruit vegetable than we usually do at the end of winter.  Now we wait for summer fruit.  Over the last month, we have been to cafes, got caught up in World Cup / Matildas fever. seen Elemental at the cinema, and this weekend we drove to Geelong for Father's Day.  In the local news, QANTAS airlines have been acting badly, supermarkets are raking in huge profits while customers suffer rising cost of living levels, and the announcement of the Voice Referendum date as 14 October means lots of campaigning for an Indigenous Voice to parliament.

Meanwhile recently there have been some significant endings.  Most annoying is that The Age newspaper has stopped their weather report which I relied on, especially when out on my bike.  I am looking at other options but I really liked their reports.  I was sad to see that Zomato has closed in Melbourne.  I linked a lot of review to this cafe review site but also used it a lot when looking at where to eat out.  And last Thursday, Virginia Trioli has announced she is leaving the ABC Melbourne morning radio show

Sylvia and I have been planning our meals each week which helps us eat a bit better.  Above is my dinner from a rice bowl night.  That means I cook up rice and we load it with lots of vegies.  On this night I opened a tin of Greek Gigantes Beans in tomato sauce, served it with tofu bacon, edamame, baby spinach, avocado and cucumber.  It was excellent.

From Clay Organics in Rathdowne Street, we bought this little pot of microgreens and a couple of bottles of Fuji Apple Monceau Pet Nat Kombucha, which is made in nearby Brunswick.  Sylvia enjoyed the microgreens on rice bowls and omelettes and we both loved the kombucha which had a mercifully short ingredient list.
 

We still have pizza every Friday.  Sometimes we get takeaway and sometimes we make it at home.  This is a home made fast track pizza with garlic, olive oil, mac and cheese, parsley and parmesan.  Great comfort carb on carb food.

I don't really understand why Sylvia loves Cheetos so much but I agree with her that these paws shaped Cheetos are really cute.

We stopped in at an Asian grocery at Northland and bought Peach Tea oreos (nice but not a favourite), purple ube condensed milk (still in the tin), cucumber flavoured potato crisps (odd but good) and bamboo charcoal peanuts.  Usually the product does not live up to the photo on the packet but these peanuts are black as night which is even more impressive than the purple on the packaging.  I really enjoy them but they are pretty intense and best eaten in small quantities.

One of our cafe stops was San Churro in Lygon Street, Carlton, where I was very impressed by my mac and cheese croquettes and Sylvia loved her brulee latte.  Of course we also enjoyed their churros and chocolate.  She bought herself a charmingly rustic mug to take home.

We had a few nights watching the Matildas and then the Grand Final of the Women's World Cup.  Bring brought up on Aussie Rules football, I still find soccor a bit of a mystery.  There is so little scoring and so much kick to kick but there were some exciting moments, in particular the incredibly tense nail-biting, heart-stopping Matildas penalty shootout against France.  These crisps were bought for watching the matches.  They were specially chosen not for their flavours but because they were the Matildas' colour of green and gold!

One of my favourite meals to eat out is noodles, salad, fried tofu and spring rolls.  So recently we had had an easy version of this where we dunk some vermicelli in boiling water, chop some vegies (cabbage, snow peas, grated carrot, baby spinach and spring onion), add some flavours (soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar) and top with baked supermarket spring rolls and either leftover tofu or chopped cashew nuts.  I was pleased Sylvia liked the noodles and salad with spring rolls.

Sylvia told me that she wanted to try a risotto so I made a mushroom one based on this recipe.  I used to make risottos quite regularly but haven't made one for years.  I was glad that my risotto mojo returned to me and Sylvia enjoyed the comfort of creamy cheesy rice with fried mushrooms.  She has been keen to try new things lately at cafes: a big breakfast, poached eggs, a Lord of the Fries burger with pickles (I am still upset they have removed the mini burger from the menu and only order a large burger now) and fried cauliflower.  Unlike me, she likes eggs many ways and lots of mushrooms.  After years of going out with my fussy daughter, I am now in danger of becoming the fussy one because I don't fare as well as her in brunchy cafes where most savoury dishes have either eggs or meat.

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header.