In My Kitchen - November 2023

 

I am in denial about it being November.  It is hard to believe we are so close to Christmas and the end of another year.  But I am so excited that stone fruit is back in the shops and we are enjoying some lighter evenings.  

October was a busy month with more sunshine, my first swim at the pool this Spring, my dad's birthday party, fun meals out, watching the Taylor Swift: The Eras film in the cinema, seeing the Herald Sun Aria at the Melbourne Recital Centre, going to a Festival Indonesia event in Argyle Square.  Work has been full with busy days, frustrating systems and interesting events including talks by Covid vaccine heroes Dame Sarah Gilbert and Prof Barney Graham.

Within almost a week in October, Israel was attacked by Hamas, the National Party defeated the incumbent Labour Party government in New Zealand's national election, the failure of the Australian people to vote yess in the referendum a Voice to Parliament by the Indigenous people, and the Polish general elections saw a centrist liberal coalition defeat the reigning right wing party.  We have been living in interesting times.  It also a sad and disturbing period of so much death and destruction in the Israel-Hamas war and of hurt caused by the majority of Australian people turning their back on the generous invitation of Indigenous people to walk together.  One thing we can predict is that the world keeps changing, for better or worse.

Sylvia and I have been cooking quite a lot, especially Sylvia.  Above is a Pesto Orzo Salad and Cheese muffins that she made for dinner one night.  Below is more of our delicious meals and some other products and changes in my kitchen.

This is a picture of our new Ikea Pax cupboard that we had installed in September.  It is the completion of a long process of our old gas wall heater being decommissioned, the heater being removed, and finally this cupboard covering up the ugly patch of concrete exposed by the heater removal and giving us a bit more storage space.  I have been able to move some clutter from the kitchen as well as from other rooms.  

As we all know. it is hard to go to Ikea without some Swedish meatballs and a temptation to buy more than planned.  Our old rug in the lounge room has got very stained and manky so it has been lovely to have a new green Novling rug from Ikea.  It is so soft and is made out of recycled polyester from PET bottles.

Sylvia is obsessed with truffle flavour right now.  She loves these truffle flavoured Mediterranean snack bites and the little jar of Tartufi Jimmy truffle spice seasoning.  It gets added to a lot of meals and adds a touch of that luxurious richness of truffles.

I went to the Festival Indonesia event in Argyle Place with my friend Jo.  It was a lovely afternoon of performances, craft and food trucks.  I was excited to find meals with tempeh, which are not so common in Austtralia.  Jo had a grass jelly drink, we looked at some of the amazing hand woven fabrics and I brought home some interesting food.  The Temepeh Chips were excellent and I wish they were easy to find in Australia.  The pink Rengginang are crunchy spiced glutinous rice crackers and very tasty.

There was a time I used liquid smoke a lot of recipes but not in recent years.  Though we still need it regularly for tofu bacon.  Even so, I was surprised to find that my current (and very shabby) bottle was almost 10 years old.  I have a photo of it in a 2014 IMK post.  I was also surprised to find that the new bottle of liquid smoke I bought recently is by the same company, Misty Gully.

We occasionally visit the Mediterranean Wholesalers on Sydney Rd to marvel at the amazing array of pastas.  Recently we bought this adorable Zucchette Cinque Colori pasta.  Zucchete means little pumpkin in Italian.  I am still not sure how we will use it but it looks like it could make a fun meal

Another purchase that brings joy is this reuseable shopping bag from Woolworths Supermarket.  I admired these Nungala Creative art bags among other people's shopping before I finally saw any for sale.  There are three versions designed in collaboration with Warumungu/Wombaya woman Jessica Johnson.  I love all designs but especially this green one.  Some of the profits go to the Yothu Yindi Foundation in Arnhem Land and the bags are made of at least 70% recycled material.

I love soup but it has never been something that Sylvia has ever been keen on.  So I was delighted when she decided to make a roasted cauliflower soup with grilled cheese sandwiches.   It was a lovely creamy cauliflower soup with potato and leek and topped with extra roasted cauliflower and fresh parsley.  Matched with the grilled cheese sandwich it was a delicious meal.

We had a Baked Gnocchi with Vodka.  The sauce was made by Sylvia in the cast iron frypan, the gnocchi stirred in and then cheese on top before baking until it had a crispy cheesy topping.  Really good.  I liked that it had a lot more tomato flavour than the vodka pasta sauce I made many years ago.  

The hardest bit of the recipe was buying the vodka as I was refused service in one bottle shop because I discussed which bottled to choose with the 14 year old. She is at an age where I am wary about her wanting alcohol but am reassured that we have very little around the house.

Sylvia also was excited to make a One pot mushroom stroganoff for dinner.  It was delicious and creamy pasta with fresh spring onions and parsley on top.  It seemed more like a pasta dish than a stew and I think of a stroganoff as the latter.  I think it might have been a bit more saucy down the bottom.  Sylvia also used cream cheese instead of cashew butter so that might not have been as thick.

I really like the idea of the Roasted Vegetable Rice Bake that Jaqueline made at Tinned Tomatoes blog.  I have tried it before but had to try it again.  Both times it was nice but not quite right.  This time I made a little more rice so I could spread more vegetables (zucchini, capsicum and tomatoes) over a larger area but it was too much rice in proportion to the vegetables and so the rice was a little dry.

This Spaghetti al limone from Smitten Kitchen was a huge hit for both of us.  It was pretty easy for Sylvia to make while I was on the way home and amazing to come home to after work.  The simple but intense flavours of lemon and parmesan cheese with a scattering of basil leaves worked brilliantly.  So satisfying.

I bought some seasonal asparagus as I always do in Spring.  When I do it always seemed to be so long since I had it that I need to think how to serve it.  I remembered a favourite recipe for asparagus is Spring risotto soup and made a saucepanful.  Sylvia was very unimpressed at the idea of it so I ended up eating it all over a few days.  It is great green comfort food!

The weather has been hot and cold of late.  One night I am in a skirt enjoying the summer breezer through the wire door and then next I am huddled under a warm blanket.  This Cauliflower and Mushroom Tater Tot Breakfast Casserole was one of the winter warmer recipes we had on a cool night. 

One night we wanted a quick pasta sauce and so I suggested Hurry Up Pumpkin Alfredo Sauce.  Sylvia had a taste despite her dislike of pumpkin.  It was not her thing but she still had some with gnocchi.  The rest I used to boost the flavour in a pumpkin soup.  I really love that vegan sauce that whizzes up quickly in my high speed blender.

It makes me so happy that Sylvia liked the cauliflower soup enough to try another soup.  This one was a roasted tomato soup which she again served with grilled cheese sandwiches.  Those sandwiches are one of her specialities and always excellent.  The soup was very nice with some milk, which is the way I love tomato soup from a can. 

You will probably notice that Sylvia is really into pasta.  She tried this Dairy free zucchini alfredo the night after she had made pesto for pasta.  So on the first night it had pesto as the dominant flavour.  She made it a second time without the pesto and with two zucchinis (instead of one) grated and cooked in the sauce as well as one zucchini blended in the sauce with cashews and nutritional yeast.  Sylvia is also really into cheese so she also adds a bit of cheese.  It is a really nice dinner.

We have had a few nice desserts too, though they are not as regular as the desserts of my childhood.  Above is a Rhubarb and apple puff pastry lattice pie.  It is quite brown on top because Sylvia dusted it with brown sugar and cinnamon.  I made the stewed fruit with Sylvia's help and then she made the pie.

I stewed the fruit and made this Rhubarb and apple crumble with a topping taken from this rhubarb and strawberry crumble.  The rhubarb was from my mum's garden and this sort of dessert reminds me of desserts I had as a child so it is my comfort food.

We had half a tin of condensed milk that had been in the fridge for ages.  It seems to last forever but I was ready to get it out of the fridge so I made some Condensed milk fudge sauce to have with cinnamon ice cream.  Sylvia has been making Strawberry chia seed jam so I added this to the mix and it was absolutely delicious.  I have also had those strawberry jam with muesli and yoghurt and loving it.

This photo is of a few random things we bought lately.  Sylvia has been reading too many American bakers using whisks and decided she needed one for baking.  Whisks were never used to mix flours and mixtures when I learnt to bake so I find that odd but bought her a whisk.  We also bought a new charger for my macbook.  There must be so much e-waste from dead charging cords!  And I bought some red and black food dye for my Vegemite cake.

Finally, Sylvia loves some Halloween doughnuts from Krispy Kreme.  E bought her some last monthe which were devoured happily.

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.