In My Kitchen - January 2024

Happy new year.  December was the usual seasonal craziness and feasting with plenty of leftovers.  We visited markets, saw festive lights and sights, and made a gingerbread house.  Lots of family, fun and food.  I started the new year with a swim at Torquay Beach.  And I have found time for reading, cleaning and eating out.  You can read more in my December posts and in my Reflections on 2023 post.  Meanwhile, here is some of the food from my kitchen over the last few weeks.  (Above is a photo of haggis nachos with New Year's Eve leftovers.)

After lots of blogging in December, I feel I have less time to get posts up.  We are busy with travel plans.  This time next month Sylvia and I will be in Europe.  In the past I have written up posts on my international travels so I hope that I will have the energy to share some of my experiences.

Sylvia bought these dried flowers at the German Christmas Market that you can see in this Christmas post.  They are now in her room but we had them on the kitchen table for a while.

We bought these fancy chocolates from Loco for Cocoa at the Coburg Night Market 2023.  The woman running the stall was very kind and generous.  She put the two little gingerbread biscuits into our bag of purchases.  We enjoyed all our chocolate. Sylvia especially loved the spiced gingerbread and caramel chocolate named not naughty always nice.

It was great to make my fruit mince early this year so I could make a batch of chocolate mince tarts.  I baked them at 10pm after we had been out seeing Christmas lights and I wished I had mince tarts.  These are the only mince tarts that Sylvia eats, even though they horrify traditionalists like my mum!  It was so good to watch a Christmas movie and eat warm mince tarts.  I meant to make another batch but never managed it.  With some mince tarts from my mum and a pack on special from the supermarket I had plenty of mince tarts.

Sylvia had Christmas dinner with her dad while I went to see family in Geelong on Christmas Day.  She looked for alternatives to nut roast or tofurkey. At one point she wanted to make crispy tofu cutlets for a roast dinner.  The above photo is of the practice meal.  I loved the tofu cutlets but Sylvia found them too chewy.  Finally she decided to make a favourite meal of pasta with creamy mushroom sauce.  I helped her make the pasta sauce on Christmas eve and was impressed at how she did this without a recipe, using ideas from searching recipes online.  It went down very well.

Another contender for Sylvia's Christmas Day was a batch of these mushroom pinwheels, made by rolling up a cheese and fried mushroom mixture in puff pastry.  They were delicious but much smaller than I expected.  We were going to trial them for starters but ended up deciding against them.  Sylvia was still keen to try them but tired so I made and served them two nights before Christmas Day for dinner.  They were quite rich so I enjoyed them with mock tuna (chickpea) salad and tomatoes and spinach. 

These hasselback potatoes were made with a little cheese for new year's eve.  They were so satisfyingly crunchy.  We had an array of favourite dishes on New Year's Eve: I wanted to make Haggis, Sylvia wanted to make pasta with Vodka pasta sauce, I had made a Brown rice salad with legumes and almonds and wanted to make a Mock tuna (chickpea) salad. And lots of leftovers.

We originally planned to go to see the NYE fireworks in the city but changed plans to see the city fireworks from Moreland Station.  This gave us more time to make a dessert platter with panforte, mince tarts, popcorn, strawberry yoghurt rice cakes (that looked disturbingly like ham) and lots of fruit.  Again we had lots of leftovers.  And we had fun walking to and from the station with a fine breeze and bright moon, and there might have even been a shopping trolley ride.

On New Year's Day I visited my parents in Geelong.  My mum put together a fine lunch platter of Christmas leftovers.  It was very relaxing to sit after lunch and chat.  Then I headed to Torquay beach to enjoy the waves.

We have not had much ordering out for pizza recently but when we got pizza delivered from Crust in Brunswick I could not resist ordering the Shepherd's Lie Pizza.  It was a veg version of shepherd's pie topping with plant based mince meat, potato slices, mozzarella, caramelised onions, grated carrot, garlic and tomato sauce on a sesame base.  I really enjoyed it but remarked to Sylvia that I could not really taste the mince meat.  She laughed because she had ordered the pizza with no mince meat.  I had confused her with my talk about being wary about the plant based mince meat.

Another fun meal we made in December was this massive sheet pan quesadilla.  It consisted of making a large sheet of torillas, spreading a mixture of grated tofu, black beans, corn, capsicum, yoghurt, cheese, salsa and taco seasoning.  Then the tortillas were folded over the mixture.  We baked them and cut them into squares.  It made heaps with plenty for the next night.  I really liked it but it was too much sauce and too much tofu for me.  I would ease back on the salsa and yoghurt and have many more black beans and less tofu next time.

I bought this Skrapr surface scraper at the post office on a whim (while getting Sylvia's passport).  It cost about $27 and is similar to ones advertised on Amazon.  I have used it to scrape food off dishes, clean up the sink after washing dishes and remove a variety of annoying bits and pieces.  As the packet says, it seems to scrape hard-to-shift bits without scratching!

Here is a selection of groceries from before Christmas.  The festive special brandy butter caramel yoghurt was very good.  Cherries are so good to snack on during the festive period when there is so much rich food about.  Cherries are like the indulgences of the fruit world. And I have been buying celery in a whole bunch because it is cheaper than a smaller bunch in plastic and it lasts.  But really I don't eat it as much as a bunch requires.

A grocery item we could not resist was a packet of Bundaberg Ginger Beer kettle crisps.  It sounded weird but actually worked.  The balance of salty and sweet with some ginger flavour was right (ie not too sweet).  

We took the crisps to the drive-in cinema where we saw Wonka.  It was a magical film, perfect to watch just before Christmas.  I also saw Past Lives just before Christmas which was less festive but such a beautiful insightful reflection on relationships and how they relate to our history.  I loved the moment when Hae Sung says "What if this is a past life as well, and we are already something else to each other in our next life? Who do you think we are then?"  I think about it from time to time.

Our garden is hanging in there.  Geraniums are such an easy and colourful flower to have in the garden.  The pot of dead weeds is the fallow field of johnny jump up flowers which I have confidence will flower again.  This small purple and yellow pansy grows like weeds in many pots and even by our steps to the back door where there is no soil to speak of.  I am also hope to see the resurgence of parsley which has been going to seed.  The lavender at the back is gone crazy and makes life hard for the mint by covering half of its pot.  The pots of seasonal tomatoes and basil were brought here recently by my mum who continues to support the nurture of my garden.

Sylvia got a candle making kit ages ago and just before Christmas a friend came over and we had our first go at making candles.  It was a lot of effort for two small candles but I hope we can have another candle making session which will be easier now we have had our first effort.

We had a baked potato night with some smaller potatoes (reminding me not to wait til I have large potatoes to bake).  I made mock tuna (chickpea) salad and Sylvia made guacamole.  We loaded these onto the potatoes with butter, plain yoghurt, and cheese.  So good.  And yes we both love the chickpea salad and could eat it straight from the bowl because it is so good.

Another of Sylvia's favourite meals recently was a Shredded tofu salad bagel by @sezzy.brown (Note: this Sarah Brown is from Melbourne, not the published British vegetarian cookbook writer).  The salad was made by frying grated tofu, mixing with mayonnaise, red onion, celery, lemon and herbs.  It is served on a bagel with avocado.  This is a bit of a vegan take on a shredded chicken salad.  But better! (Admittedly I am not a reliable source given that I have been vegetarian for over 30 years).

Most recently I have made Gina's Swedish meatballs. She served her tempeh meatballs with a savoury gravy and mashed potatoes like the ones they serve at Ikea.  I served mine with a over paprikaed mashed potato courtesy of Sylvia but also with peas and cranberry sauce, which is more like I have it at Ikea.  I didn't have the lingonberry sauce that Ikea serves.  But I had leftover cranberry sauce and this seemed a great way to use it up.  I also just read my 2010 post about the Ikea cafe, saying that I didn't think there would ever be vegetarian Ikea meatballs. There is so much I would love to update on my blog.  Meanwhile, how wonderful for past-me to be proved wrong about vegetarian options these days.

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.