In My Kitchen: July 2025

July saw lots of change as we continued to sort out the house after painting: a couple of new kitchen chains, the crockery back in our newly painted glass kitchen cabinet and a new fluro kitchen light.  If you want to check out how it was to have no kitchen light, in my Japanese cucumber salad post you can see the a photo of the kitchen lit by just the light over the stove - it was quite dark.  At work, an office I spend a day in a week moved to a lovely new building with lots of natural light and green decor.  

We also had school holidays, lots of amazing photos sent from my dad on his holiday in South America and a lot of flattening boxes as we unpacked.  My blog energy is a bit low but we have had some good meals, as you will see when you read on.

The top photo is an excellent meal inspired by the Banging Burger Bowl that I saw on the Annoyed Thyroid's In My Kitchen post last month.  I love how much inspiration I get from reading about others kitchens on blogs..  I had a beetroot and black bean burger from the supermarket and served it with lettuce, red capsicum, cherry tomatoes, purple cabbage, pink pickles and diced parmesan all with a creamy dressing drizzled over it.

Since making the burger salad, I have made quite s few variations of it, sometimes without the burger.  This combination of lots of vegetables tossed in a creamy dressing is just the easy sort of salad I want right now.  The intense salty unmami of the parmesan and the sweet and sour of the pickles gives it the lift it needs.  I have started to make the creamy dressing out of  yoghurt, balsamic vinegar, perhaps a little rice wine vinegar and pinch of salt and pepper.  This photo is of the salad with a crumpet for lunch in my home office.

A while back I bought a packet of red jasmine rice.  When I cooked it in my medium saucepan, I was surprised that it tasted more like brown rice than white jasmine rice.  I underestimated the size of the saucepan needed.  Fortunately the lid kept it together.  As you can see there is a lot of rice.  I put quite a few tubs of it in the freezer for rice-based meals.  It was like a short cut to make some favourite meals.  Below is the Avgolemono and Tahini and kale rice.  Not pictured was a Tofucado.

This Avgolemono was delicious with the red jasmine rice.  I am pleased that Sylvia is coming around to this wonderful vegan version of the Greek lemon soup.  It was amazing with all the fresh dill leftover from my excellent Feta dill rice gratin with Greek style stew.

I also used the red jasmine rice in a batch of Tahini lime rice with kale and cashews.  I used chickpeas instead of the cashews and packed it with vegies.  That creamy tahini lime sauce on the rice is heavenly.  

Another old favourite I made was a big pot of Scottish vegetable and barley soup.  I used more water than normal so it was less gluggy but a great winter warmer.  Barley is a fantastic winter grain.  We also made  a new barley recipe that I wrote about in my Tomato sausage barley soup.

We had another pot of Sausage and gnocchi and kale.  It is becoming a new favourite.  So creamy and flavourful with lots of greens.

For Christmas I was given a packet of Zaatar mix from a local favourite restaurant, Zaatar.   We have used it in a lovely zaatar cacio e pepe pasta (in my February In My Kitchen post) and Sylvi has occasionally had it with fried eggs but I am at a loss as to why it has taken us until July to try making a zaatar pizza.  It is so easy and delicious. 

To make zaatar pizza I just mixed the zaatar (1/2 cup) and olive oil (1/2 cup) and spread it on our regular fast track sourdough pizza base and baked in it a hot oven.  I love the smell and the taste of the crunchy mix of sesame seeds and herbs.  The dough is not quite as soft as the one from Zaatar restaurant but it is excellent to be able to make it at home.

 

The other notable pizza we've had recently was a creamy pesto and zucchini pizza.  I spread a mix of cream cheese and pesto on a fast track sourdough pizza base.  Two medium zucchini had been salted for 5-10 minutes and had as much liquid squeezed out of it as possible.  When squeezed it looks frilly and is easy to arrange on the cream cheese so it sits up and gets crispy when baked with a good handful of grated cheese and a bit of seasoning.  

There haven't been many new meals this month but this Tortilla Rice Bake was a winner.  It was based on a recipe called One Skillet Saucy Chicken Tortilla Enchilada Rice Bake but I had neither chicken or enchilada sauce.  But I did make it in one skillet with a tomato sauce full of Mexican seasoning, beans and vegies, the simmered the rice in it and baked it with cheese and corn chips on top.  When Sylvia came out and saw all the corn chips sticking up, she thought it looked like a hedgehog.  The recipe I was following called for serving it with yoghurt, avocado and coriander.  I had the yoghurt but added diced red capsicum and finely sliced savoy cabbage.  It looked pretty and gave the meal a nice freshness.  This is a meal I hope to repeat!

I bought a new plate with stylish Morroccan brown patterns.  You can see it here with one of my favourite comfort foods: sourdough toast with vegemite and leftover mashed potato.

Here are a couple of decadent sweet bakes from Bake Alley Bakes in North Coburg.  I had the quince danish with a creamy filling and bee pollen.  Sylvia had a slice of a coffee layer cake with hojicha buttercream and almond praline.  It was such a huge slice that she couldn't finish it.  I also bought a hi top sourdough loaf that was excellent.

New in my kitchen are these cute avocado salt and pepper shakers that my friend Kerin brought me home from her amazing holiday in Spain.

One of Sylvia's favourite online places to buy crystals has been Sparrow and Fox in Sydney.  She is very sad that they are closing.  The silver lining on this cloud are the bargains as they sell off their stock.  Also in the picture is a packet of vegan lollies (candies) from Pickles Milk Bar.  It was exciting to find lollies with no gelatine.  Sadly, the ants also loved the candy necklace from the pack.

It is so long ago that we bought a Book Nook craft kit that I was surprised when Sylvia finally decided to put it together.  It only took her two days to create this charming little arcade from a kit.  It was her first time doing a kit with lights that look so gorgeous when the booknook  is in the bookshelves.

Our kitchen chairs have got a bit shabby, especially the two remaining orange vinyl covered chairs from the set I bought with E soon after we were married.  (You can see them in better days with the full set in this kitchen post).  Even all the duct tape patches haven't saved them.  So we were happy to find a couple of blue vinyl chairs in an op shop to replace them.  I am sad to say farewell to the orange chairs but they the good times we have had with them are over.

Riding home on dark evenings gives me a keen sense of needing to be seen by other cars, cyclists and pedestrians.  I got a new bright fluro bicycle jacket (Bellwether velocity convertible jacket that converts from long sleeves to a vest) because my old one is faded, frayed and stained.  I feel very smart in my new jacket.  It also feels more likely to keep me dry if I get caught in the rain.  I just wish they made them in shaped for women's bodies!  My other indulgence was a new brighter front bike light (Azur Cove Usb Head Light 1000 Lumen) that makes it much easier to ride down a dark cobbled lane to the back gate on my bike.  Onwards and upwards!

And I am ending with a few photos from getting my kitchen back together after the painting.  The pantry is painted a lighter colour than before but it is pretty much back to the way it was, but the food is fresher now that some old packets have been thrown out.

This photo is from when I was unpacking a crockery and bric a brac after the painting.  It was all washed, even some of my little figurines that had got a bit dusty.  It is lovely to have everything washed and clean in the glass cabinets and on the lounge room shelves.

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.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.