In My Kitchen: September 2025

September has been a fun month in the kitchen with a new airfryer, spring farmers market produce, fathers day, crafts, and a pate platter for the AFL Grand Final.   We have been eating lots of soups and favourite winter recipes but as the weather warms up, we are heading back into salad and fritters territory.  Work has been quieter with my manager on leave and a couple of days of annual leave for me to support Sylvia with her online schooling.  

Above is a photo of produce from the Coburg Farmers Market.  Green veg, good bread and some treats are pretty reflective of a lot of food in our kitchen.  I love how the leek from the farmers market is all wild and curly unlike the straight sticks of leek from the supermarket.  

Here is more from the farmers market.  I was pleased to remember to take a bottle to reuse for buying Good Brew kombucha.  The onions are so tiny that they are almost as small as the brussels sprouts.  Sylvia was excited to find the pressed chevre in olive oil from the Dreaming goat dairy.  She had tasted it months ago at the market and it has taken quite some time to see it again.  It is not cheap but is excellent.  We loved it in a sandwich.  We also bought Take Me Home's fresh gnocchi, which we usually fry rather than boiling, as per instructions.  This packet went into a batch of our favourite Creamy vegan gnocchi soup with sausage and kale.  It was good though not quite as good as the shelf stable gnocchi.  Next time we are back to frying this gnocchi.

We have had a lot of food bakes from the farmers market.  This is what we bought last weekend for grand final snacking.  My photo does not do justice to the beauty of the vegan Better Now Bakes stall.  Sylvia loves the chilli and potato focaccia.  While we were watching the Grand Final we started with a mushroom pate platter and then moved onto a tahini date scroll for me and a slice of the banoffee tart with a coconut cream meringue for Sylvia.  Good stuff.  And I also bought a Flinders Sourdough black pearl bun with chunks of chocolate.  They are the best!

I went to Geelong for afternoon tea with my parents and siblings on Fathers Day.  I made a collage Fathers Day card for the occasion.  I started it a few days before and had lots of ideas but could not make them fit together.  The next day it all came together when I had another go.  The card had plenty of images relating to my dad's life: travel, religion, gardening, corn flakes, music, photos and books.  You might even spot a ball and a hammer to symbolise sport and his tools.

I took a tub of coconut ice to Geelong.  It is always popular.  I cut it into small squares because it is so sweet.  We all had plenty and there was still some leftover for my dad and some for Sylvia to give her dad.  I was pleased with my photos and that it was better with reducing the icing sugar from 340g to 270g,  I have updated these in my coconut ice post.

I went home from my parents with a few treats such as the amazing chocolate orange cake my mum made (with gluten free flour), a loaf of fantastic seeded sourdough from  my sister and also from Fran was some boxes of sweet and salty microwave popcorn.  It was cleverly designed so you pulled a tab to made a box from a thin package and just pop that in the microwave.  It said 2-3 minutes and I went more rather than less.  It was a mistake and we had too many burnt ones.  Next time it will be 2 min!  But the good popcoen was quite nice.

This photo shows why I should not go to the supermarket after work when I am hungry.  I had promised Sylvia I would buy her milk and cereal on the way home but then got tempted by less essential food.  That Zooper Dooper Fairy Floss Twisties had to be tasted.  Surprisingly they were not bad.  Despite lots of artificial flavours they worked.  Once was enough though.  I also tried the cracker versions of Smith Cheese chips which were just like cheese crackers.  No surprise there!  And I needed chocolate so I bought a favourite chokito bar.

A happier supermarket outcome was on a trip when I unexpectedly had a message that I had won win $15.  I still don't know how, even after asking a salesperson.  You don't question good luck.  Aroud the same time I found I had won it, I noticed a display of Lindt Dubai Chocolate for a ridiculous $20 a block.  Usually I would find that too expensive to justify, but when I deducted the $15 I had won, it was quite reasonable.  It was excellent with a pleasing thin creamy pistachio and crunchy kadayif pastry filling.

My e-bike battery keys come loose far too easily and I lost one recently.  I asked at our huge hardware store key cutting service and was told they didn't cut these keys.  So I went to a small local locksmith in a tiny store tucked off Harding St, Coburg.  It was so beautifully old school.  The display of locks on the wall was lovely to look at.  The locksmith had three goes before he found a key he could cut to fit my bike.  It is so sad that these niche skills are being replaced by the run of the mill key cutting services in malls and large franchises.  

I turned up late at Back Alley Bakes for bread while on a ride.  There were only two loaves left.  I purchased what I thought was an Il Campo.  As I paid and the loaf was stuffed into a paper bag and I saw that it was an IX Campo and as big as our cat for a a massive $18.  It was excellent bread with a hint of carraway and ended up in many sandwiches and snacks.

I am sharing a photo of my tofu press in action to tell you how much I love it.  The tofu is clamped between two slabs of plastic with the screws to drain out as much liquid as possible.  We use it a lot.  It really makes a difference to how well the tofu absorbs the flavours we add.

Sylvia had found a recipe for One Pan Chili-Lime Coconut Tofu on tik-tok.  It was a fairly simple sauce of chili-garlic paste, coconut milk and lime.  It was very nice but we didn't have enough sauce - I think I would add some water or stock to the pan next time.  We had some kale in with the tofu and served it with brussel sprouts.

 

It was so good to come home from work to this fantastic pumpkin miso pasta with crispy tofu bacon and steamed brussel sprouts.  This was inspired by a tik tok but Sylvia could not find the actual recipe so she improvised.  The pumpkin, garlic and spring onions were roasted and then blended with miso and pasta water were blended to make a tasty sauce for the pasta.

Last month we really enjoyed a Pesto Soup with Gnocchi, Beans and Greens.  We made it again!  It is really good.  This is a photo from the following day when it had thickened. I made a few changes - used parsley instead of basil, chickpeas instead of cannelini beans, and dinosaur kale instead of chard.  I love a recipe even more when it responds well to substitutions.  

There has been a lot of crafting in our kitchen recently.  The kitchen table has been stacked with second hand books Sylvia has been using for collages an we both did a course in Making an enchanted miniature bookshelf.  We spent some time finishing our bookshelves at home on the kitchen table.  You can read more about our bookshelves at my post on the miniature bookshelves.

In  my kitchen is a new airfryer.  This is a piece of kitchen wizardry that I have avoided for a long time.  It seemed too expensive, too unnecessary, too much bench space.  Recently I saw a nice small 4 litre Russell Hobbs Satisfry airfryer for a bargain $50 which was a third of the usual price.  It fits nicely between the microwave and the fridge.  So I took the chance to try it out.  

My mum tells me to treat it like an oven that perhaps bakes a bit hotter than my gas oven.  I find it pretty intuitive.  It stops halfway through the cooking to remind me to shake the tray.  I am trying to remember to wipe it down after cooking.  Reviewers say that the non stick can start to bubble and peel so I am wary of that.  When I checked for the air fryer online, this model is not on the Russell Hobbs site so I gather they are not making it any more.  It is not very big but I like that it takes less energy (apparently) and might be better than turning on a hot oven in summer.

We have had fun experimenting with the air fryer.  It has been a game-changer in reheating pizza.  (We usually do that in the microwave.)  Done in a few minutes and crispy.  It even revived 5 day old pizza from dry to delicious.  I roasted some 2cm slices of zucchini (sprayed with oil and turned over half way through (15 minutes at 190 C).  These were excellent in sandwiches with peanut butter or just eaten as snacks.  I made a lunch of melted brie on toast in the air fryer (4 minutes at 200 C) and then impressed Sylvia by crisping up a Fry's schnitzel from the freezer (10 minutes at 200 C).  I am still getting used to temperature and timing but it is getting easier.

We were happy to find packets of Pickers on special in the freezer section of the supermarket.  We bought a box each of Cheesy bites with camembert, Tomato mozzarella risotto melters (aka suppli), and Herb and parmesan cauliflower bites.  Even better was finding that they are great to heat in the air fryer.  It heats frozen food quicker than the gas oven and makes it so crisp.

Finally here is a lovely "bouquet" from Sandy Hill Banksia's Native Flowers at the Coburg Farmers Market. It is silver gum nuts.  I was told I could keep them in water a few weeks and then let them dry out.  Sylvia does not like it when I put them on the kitchen table (when it is not covered with dishes and crating) and they drop their seeds.  that doesn't matter to me.  They are just gorgeous.

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's url 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.