Mexican spiced rice and rice bowls

Rice bowls are my answer to the demands of having a healthy meal when life is busy.  Once we have the rice, it is not so hard to build a bowl of goodness around it.  Our latest favourite rice recipss is a Mexican spiced rice that we stumbled across when it was a component of a Plant You recipe for meal prep burritos in January.  I have lost count of the number of times we have made the spiced rice since.

[Top photo: Mexican spiced rice with seasoned black beans, air fryer roasted cherry tomatoes, pickled red onion, lettuce, pickled purple cabbage, red capsicum.)

It is a simple recipe but has favourite spices and tastes lovely.  Great flavour for a little effort.  It can be easier with dried garlic but I really love adding jarred minced garlic instead.  Once the rice is made, it feels a lot less effort to chop some raw vegies, add some tofu or beans, rustle up any leftovers and a dollop of yoghurt or a squeeze of lemon juice and dinner is ready with a great tasty rice.   

 

Yesterday I had one of those crazy days when I felt overwhelmed by life.  I was working from home but it did not feel relaxing.  We are having a busy week with appointments, an exhibition, a movie and a walking tour.  At work I had meetings, last minute requests and new systems that challenged me.  Our cat clawed at my back to ask to me take him to his food.  My dad came at lunchtime to attach a new door handle on our backdoor.  The door knob had totally failed a week ago so he came over and hacksaw off latch.  We then gaffer taped over the hole until he was able to return.  Sylvia was on her online classes in the lounge room before going for lunch with a friend and returning in a burst of excitement at the good food.  At 5.30pm I had a history society meeting but wanted to print the minutes before I left.  The printer needed more paper and once I got it printing, it jammed halfway through.  So I rushed over only to find only half the subcommittee there.  I came home with a promise of doing the minutes and then heard that my next door neighbour's gorgeous little cat with the black love heart on her nose had died of kidney failure.

On days like that I start thinking I need to simplify my life.  One easy solution was this spiced rice that we had had on Monday.  I had cooked it on Sunday so that we had an easy meal on the first night of the working week.  Now I am planning to make this or other easy grains each week on Sunday night so I just cobble together a rice bowl of sorts each Monday.  It could be one small change to make life easier! 

One thing I really like about this  is that it does not stick to the bottom of the saucepan.  I have had problems with burnt and/or dry Mexican rice before.  So when I looked at the amount of water on the Plant You recipe, I decided to increase it.  Most times it has worked but occasionally it was a little wet.  As we usually have leftovers, this makes sure that the rice is not too dry the next day (or the day after).  If you prefer a drier rice, I would suggest 4 cups of water rather than 4 1/2 cups.

The above photo collage shows the ways we have accompanied the Mexican spiced rice:

• Top left: fried chopped panisse, seasoned fried tempeh, tofu scramble, grated carrot, lettuce, cucumber and red capsicum.  (Below you can see Sylvia's version of this that also includes sauerkraut)
• Top right: tofu "beef", lettuce, tomato, purple cabbage and chipotle lime cashew sauce.
• Bottom left: cheese and bean quesadillas with the spiced rice, lettuce, cabbage, red capsicum, yoghurt, salsa and feta.
• Bottom right: lettuce, red cabbage, tomatoes, corn, seasoned black beans, feta and crispy fried Field roast chorizo crumbles

You can see that not all the rice bowls we have had were Mexican themed.  We have also had the spiced rice with tortilla chips, tacos, and/or an adobe sauce.  I have previously enjoyed Mexican rice with corn, peas and red capsicum which would work well cooked in this or even some herbs or spring onions stirred in after cooking.  
 

 

This Mexican rice is truly a versatile side dish with many possibilities.  I would like to try it in an enchilada with beans and cheese or maybe in a a nacho bake layered with a chilli con carne, cheese and corn chips, and of course in a burrito.  It would also go well with a variety of salads on the side.  I have even taken it to work for lunch with raw chopped vegies and chickpeas and yoghurt.  I am looking forward to experimenting with it as one of our regular Monday dishes.

More Mexican-inspired recipes with rice on Green Gourmet Giraffe: 

Mexican rice in the microwave (gf, v)
Mexican rice (with salsa) (gf, v)
Okinawa taco rice - meat-free (gf) 
Spinach, pumpkin and bean burritos (gf)
Stuffed squash with tex mex rice and beans (gf, v)

Mexican spiced rice
Adapted from Plant You
Serves 6

 To fry the rice:

• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 1 1/2 cups white long grain rice, (I use basmati)

 Spice seasoning:

• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp garlic powder or paste
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
• 1/4 tsp black pepper 

To boil the rice:

• 4 to 4 1/2 cups water (or less)
• 1 tsp stock powder 
• 1 tbsp lime juice, optional, for brightness

Put together the spice seasoning mixture first so you are ready to add it when rice is cooked.  I usually heat the frypan on low while I do this.

Heat oil in a large saucepan.  Once warm stir in rice and fry for about 2 minutes over medium high heat.  Stir frequently.  It will smell toasted when it is ready but I find it fries a bit while adding the spices so a little underdone is better than overdone.

Add spice seasoning and stir constantly for 1 minute over low heat until well mixed.

Pour in the water and stock powder.  Stir well and bring to the boil over high heat.  Simmer covered for 10 minutes.  Remove from the heat and leave lid on to continue absorbing the steam for at least 10 minutes.

Serve hot or warm.  The spiced rice can be made the night before or kept in the fridge for a few days. 

On the stereo:
Chelsea Girl: Nico

In My Kitchen: May 2026

How can it be June already!  This year is speeding towards the winter solstice and beyond.  In my kitchen we have mostly been revisiting old recipes with a few new ones.  There have been lots of noodles, tempeh, greens and apples.  Above is a photo of a favourite recipe for Mee goreng that I tried with tempeh instead of tofu and it was so so good.  We've had lots of interesting food from supermarkets and the farmers market, with a few fancy morsels from Smith and Deli and Tofu Shoten.  

Life has been ridiculous as usual.  I lost my car key only to find it days later in my bed under the covers.  I subscribed to the Age years ago for local news but that has got so hard to find among the click bait that I have finally cancelled it.  I bought an insert for our air fryer that looked small but like so many other purchases, once inside our small house it looked much bigger and would not fit.  I had hoped that logging my account would have given proof of purchase, in lieu of a receipt, but I found out after a long queue that it did not.  

This is how I have been frying the tempeh in thin triangles so it gets crispy.  It was really good in Mee gorang and Laksa.  As you can see our egg flip had tired of overwork on the cast iron frypan and collapsed.  Or maybe it had too many falls on the ground.  

I also tried frying diced tempeh with tofu bacon marinade.  It tasted great but did not get crisp in the way that tofu does.  I will try it with bigger slices next time.  However the diced tempeh bacon was excellent on top of the cheese on a veg pizza.

I revisited this Pumpkin Laksa with both fried tofu and tempeh.  Sylvia did not fancy that pumpkin chunks so I pureed the pumpkin and added to the broth.  I used a vegan laska curry paste to save time making spice mix (though I still added onion and garlic) but it still took a while.  I also used broccolini instead of asparagus.  We were impressed at how good it looked when served with been sprouts, spring onions, a wedge of lime (off our tree) and Vietnamese basil.

When we had unused cabbage, I decided to look at a different sort of minestrone than our usual one.    The paler Minestrone with Cabbage and White Beans was a great change.  It was also a great  opportunity to use leek from the farmers market.  I changed this recipe to have more pasta, 2 tins cannellini beans, no walnut parmesan, added a finely chopped half a cauliflower, finely chopped herbs and garlic.  

The following night when we had leftovers I made Gaarlic pizza with our regular Fast track sourdough pizza base.   I sprayed it with olive oil, spread some garlic paste, sprinkled it with Italian herbs, garlic granules , flaked salt and black pepper.  Then I grated cheddar cheese over it. This made an excellent accompaniment to the soup.

There was half a cauliflower to use.  I had bought it because it was in season and it felt like we had not had much lately.  This half was fried in the air fryer with just a spray of olive oil and some seasoning.  It took about 18 minutes at 200 C.  I was inspired by the Tinned Tomatoes blog's Air Fryer Cheesy Cauliflower Steaks.  Ours were used in a bowl of vegies and beans with the below Mexican spiced rice. 

I have made the Mexican spiced rice from PlantYou quite a bit but this was my worst one.  It was soggy and I am unsure if it was due to getting the cooking time wrong (15 not 10 minutes) or if I put too much water in or both!  Sylvia thought it great.  I had thought I had found a good recipe for Mexican spiced rice and hope this is a blip.  In the past spice rice has always burnt so I liked this with more water than the recipe said.  I will need to try again.

This is a humble but delicious salad sandwich made with a potato sourdough bread from the supermarket.  Inside is cheese, mayo, grated carrot, sliced purple cabbage, rocket and mayo.

We walked most of the way to Tofu Shoten in Brunswick where they make fresh tofu.  Sylvia was excited to have the banana bread milkshake with fresh soy milk.  We tried the tofu balls which were nice by themselves but fairly plain and probably better in soup as recommended.  Best of all was the smoked tofu.  It was a lot softer than most tofu I cook with.  This was a challenge.  I wanted to feature it's fresh smoky flavours.  I found a fairly simple crispy breaded tofu nuggets recipe that was an excellent way to eat it.  I needed about 2 tbsp more of the milk.  It was much quicker than my usual tofu nuggets.  Next time I need to plan a recipe to add in the tofu nuggets.

We had another go at making a spanikopita.  This one was bigger and better. I used a bunch of spinach and a bunch of curly kale so it was packed with greens.  It never ceases to amaze me at how little greens are left after cooking. Next time I will also add some fresh dill.  

Here is my final spanikopita.  We made a lot of changes to the previous spanikopita attempt.  As well as lots of greens, we used tofutti cream cheese (which seems to have made a resurgence in the shops) and the rest of the almond feta from the Damona factory.  It was probably double the size of the last one and I had worked out that I needed to bake the scroll in a round dish to keep its shape.  I liked the Damona feta more than Sylvia.  She is keen to try one with homemade feta so that is the next step in the challenge.

We were at KFL for sticky rice.  Sylvia has enjoyed it in the microwave pouches from the supermarket but it is neither the cheapest or most eco-friendly way to buy it.  So we headed to the KLF Asian supermarket.  While there we also bought Lychee and passionfruit Lady boba bubble tea (enjoyed), Vincent vegetarian food's vegan super vegie balls (still in our freezer), Surasang Japchae Gyoza (oops found they had shrimp paste in them and gave the rest away), Passionfruit popping boba and Pandan Chendol (these two were for a sticky rice dessert that is yet to be).  

We have only made the sticky rice once which involved soaking the rice overnight and then steaming in a steamer basket lined with cheesecloth.  I want to try this 16 minute method for cooking sticky rice in the microwave.

I ended up in Thornbury High Street after an appointment and visited Naturally on High.  I love a fancy health food store.  I got tempeh for Mee Goreng, a packet of Keogh's Guinness Irish potato crisps and Stroopwafels.  After the gyoza vegan fail I suddenly remembered that Guinness had once been not suitable for vegans but was relieved to find online that it is now suitable.  Which was just as well because the chips were really tasty and moreish.  They reminded me a bit of Marmite crisps (if I can say that without offending Guinness and Marmite fans!).  The stroopwafels were to share with Sylvia but I forgot to to check these and found they were not vegan.  So I had to eat them all by myself.  A delicious mistake!

 
I brought home this Snickers doughnut from Smith and Deli in Collingwood.  I was too ful after half a sandwich to eat it there.  I had expected a lots of gooey chocolate on top as well as caramel and peanuts.  In fact it was more like a chewy chocolate caramel fudge topping scattered generously with chopped peanuts and drizzled with a peanut sauce.  Although not as expected, it was excellent.  I loved the fudgy topping that was a lovely contrast to the soft doughnut.

We love our kombuchas and have enjoyed some of the Remedy Small Batch series.  Sylvia really loved the Lychee and Strawberry flavour and I really loved the pomegranate and cherry.  I also really enjoyed the Twinings Sparkling Tea with Raspberry Lemonade and White Tea.  It was fizzy and had a nice light fruity flavour.  However, I don't think it would replace my love of kombucha.

Carmen's protein pistachio delight - on special and nowhere to be seen the next week - sylvia annoyed that she gets drawn in by pistachios but then finds it has peanuts

These Zucchini, Pea and Danish Fetta Fritters were just for me as they were Vegetarian but not vegan.  I cooked them in the airfryer and they were beautifully crisp and light.  I ate them with hummus, red pepper, cherry tomatoes, baby spinach and our favourite Turkish bread from the Melbourne Kebab Station.

On Mothers Day, Sylvia kindly went out and to buy us doughnuts fromAll Day Doughnuts while I was out at a talk.  She chose Choc fudge, Coconut lime and Orange and rhubarb fritter.  (Yes, they had been sampled by the time I took a photo.)  Also in the photos are some presents from op shops including a replacement copy of a favourite book from Sylvia's childhood that we can't find.

Here are a few more supermarket purchases.  We were amused by the message on the vegan Oatly cream packet that we bought for leek and potato soup.  The dill was for the soup.  Sylvia wanted to try the Health Lab Mylk chocolate juicy cherry bars.  She liked them but I found they has an odd taste of added flavours.  I think they are like a healthy version of the less healthy Cherry Ripe chocolate bars, which I must prefer.

I took this photo of some of the stuff hanging around our kitchen.  We had bought a variety of apple s from the Coburg Farmers Market.  (I still miss the Three Bridges apples we used to buy there.)  They were great with muesli.  The limes in the cup are from our tree and were mostly used in limeade.  Not as many as we have had from our tree in the past but better after the trees have been battling citrus lime miner and gall wasp.  I only got one lemon from our other citrus tree this year.  Slim pickings.

Also in the photo  is a vase that Sylvia found in an op shop, a smart little tartan case where I keep my phone's headphones, a sparkly bracelet that Sylvia put back together with gorilla glue, some chimes that make music in the a garden, birthday cake candles that I washed individually after the ants got them, sweet little glass covered stand, and our score for a Scrabble game (Sylvia won)!

We had another visit to Coburg Farmers Market when we met a friend.  Our haul included the bread, tomatoes, leek, kale, eggplant, babaganoush, sauerkraut and pickled grapes.  On the way home we dropped into Terre Madre for a large bag of wholemeal flour and also purchased kombucha, Damona cheese and Love Love's Pistachio mylk praline and Double chocolate truffle.  All good stuff!

It was a long queue to buy Psomi bread but well worth it.  This former Australian masterchef contestant makes amazing bread.  The previous week, we had queued only to find that they only had their regular Farmers Bread.  So I got there earlier and hoped I could try the Black sesame porridge bread.  It was sold out again but we bought some wonderful olive bread.  Just look at that open crumb and shiny crust.

Even more amazing was the Mulled Wine Pickled Grapes from Acide.  It is not a stall we usually go to but Jo stopped to taste some of the wares.  We did too.  And walked away with a couple of jars.  The sauerkraut was great but these pickled grapes were amazing.  I've never seen any like it before.  The grapes are pickled in vinegar, sugar, star anise, mandarin peel, clove and cinnamon.  Slightly sweet with a bit of acid and lots of warm spices, they are begging to be on a fancy cheese board.

In case you are wondering about how we ate them, the olive bread and the mulled wine pickled grapes were wonderful on a grazing platter of red capsicum, cheddar cheese, fried eggplant, sauerkraut, cherry tomatoes and baby spinach.  Such a good dinner!

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

In My Kitchen: April 2026

April was a busy month of Easter celebration food, including hot cross buns and vegan Easter chocolate ,and lots of easy meals.  We were eating more stews and baked potatoes as the weather cooled in the first half of the month before it returned to the balmy mid 20s in the second half of the month. I made old faves (zucchini slice, lentil soup, mock tuna salad) and had fun with some new recipes (a polka dot nut roast of sorts, miso bean pasta and spanikopita).  Sylvia made lots of scrambled tofu lunches.  

As always, I will also write a My Monthly Chronicles post with more about outings and eating out in April. I also celebrated my 19th blog anniversary with post on the Coconut and chocolate layer cake that I made for the Cake picnic last month.

The above picture is from the polka dot nut roast I made for a bit of fun at Easter.  I was inspired by my Christmas nut roast and my Aboriginal flag nut roast but needed to make it vegan for Sylvia.  So I added some tahini as well as besan and aqua faba.  Then I had to work out colours for each of the polka dots.  They all needed tweaking.  The beetroot colour was the best once I pureed it, I wanted the kale to be a brighter greener and the saffron was better in the Aboriginal flag than using turmeric. Another challenge was arranging the coloured dots and finding I needed more "white" batter around them and then realising I should have made the colours random rather than in a row.  It took a few hours at night and was quite an achievement.

I took the polka dot nut roast to my parents place in Geelong for the Easter Sunday roast.  I also made one for Sylvia and E to have for their Easter meal back in Melbourne.  Sylvia did not like this nut roast as much as the Christmas one that inspired it and I will have another go at veganising it.  However I was pleased with it and loved how the polka dots gave it pops of colour when slicing.  I would love to try it again and really want to play more with colours in nut roasts.  I just need more time for it.

On her first vegan Easter, Sylvia was able to find quite a few treats.  Clockwise from top left: Nomo cookie dough chocolate bunny and Mummy Meegz chucki chocolate (vegan creme egg); Plant Cocoa Hot Cross Hazelnut Easter eggs; Nomo chocolate egg with crispy pieces and a cookie dough bunny; Barbie Vegan gummy carrots (package); the gummy carrots; hot cross buns.  Sylvia loved all of it, though was disappointed she did not find any pana chocolate hot cross bun bars of chocolate.  The Planet Chocolate eggs were the best.

I baked the Sourdough Hot Cross Buns - my fave HCB recipe I make each year and experimented with (and posted) a recipe for Matcha, white chocolate and coconut hot cross buns.  They were pretty good except the matcha was too old to be very green.

I returned from Geelong with some good stuff, which is seen here with a couple of treats exchanged at home. Sylvia got the Nomo easter bunny from E, the Mummy Meegz Chickee Eggs (mini eggs) from me and I received the Health Lab Aussie lamington jam filled balls (amazing).  My sister Susie kindly found a bar of Lindt vegan milk chocolate for Sylvia, my dad organised gorgeous personalised glass Easter eggs to be made for each grandkid (Sylvia's is green and came in the unicorn bag), my mum made hot cross buns and my sister Fran gave me a jar of her Frankly Raw peanut butter.

Organising to buy vegan Easter eggs was more of a challenge than the regular milk ones in the supermarket.  I rode to a few places one afternoon to find them.  Pickles Milkbar had a good range of vegan Easter eggs.  While there I purchased a cheeseymite pastry scroll.  I asked about the sausage rolls and was given one to sample - it was a bit much mock meat for me but Sylvia loved it.  

On my travels I also purchased the Sweet William white chocolate melts, were was disappointingly thin an so sweet and the DJ&AShitake, oyster and nameko mixed mushroom crisps.  We have had the shitake crisps before and preferred those to the mix as the oyster mushrooms did not taste great.

I went to a work symposium and had a lovely time chatting to people in the breaks but did not spend much time getting myself food.  While riding home I found I was quite peckish and so I stopped at Cheaper Buy Miles in Sydney Road.  It is a grocery store with cheap remainder stock.  I bought all of this for $13: a packet of (tiny) vegetable mom, two dairy free almond Magnum ice creams, a tin of chunky pumpkin and chickpea soup, a packet of oregano Zeus Street Greek pita crackers, and a huge bag of mini potato cakes.  

Those mini potato cakes were a delightful indulgence.  I usually only have potato cakes with orders from a fish and chip shop.  These ones were so cute and lasted a while in the freezer.  They were great as a snack, a side and on pizza.

A friend offered me a monster zucchini and I could not resist.  It was from her friend's garden but she could not convince her kids to have zucchini fritters.  I made it into a vegan Zucchini slice.  Traditionally zucchini slice has been made in Australian households as an easy way to make dinner with surplus zucchini.  

I weighed this zucchini by chopping it into parts.  Initially it was more than I needed for the slice. I was surprised that the bulbous end weighed about 700g - and I thought the zucchini was much heavier than the 1kg I needed - but once I scooped out the seeds in this part, it weighed about 400g.   

This zucchini slice was much slower than the traditional one with eggs and bacon.  This one took a few hours by the time I had made a batch of tofu bacon, the tofu besan omelette mixture, grated and squeezed out the zucchini, mixed it all up and baked it.  It was amazing.  Well worth the effort.  While I used the Zucchini slice recipe from my blog, I added a bit of extra flour, besan and nooch which meant this time it was firm enough to slice.  I wish I could say how much but it was a bit of this and bit of that.  I also added panko breadcrumbs and sesame seeds on top.  This is the best zucchini slice I have ever made.  

I made my first vegan spanikopita.  I used a traditional spanikopita recipe from Somebody feed Seb with a bit of cross reference to the Lazy Cat Kitchen's vegan spinach and ricotta rolls.  I also used this vegan cashew feta recipe with olive brine that I have made previously.  I cooked it a bit longer this time and it was better for crumbling but still needs to be a bit thicker.  Sylvia was keen on making the spanikopita as a coil.  I learnt that a coil needs to be baked in a tin or it will crack and flick out at odd angles like a broken spring.  It was pretty good.  Could be better.  I am determined to try this again.

Sylvia's favourite lunch at the moment is scrambled tofu.  She fries up some chopped sausage or tofu bacon, crumbles in unpressed firm tofu and adds in lots of seasoning: nutritional yeast flakes, stock powder, dijon mustard, turmeric, smoked paprika, garlic powder, black salt and black pepper.  Then it just needs to be stirred for a few minutes until well combined and sometimes baby spinach is added after the gas jet is turned off.  It doesn't take long at all.  We had had it lots of ways.  Above clockwise from the top are scramble and lettuce in a tortilla wrap; scramble and baby spinach on toast: scramble, tomato, lettuce and rice;  and scramble with mini potato cakes and spinach.  All were excellent.  Sylvia told me that the rice bowl presentation was very la-di-dah!

One lunchtime when we had a good sourdough bread I made a Mock tuna (chickpea) salad and stuffed it into a sandwich with lots of scramble and a generous handful of baby spinach.  It was so good.  I put a skewer in it to hold it together for the photo because it was so stuffed that it was struggling to fit together.

I love tempeh but Sylvia is not so keen on it.  She has been trying some dishes with tempeh that tempts her.  tempting tempeh!  This Creamy Orzo with Tempeh Crumbles was a great dish for the tempeh doubters.  It had vegan cream, cannellini beans, roasted eggplant and sun dried tomato.  I forgot to check the eggplant while roasting and it was pretty charred.  Again I am more of an eggplant lover than Sylvia and was less fazed by her by the char.  I hope we make it again - maybe with peas for a touch of green next time!

Another delicious new meal was this Bean Miso Pasta with a creamy sauce made by blending a tin of butterbeans, including the liquid, with white miso, sesame oil, nutritional yeast flakes and lemon juice.  It was so easy and tasty that it was made two weeks in a row.

I have made this Creamy lentil and vegetable soup two weeks in a row.  It is a great way to use up vegies in the fridge.  I wonder how it would be with some pumpkin in it!  I found it in a favourite Alison Holst cookbook years ago when I cooked from cookbooks so much more than online recipes.  It has been so lovely that I have an urge to return to my cookbooks.  I just need to find more time for them!  I was pleased to update the photo in my original blog post as the first one was not pretty!!!!

I returned to this Gnocchi, Cabbage and Sausage recipe that I had made from a couple of recipes and wrote about in last month's In my kitchen post.  I tried it a different way by adding water after the initial frying so the cabbage was partly boiled and greener than when I had just fried it.  I preferred it this way but Sylvia didn't.  I think it might have had something to do with the gnocchi being cooked too much but can't remember.  This needs more work but it is a good easy meal that I want to develop.

We make pizza with my ridiculously easy Fast track sourdough pizza dough most Friday nights.  This pizza pictured was a fantastic vegan pizza I made that was topped with  tomato sauce, mushroom, capsicum, olives, chopped leftover baked potato, Damona almond feta and grated Damona American cheese.  I usually put dairy cheese on mine but occasionally make it vegan so I can share with Sylvia.

This picture is from my bed when I had pizza leftover on a Saturday morning and was reading in bed.  I don't do it too often but I am finding that occasionally reading in bed on a weekend morning is a great way to get more reading in.  Perhaps this is why I have finished as many books in 4 months as I read in the whole of 2025!  I started a couple that I could not finish as I kept losing track of them with infrequent reading.)  In April I have enjoyed reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer, with Annie Barrows) and Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900-1970 (Jacqueline Kent).

(I have passed on my copy (from the op shop) of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to my dad who is on driving around Tasmania with my mum and family friends.  He highly recommends it for holiday reading!) 

This Crispy rice salad is becoming a summer favourite.  This time we made it with lettuce, avocado, edamame, cucumber with the dressing from the Japanese cucumber salad and a sprinkle of fukikake. It is really good.  I think it wont be made much over winter but I hope it comes back into our meals again when it gets warmer later in the year.

I wrote about buying panisse from the Vegan market in My Monthly Chronicles: March 2026.  This is one of the ways we ate it.  I air fried the panisse while Sylvia fried diced potatoes.   (She preferred the panisse fried on the stovetop in our cast iron frypan).  I served mine in a bowl with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red cabbage, red capsicum, leftover Easter nut roast, yoghurt and pickles.  I really love bringing together bits and pieces in a bowl.

Here is our cat Shadow trying to work out how to open the kitchen door.  My regular plumber (not the cheap one who is no longer answering my call and I fear has retired) came to fix some washers and leaks in the bathroom taps.  He had installed my air con and checked if I was cleaning the filters.  The shame!  After a stern talking to, I smeared them with washing detergent and soaked them in the laundry sink before scrubbing them.  He suggested they get cleaned whenever the season changes!  Must try harder!

I moved a kitchen chair to get the filters out.  Shadow will jump to grab at the round door handle to try and open it when he is desperate to go out. Yet he lives in hope and was happy to get closer where he could try and work it out.  We were laughing to much to take a photo of him jumping to try and open the door.  Sylvia managed to take a photo of him standing.  He is such a long cat!  He is more successful with door handles that we push down to open.  We sometimes hear that thump as he jumps at a door handle.  As the weather cools and we shut the doors more, I expect we will be hearing more thumping soon!  

 

My sister finally flew out from Ireland with her son, 6 weeks after her plane was turned back on her first try.  We went to visit them in Geelong at my parents' home where they were staying.  It was good to see them.  My sister kindly brought presents.  Fruit candles for me.  Percy pig lollies from Marks and Spencer for both of us.  Vegan chocolate truffles from Marks and two gorgeous hair clips that you can't see well in the photo - a peacock and a parrot.  I also brought home leftover fried rice with tofu that my mum had made for lunch; it made a great work lunch.  Sylvia declared the chocolate truffles were wonderful and made her feel so much better that Lindt balls are not vegan.  

My sister also visited us in Melbourne while she was on our side of the world.  We had all sort of plans which changed as her plans changed.  There is never enough time for her on a quick visit home.  Sylvia and I went to Terre Mardre in Sydney Road where we bought lovely hummus, grapes, salad leaves, vegan tomato deli meat slices and a great sourdough baguette.  We served these with some tofutti, carrots, red capsicum, and celery.  The snack platters were great for my sister to fortify her for the epic journey back to my parents' on the bus that was so much slower than the train it was replacing.  Sylvia grazed on them platters with Chris and ate the rest for our dinner!

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