In My Kitchen: September 2026

 

September was filled with school holidays, t-shirt weather and signing up to a crazy amount of new systems in my new job.  I've been making simple salads for work lunches and sides.  Possibly the most innovative dish I made was air fried onions rings in my melted cheese on toast.  It was pretty good.  More usually I made some of my favroutie meals like the above 20 minute Coconut chickpea curry.  Fortunately Sylvia made lots of great new dishes to add a little pizazz to our meals.

I have scheduled this post because by the time it is published, I will be in Canberra for an interstate break.  I will write more about that next month.  Here's hoping for a little more time and energy next months but I am not holding my breath!

I really loved this Vegetarian Sushi Bake (With Chickpeas).  It was a layer of sushi rice topped by a layer of spicy tuna-style chickpeas with some nori blended in for flavour of the sea.  Then it was all baked and served with avocado, cucumbers and furikake.  This might be the most comforting way to eat sushi!

How I love leftovers!  This is the sort of pizza topping, that I never would eat if not for leftovers.  We had leftover sausage barley soup, air fried out-of-date falafels, olives, turnip pickles and cheese.  It was excellent.  The pink pickles were a pretty addition that worked well with the flavours.

Sylvia has been making her cabbage pasta regularly.  Lots of cabbage (and sometimes onion) are fried until caramelised and soft.  She adds some seasonings like miso, nooch and sesame oil.  On this occasion she fried Field Roast Italian Garlic and Fennel sausages that took it up to another level.  Crispy sausage on soft pasta is just perfect.  I really loved some lettuce and cabbage with it and added some red capsicum in big slabs that I could not be bothered chopping.  

An Italian deli inspired pasta salad inspired this barley salad.  We had really crispy tofu bacon, crispy sausage  and vegan salami with lots of rocket, cucumber, tomatoes, marinated olives, and pickled onions with vegan olive brine feta.  I had to pick out the salami - it is not the sort of mock meat I ever want bu I could have had a bit more rocket.  All that good stuff tossed together with dressing was amazing.
  

One of my dad's friends kindly gave Sylvia this vegan Toasted Marshmellow poopcorn.  Sylvia was very excited to discover a great vegan popcorn fomr the Popcorn Shed with lots of fun flavours but unfortunately it is from the UK and not easy to find unless we order online.

Sylvia made oa superb vegan Mac and Cheese bake which was a white sauce with vegan cheese (yay for Damona) and good flavours, with a great topping of panko breadcrumbls, crushed cornflakes and sesame seeds.  

We were excited by all the wonderful bakes by Alex a Bakes at the Vegan Market at the Coburg Town Hall.  I took home a vegan cheese and vegemite pastry twist.  It was really good.  I wished I had bought more!

This Creamy zucchini orzotto from The Plant Bowls was gorgeous with creamy cashew sauce.  Sylvia added peas and spinach as well as topping it with our home made feta and dill.  She declared it her favourite new dish that she plans to make again and again!

We got into the packet of frozen naan breads from the freezer.  They were too easy to heat in the air fryer - just 3-4 minutes.  This easy meal with salad, tofu scramble and pickled onions was really good on a night when we could not be bothered doing much for dinner.

We had fond memories of Sylvia's previous crispy rice salad.  She decided to do it again.  Her salad had crispy rice with panko and seasoning inspired by Emily Eats and then the fried tofu and vegies inspired by Tess Begg.  I helped make the dressing with miso, maple syrup, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and soy sauce.  Lots of good vegies with crispy rice is amazing.

The AFL Grand Final is always a big event in Melbourne.  We even had a public holiday to celebrate.  This year I worked the holiday in a blissfully quiet office and swapped the holiday for another day of leave.  However I was excited about watching the game on the Saturday.  The pre-match is usually the highlight and this year delivered with the glamour of Kylie Minogue's performance and the nostalgia of Mike Brady singing Up there Cazaly, despite the rain.  It was amusing to see the commentators pre-match on a desk on the grassy oval with umbrellas.  Very Monty Python!  

Sylvia had made sausage roll filling the day before and I wrapped it in pastry and baked them in the late morning.  They were hot out of the oven for watching the grand final.  Sylvia had put twice as much silken tofu as the recipe so they were soft with a bit of a gravy vibe but delicious.  We also had hash browns, falafel, hummus, crisps, crackers and vegies.  The actual match between the Freo Dockers and the Brisbane Lions had me on the edge of my seat right to the end when Freo were leading by a few goals 4 minutes before the end and the Lions suddenly got 4 goals in 4 minutes and won the match.

We love our platters for the grand final.  This year Sylvia did all the shopping for the platters with E who came along for some pre-match entertainment before heading off to book club. Before he went we had the dessert platter.  Sylvia had apple slices, strawberry and popcorn.  But not chocolate!  So I broke up some of my Whittakers dark chocolate to add to the platter.   We enjoyed grazing and by dinner time weren't hungry and just had a few sausage rolls and some vegies.  A very enjoyable afternoon!

Finally here is my new sewing machine.  A friend from the historical society is really into her sewing history and looks out for old sewing machines.  She found me this one from the 50s or 60s and brought it over a few weeks ago.  I am excited to have it but also not feeling confident at the idea of using a sewing machine.  It has been a long time since I last used one.  I confess I have not used it but have instructions and some people who can give advice so I really look forward to some free time when I can grasp the nettle, so to speak.

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 enjoy her delightful spring greenery hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this event that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.   

In My Kitchen: August 2026

With the end of August, comes the end of Winter.  The past month has given us some wild weather but ended with a few blissfully sunny days that are perfect for hanging the washing on the line and heading out for a bike ride.  It has been a crazy month.  I finished up my previous job and for the first time ever I was sent an exit survey.  I did not mention in my survey how weird it was to have a team meeting in the middle of my farewell lunch!  We had not even finished eating.  I had a week between jobs where we did an overnight road trip to the Goldfields regions of Victoria.  And now I have had about a week in my new job which is going to be busy but interesting with good people!  

There has not been much time for blogging but I will give a round up here (and also in My Monthly Chronicles August 2026 post which will look at getting out and about.  We have had some amazing meals both at home and eating out.  Above is a noodle soup that was excellent and felt a little fancy to have condiments such as chilli oil (for Sylvia), fried shallots (for me) and daikon and carrot pickle (for both of us).

 

You can see a lot of the ingredients here: a mushroom mix of enoki, oyster and king oyster, fried tofu puffs, broken dried soya sticks, Chinese broccoli, wheat noodles and vegan fish balls.  The soup was amazing with the condiments but for one thing: the fish balls were disgusting.  I say that as a vegetarian who has never eaten seafood (other than flake and fish fingers as a kid).  They had a very odd texture and neither of us liked them.  The rest of the soup was slurpilicious!

Sylvia was very keen on making the dailkon and carrot pickle  which was from RecipeTinEats.  We simply added vinegar, sugar and salt to the veggiees.  The hardest part was chopping the carrot and dailkon very thinly, which Sylvia did in the front of the tv.  It was quite stinky but so delicious on all sorts of meals.
 

The main reason we made the daikon and carrot pickle was for a Bahn Mi.  I bought the bread rolls from our local Vietnamese "Crystal Bakery".  We had a tub of vegan pate from Fresh on Young to spread on the rolls.  We stuffed them with braised some tempeh, lettuce leaves, cucumber batons, daikon and carrot pickle and a garnish of parsley leaves from the garden (we don't like coriander).  It was amazing and messy and so so good!

These are the Miso Maple Braised Tempeh that Sylvia made.  The recipe was unlike our usual way of frying tofu or tempeh.  The chunks of tempeh were fried and then cooked in a glaze for about 30 minutes until glossy and sticky.  They had lots of flavour with quite a bit of fresh ginger and were quite saucy!
 

A complicate meal was a vegan roast at home in August.  She bought a Veggie Delites vegan roast and braised it with cranberry sauce glaze.  I am not so keen on them but it worked with all the trimmings.  We made it a weekend when we had lots of time to potter in the kitchen.   The facon wrapped brussels sprouts looked quite impressive.  We roasted potato, carrot, parsnip and pumpkin.  I also made gravy and cauliflower cheese using the same recipes used in my recent Vegan roast dinner pizza.

A simple meal was what The Kitchn called 20 minute Coconut chickpea curry.   It was a good way to use the nice laksa paste we have.  I probably took longer than 20 minutes especially with sides but it excellent served with brussels sprouts, red capsicum, spinach, leftover sticky rice, scalliion pancakes from KFL supermarket, spinach and the last lime from our tree this winter.  

A summer meal: vegetable fritatta from Smith and Deli and slaw we made a home.  I bought the fritatta and a chai flavoured vanilla slice while out on a ride.  I took a plastic box for my purchases.  The vanilla slice came in a cardboard tub that fitted in my box and the fritatta went straight in the box next to it.  I used octopus straps to secure it to the back of my bike and then merrily went on my way.  

I stopped at bike shops - the first because my bike had an odd sound and the second because the first bike shop had not fixed it.  But the minute I arrived at the second bike shop, the sound disappeared and I felt stupid trying to tell  them there had been a weird whirring,  It has not been heard since!  I also stopped to take photos.  At first my purchases seemed to be travelling well but by the time I got home the vanilla slice was such a mess I am not sharing any photos.  It was amazing with fantastic chai spices and the fritatta with lots of pesto on top was also a joy to eat after my long ride!

We had a new winter warmer.  This pot pie from Sweet Simple Vegan was perfect for the wild rainy weather we had in the middle of the month.  It was a gorgeous vegan creamy filling of onion, celery, potatoes, carrots, peas (and I thought I put in a tin of lentils but am not so sure now I look back at the recipe) and broccoli.  The puff pastry was cut into squares and arranged on top of the filling (which was cooked on the stovetop and oven in my cast iron pan).  I really loved this because it was much easier than dealing with a big sheet and I was able to use up some scraps of puff pastry from the freezer.

We also had an old winter warmer: Bean and beer stew with dumplings.  I had made it years ago (2010) and loved it.  When I made it again this August, I wondered why it had taken me so long.  It was great comfort food with lots of beans and fluffy wholemeal dumplings steamed on top.  Must remember this next winter!

While I was quite tired and not up for lots of new ideas, Sylvia found quite a few great new recipes.  This cabbage pasta is a fave new dish with mainly fried cabbage and seasoning in the pasta sauce.  I really like it with a coleslaw mix of veggies we have been making.  Sylvia found the idea online but ended up not following a recipe.  For the sauce she added miso, pasta water, nutritional yeast flakes, soy sauce, sesame oil and maple syrup.

 

I really loved these Creamy gnocchi with Crispy seasoned tofu.  This was another new recipe from Sylvia.  It was her favourite vodka tomato pasta but instead of adding cream, she added a tin of butter beans pureed with the bean water (ie undrained).  I liked it more with the beans but she preferred the sauce with cream.  The mellow creamy sauce went well with well with the crispy tofu which was seasoned with soy sauce, maple syrup, thyme, smoked paprika, onion powder and garlic powder.  So good!
 

We've continued to make rice on Sunday nights so we can have it on Monday nights to make an easy meal.  One night Sylvia wanted to try soaking, marinating and frying some dried soya chunks.  The marinade was great but the soya chunks are not really my sort of thing.  They were fine when mixed with lots of vegetables and rice. 

We even had a salad night with this Roasted cauliflower, pearl couscous and chickpea salad.  It was a warm salad but by the time I got home had cooled down and was delicious at room temperature.  We added in pickled onions, of course!  And had lots of the tofu and avocado dressing leftover.  I think it would be a great vegan dressing for coleslaw but we had it on toast instead.  This was a great salad that just might be back on the menu as the weather warms up.

Continuing the theme of food in our fridge magnets, Kerin brought a lego style magnet kit back from Vietnam to make a sushi magnet.  It was fun to do but the magnet fell apart within a day so is now on the fridge with parts missing!  What a shame because it is a fun idea.

This photos shows a lot of things we bought on our trip to the Vegemite museum in Beaufort, the Creswick market and a smattering of op shops and vintage shops in Beaufort, Creswick and Clunes.  The postcards are of paintings of local buildings by Beaufort high school kids using vegemite and water.  The spiced cider and bread are from the farmers market.  I got a green and white striped jumper in an op shop and Sylvia found a colourful skirt at the same place.  In the top right hand corner is a green glass bowl with a curved handle (like a basket) that she bought in an antique shop in Clunes.  We had a lovely trip that I would love to find time to write about!

Also at the Vegemite museum, I bought a stick of vegemite fudge for E who had looked after Shadow in our absence.  It was very nice - yes I had a taste.  Very smooth and not too intensely vegemite.

The whimsical green card was bought in Clunes at a shop with the wonderful name: Opsessed.  I also bought a pen and magnet at the Clunes Bottle Museum, a magnet saying "My keyboard must be broken.  I keep hitting the escape key but I am still at work".  Is it too soon to take this to a new workplace!  And some camomile, honey and vanilla tea to drink in our hotel room.

Sylvia was delighted by all the coloured glass in the bottle museum and bought this lovely green bottle.  She found some fake grapes - just the sort of thing she loves - in an op shop.

While at the Creswick Market I tasted a warm alcoholic spiced apple cider from Daylesford Cider.  I told the stallholder that I would buy it if it was non alcoholic.  He miraculously produced a non alcoholic version and I bought a six pack of the cans.  The heated taster was really good but we have drunk it cold and fizzy.  It is so wonderful, I wish I had more of it.  We really enjoyed it with our roast dinner!  It would be brilliant chilled in a warm Aussie Christmas.
 

We went to KFL supermarket and bought a vegetarian fish sauce and a plant based tonkotsu ramen kit.  I am curious to see the ramen kit but it is not opened yet.  

At Woolworth's supermarket Sylvia bought brown sugar porridge sachets - because it was winter, gluten free oreos and LCMs (accidentally vegan) marshmallow flavoured cereal because it was novel and on special.  I was pleased to have the oreos when a gluten free friend came over for a cuppa.  They were pretty good!  Sylvia really liked the LCMs cereal for a change but said it was very sweet.  

We had an electrician over for a couple of issues.  One was blue stuff leaking out of power points.  Urgh!  More exciting was having him install the light shade that I bought for Sylvia's bedroom last October when we went to Daylesford.  It is so gorgeous.  I have one installed that is like it but not quite as nice.  The electrician had to change the fittings so we could get the new shades up.  I am really pleased with the change because the light fittings that were removed were a glass bowl that was flush to the ceiling and it was quite awkward to unscrew it to change the light bulb.

At the end of my first week of work - my first full week in the office for years - I was tired and forgot to feed the starter for pizza dough.  Instead we ordered pizza from Shop 225.  When I arrived to pick up - after a text message - the pizzas were ready but they were still doing the dessert so the pizzas were not very warm by the time I arrived home.  The place was really busy and had a cosy vibe.

We had the From Nonna's Garden pizza with pomodoro stracotto (stewed tomato), eggplant, zucchini, onion, basil and parmigiano reggiano.  It came with the thin and crunchy Roman style base and by the time it got home it was really floppy but the flavour was amazing.  The other pizza was called 2807 (why??).  It had a puffy thicker base and was topped with fior di latte, mushroom cream, pork sausage, porcini, parsley, parmiagiano reggiano and "finished with truffle oil".  I was less keen on these because pork sausage and creamy sauce is not really my thing.  I loved the puffy crust!

It was good to finally try Shop 225 pizza which were very good.  This Italian restaurant prides itself on its inclusiveness.  They cater for vegans and celiacs.  Most pizzas can be adapted from both diets.  For dessert we had fried gnocchi with nutella.  The gnocchi was like doughnut balls.  They were tossed in sugar and excellent with the nutella.  I double checked that the nutella was vegan and it was.  We would love to go back and eat in.

Last weekend, I had a great leftover lunch.  The night before we made a great vegan pizza with some leftovers.  It had backed beans, chopped baked potato, mushrooms, olives, dollops of cashew tofu cream and crispy tofu bacon.  On the side was some slaw with a pickled onion brine based vinagrette that worked ok.  Lastly I had a mug of tinned tomato soup; this is my comfort food.

The other dish we had on the weekend that I loved was a Rhubarb and strawberry crumble.  I don't make many desserts but I love to make at least one baked dessert over winter.  It was a weekend of lazy food and a crumble was easy and comforting.  A great way to see out the winter.

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 enjoy her delightful spring greenery hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this event that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.   

In My Kitchen: July 2026

July was a crazy cold month!  It was puffer jacket weather, especially when we were told that the heating at work was out of order until the end of winter.  The month started with school holidays and it just never returned to routine: Sylvia got sick, my bike had a flat tyre and there were lots of changes at work.  We had some good news with the work heating getting fixed earlier plus the pleasure of new armchair and some family history research.  Not much time or energy for new dinner recipes but lots of good food nevertheless.  I will soon write more about our outings in My Monthly Chronicles: July 2026.

Changes in technology drives me batty.  Too many websites are suddenly inaccessible without a login.  I usually just check my GoodReads books without logging in when I am at the shops so I know if I have read a book (I find it hard to keep up with what I have read in a series).  A few weeks ago in an op shop I found I could only see my books by logging in.  So I winged it and bought the book anyway and then got home and found I had read it!  Argh! On the same day I was not impressed to discover that Yahoo suddenly reduced the free emails cap from 1 terrabyte to 15 gigabytes.  It was painful but also liberating to reduce my yahoo emails from 17GB to 12GB.  Now I just need to keep them down and try and delete more photos off my phone!  It is neverending keeping up with technology.

My siblings have recently had quite a bit of travel between them.  My brother Dave was in China and brought us back a brilliant hot pot fridge magnet that you can see above with our foodie fridge magnets.

We didn't make many new meals this month but I enjoyed revisiting a few favourites.  Clockwise from top left:

• Our version of Minestrone is on our weekly meals a lot.  This one included parsnip and fennel
• Samosa pie - this is like an Indian style pot pie and tastes so good - why has it been so long since I made it!  (It had a lot of liquid so I added a spoonful of cornflour.)
• Meera Sodha's Vegan Broccoli, Fennel, Chickpea and Orzo Stew was one of the meals we made again after loving it the previous month.
• And Fried rice with tofu scramble - but a little different to usual with Sylvia making her tofu scramble separately so we could add it at the end of the fried rice instead of cooked in it.  One big advantage of this was the the turmeric only coloured the scramble so it contrasted with the pale rice.
   

I have posted about my Vegan roast dinner pizza using short cuts.  One of the shortcuts was making roast potatoes in the air fryer.  It only works with a small batch with our small air fryer.  I got tired of either wiping up a greasy air fryer tray or using paper inserts so I have purchased a silicone air fryer insert that be easily washed.  I first bought a nicer more expensive one but it did not fit so I gifted it to my mum who loves it.  Ours is cheaper and brighter and does the trick!
 

These frozen samosa pastizzi are a new favourite.  We buy thim in FOY next to the Coburg Woolworths at $11 for 12.  They take between 15-20 minutes in the air fryer at 220 C.  The crispy pastry and spicy vegeie filling are so delicious to pull apart.  It is a challenge to try and wait for the steaming heat to subside.  This is the only pastizzi there that are vegan.  While not that cheap, they are better value at 850g than the vegan samoa packet in the next door supermarket that is $12 for 500g.

A favourite from my childhood is is curried sausages.  I figured out how to do a tray bake of vegetarian baked curried sausages a while back and revisited the recipes when we needed warming food.  Sylvia is starting to really enjoy some curried meals so it was good to see her enjoy it.

I bookmarked a recipe for a one banana banana cake quite some time ago.  As I am now eating a few more of them I put one aside to get old and soft to try this banana bread.  It was a vegan banana bread with a crumble topping.  We loved it.  There is another old banana in the fridge right now so perhaps the universe is telling me I need to make this again!  Well, who dares to say no to the universe!

We are also having more sauerkraut in our kitchen on rice bowls and sandwiches.  The Gaga's gut loving Raw dill pickle kraut is a favourite.

While on Smith street to have lunch at Not so sushi,we had a wander down the street to browse some of the foode shops: Friends of the Earth, Soul Foods, Alimentari and Hinoki.  We mostly resisted temptation but at Hinoki we bought a couple of Daifuku (a strawberry and a green tea) and a packet of frozen edamame.  We use edamame quite a bit and needed some, but I think I was also swayed by the cute red checked packet.

 

I am a fan of these salt and vinegar sweet potato nibbles which are a pleasing light snack.  Sylvia enjoys them because they are vegan unlike a lot of flavoured crisps.  We just can't work out why a flavouring like lime and black pepper needs to have milk in the ingredients.  

We went to the Coburg Farmers Market because it was the last market appearance by the always amazing vegan Better Now Bakes before they open their new shop in Brunswick East.  As usual we were too tempted and came away with so much fantastic baking: the richest best tahini brownie, the piquant pickle chive and dill scone, a fluffy tasty Japanese curry focaccia (with potato, furikake and seaweed?), a pleasing yuzu white choc and coconut cake and a scrumptious and gorgeous apple maple and pecan cake.  We will miss them at the market but can't wait to visit their new shop which is set to open very soon.

We bought some beige food from KFL - soy chunks, potato curry puffs and vegan eggs - that made the vegan ham from the supermarket look colourful!  The curry puffs weren't anywhere near as good as the samosa pastizzi's above but Sylvia loved them.  She has also been enjoying vegan ham and cheese sandwiches.  There are some plans for the soy chunks but we have no idea how to pry apart the frozen vegan fried eggs.

Here are some vegan supermarket purchases: iced matcha latte with oat milk, hearty mushroom and lentil pies, vanilla rice puds, packaged tofu scramble, the tea collection of iced mochi (hojicha, genmaicha and matcha), and a frozen mango sticky rice with coconut milk.  We have had most of these - the pies were really good with a pre-chopped kale slaw pack, the scramble was nice enough in a taco bowl, Sylvia was excited about the sticky rice with mango and the mochi.  There is a wee box of panadol to signal there there was pain too but not enough to stop Sylvia eating good food.

When I asked my sister Fran to surprise me when she had me in my family KK gift giving I knew she would find something interesting.  With the cold weather we finally got to try the Ground Pleasures original hot chocolate powder that she gave us.  It was amazing.  I am pretty fussy with hot chocolate powder but this was so good that we finished it within weeks.  Sylvia gave it a dash of pizazz with her hand held milk frother and a sprinkle of hot chocolate powder on top.  It is not the cheapest and is not in supermarkets but we might need another box before the end of winter.

Life is chaotic and busy so it is wonderful when we can slow down and create collages.  This is one I made in the kitchen in July.  You can see the mess it makes in the background of the hot chocolate photo but even with the cleaning up, it is a relaxing activity.

 

It is a year since we had our house painting.  Two of the outstanding things to do over that time were to buy a new chair for the loungeroom and to find a green teacup for the glass kitchen cabinet.  In July we managed to achieve both.  We have looked at so many photos of chairs on FaceBook market place and found it really hard to find the right one.  This floral chair was not my ideal but it is close enough for jazz!

In June I bought a green teapot and tea cup set that I really love.  More recently Sylvia fell in love with another green teapot set, this time at the Salvos op shop where we bought our chair.  It has not been easy to fit both tea sets into the cabinet but Sylvia was determined and made it work.  I have compared the three iterations of our cabinet above.  In July 2025 I organised a fairly spacious cabinet after quite a few items were sent to the op shop.  The following month Sylvia reorganised with some of the op shop pieces she loved.  Then in July 2026 the cabinet is now full with lots of lovely green.

Finally here is a close up of the cabinet so you can admire some of the detail on the new green sugar bowl with a few sentimental items including a gnome salt and pepper shaker I bought as a child and a green decanter I bought when living in student share houses,

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 event that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.