Chickpea & artichoke salad

October 6, 2025

   

Michael was away for work, and I wanted to stock the fridge with a couple of durable salads to rely on across the week. This one was so deep in my bookmarks that I needed the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to retrieve it! It's a natural and appealing mix of artichoke hearts and chickpeas, both browned in a pan, then dressed with lemon juice, olive oil and some green herbs, finished with almonds.

This fit the brief perfectly. I first ate it alongside beetroot and rhubarb salad and vegetarian sausage rolls, and in a few other configurations as the week went on.

Chickpea & artichoke salad

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Ricki Heller)

5 tablespoons olive oil, and/or oil from the jar of artichoke hearts

juice of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons dried or 2 tablespoons fresh basil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup flaked almonds

1 x 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 x 280g jar artichoke hearts, drained and quartered (reserve oil, if included)

2 cloves garlic, minced

In a medium-large bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons of oil, lemon juice, basil, oregano, parsley and salt. Set aside.

Set a frypan over medium heat and gently toast the flaked almonds until they're starting to brown and they smell great. Remove them from the pan.

Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the frypan. Add the chickpeas to the oil and cook them for about 10 minutes, until they start to brown. Transfer the chickpeas from the pan to the bowl.

Add 1 more tablespoon of olive oil to the frypan. Place the artichoke hearts in the pan and cook until they're well browned on that side, then turn them to brown them on another side. Add the garlic and stir it all together for a minute, then transfer the artichoke hearts and garlic to the bowl. Stir everything together well, then sprinkle over the flaked almonds.

Omelette roll sushi rice bowl

September 26, 2025

   

This is a fun little Meera Sodha recipe that we'd never think to compose ourselves, but we love on sight! So much so that we repeated it one night later with our remaining eggs, and again perhaps a month after that. The hook is the mirin-sweetened omelette roll. It's teamed with sushi rice, quick-pickled carrots and wasabi mayo. 

We've made some minor adjustments. We prefer less rice in the ratio and sprinkle a little shichimi togarashi over it for extra spice. We add a scoop of microwaved edamame for some extra greens and a novel texture. That's it! If there's a downside, it's that this meal isn't particularly leftover or lunchbox friendly. But it's a level of effort that we're willing to make on a weeknight, and it feels like a treat.

Omelette roll sushi rice bowl

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Meera Sodha in The Guardian)

200g sushi rice (this was too much for us, and we reduced by a third the second time)

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup sushi rice vinegar, or 1 tablespoon caster sugar dissolved in 1/2 cup rice vinegar

1 large carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks

1-2 teaspoons wasabi paste

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 cup frozen edamame

6 medium eggs

1 tablespoon mirin

1 1/2 tablespoons tamari

2 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil

shichimi togarashi

1/2 teaspoon black sesame seeds

Place the rice in a saucepan and cover it with 280ml water. Bring it all to the boil, cover it with a lid, turn down the heat to low and cook for a further 10 minutes. Turn off the heat but keep the lid on for another 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, stir together half of the salt and half of the sushi rice vinegar. Set it aside. 

Place the carrot matchsticks in a medium bowl, pour over the remaining sushi rice vinegar and salt. Stir it all together and set it aside.

In a small bowl, mix together the wasabi paste and mayonnaise. Set it aside too.

Place the edamame in a microwave-safe bowl and cover them generously in water. Microwave for 2 minutes, until hot, and set aside.

Now, the main event. Crack the eggs into a medium bowl and beat them well. Add the mirin, tamari, and half a tablespoon of sesame oil. Set a frypan over medium heat and add a tablespoon of the sesame oil. When it's hot, pour in half of the egg mixture and cook until golden on the bottom and just barely set on top. You can take the omelette out now, or flip it to fully set the other side if you prefer. When the omelette is done, transfer it to a plate and repeat with the remaining sesame oil and egg mixture.

To serve, divide the rice between two shallow bowls and sprinkle it with shichimi togarashi. Roll up each omelette, slice them into inch-thick spirals and arrange them next to the rice. Add the edamame and pickled carrot to the bowl, then spoon in the wasabi mayonnaise and sprinkle it with black sesame seeds.

Torn lasagne with kale & kimchi, plus pickled fennel

September 7, 2025

   

Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart has been one of our favourite recent additions to the cookbook pile, but we've got to keep reminding ourselves to keep digging through it for more gems (instead of just falling back on the classic gems). This torn lasagne has been on my list for ages, and we had a quiet Sunday night to give it a go. 

The idea of a low fuss lasagne is obviously hugely appealing - no meticulous layering, just a delicious baked melange! There's still a bit of work to prep-wise, but it's definitely easier than some our other baked pasta attempts. There are two pre-baking steps: fry up your kale a bit and then make your smokey tomato sauce and then pile everything up in a baking tray and wait. It was so perfect for my tastes, smokey and spicy and hugely cheesy - the torn lasagne sheets give just enough texture to the whole thing. I would eat it every week if possible. 

We decided it needed some sort of vegetable accompaniment and after a quick flick of Tenderheart I settled on this very basic pickled fennel. It was basically the perfect accompaniment, tangy and crunchy and just the right thing to cut through the rich lasagne. What a meal.

 

   

Torn lasagne with kale & kimchi

(from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

1 bunch of kale

1 garlic clove, crushed

450g fresh lasagne sheets

500g ricotta

1 cup grated cheddar

1 cup kimchi

olive oil

salt and pepper

tomato sauce

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons gochugaru

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon white sugar

800g can crushed tomatoes

sea salt

olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Trim the leaves off the kale stems and roughly chop them, then finely slice the stems.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan on high heat and saute the kale stems and garlic for a minute. Add in the leaves, sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and stir-fry for another 4-5 minutes, until the leaves have wilted. Kill the heat and put the kale aside.

Get cracking on the sauce, by heating a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and the garlic in a large saucepan. Cook for 30 seconds and then throw in the gochugaru, paprika, oregano, sugar and a couple of generous pinches of salt. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and about 2 cups of water. Stir everything together and let it simmer for 20 minutes or so. 

Tear the lasagne sheets into rough strips, fairly large ones but really whatever suits your vibe. 

In a large bowl combine the ricotta with a couple of tablespoons of water and whisk until it's smooth. Add half the cheddar, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and some salt and pepper and stir together. Fold in the kale and the kimchi and then finally gently stir through the torn lasagne sheets.

Pour the sauce into a large baking dish and then gently stir in the cheese/kale/lasagne mix. Top with the rest of the cheddar and carefully pop the whole thing into the oven. Bake for 40 minutes until the cheese has gone nice and golden. Let it all sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Pickled fennel

(from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

1 bulb fennel, finely shaved and chopped

125ml rice vinegar

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

Place the fennel in a bowl.

Put 125ml of water into a saucepan and add in the rest of the ingredients. Heat over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Take off the heat and immediately pour it over the fennel. Leave to pickle for 15 minutes and serve!

Salt 'n' pepper gems

June 21, 2025

   

We've been getting the old potluck crew together again a bit this year and it's been so great. After the success of the tomato-themed evening earlier in the year, we regathered in June for a potato-focussed event. Potatoes offer up so many possibilities, but I've been eyeing off this very simple but very exciting-looking recipe in Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart since we first flicked through it. Potato gems are spectacular on their own, but this recipe really takes them to new heights. It's so, so easy and the return on investment is incredible - it was one of the hits of a very high quality potluck. Stop reading this, go and buy some gems and then come back and cook this up, trust me.

Salt and pepper potato gems

(from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

800g frozen potato gems (one bag)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 red chilli, finely sliced

3 green onions, finely chopped

seasoning

2 teaspoons of salt

1/2 teaspoon white sugar

1 teaspoon white pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice

Preheat an oven to 220°C and then bake the gems for half an hour, until they're golden and crispy - don't be afraid to give them more if they're not golden. 

Combine all the seasoning ingredients in a bowl and mix well. 

Heat a large frying pan or wok over medium heat and add the oil. Once it's nice and hot throw in the chilli and green onions and stir-fry for a minute. Throw in the gems and stir-fry for another couple of minutes until everything is nicely combined. 

Kill the heat and stir through the seasoning. Serve immediately. 

Cauliflower & eggplant, both with hoisin

June 7, 2025

   

While Michael was away on a work trip, I set about making myself a large, vege-full set of dishes that I could spin out over many meals. These two recipes from Tenderheart had a complementary way about them - the eggplant's marinade includes hoisin sauce and it's served over rice, while the cauliflower recipe involves making one's own hoisin and includes jointly cooking white rice, brown rice and quinoa.

Since I'm not fond of McKinnon's recommended green onion and coriander garnishes for these dishes, my rendition ended up looking very beige and brown. I went a little light on the hoisin for the cauliflower and had plenty leftover to lend to the eggplant marinade. I really enjoyed the mixed grains and would repeat that process to serve alongside any number of recipes.

Meanwhile, the eggplant didn't quite live up to the glossy image in the book. It was pleasantly salty and savoury, very tender; neither flawed nor quite what I was hoping for in a 'char siu' dish. Once I'd managed my expectations this was a very good meal that packed nicely for work lunches. Little garnishes like peanuts and sesame seeds make all the difference to me!

Hoisin-glazed cauliflower with mixed grains & peanuts

(slightly adapted from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

1 head cauliflower

olive oil

salt and pepper

1/3 cup roasted peanuts

hoisin sauce

3 tablespoons tamari

2 tablespoons tahini

1 teaspoon garlic powder

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

pepper

2 teaspoons miso

mixed grains

1 cup brown rice

1/2 cup white rice

1/4 cup quinoa

salt

Preheat an oven to 200°C.

Place the rices and the quinoa in a sieve and rinse them. Transfer them to a medium-large saucepan with 2 1/2 cups of water and a generous pinch of salt. Set the saucepan over high heat, bring it all to the boil and then turn the heat down to low. Cook the grains for 30-35 minutes, until the water is absorbed and the grains are tender. Turn off the heat but leave the lid on the saucepan.

While the grains are cooking, make the hoisin sauce by whisking all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Chop the cauliflower into big, chunky florets. Place them in a baking tray and stir through olive oil, salt and pepper, and several tablespoons of the hoisin sauce. Roast for 20-30 minutes, until the cauliflower is tender.

To serve, load plates up with grains, then cauliflower, spoon over extra hoisin and then sprinkle over the peanuts.

Eggplant, 'char siu' style

(slightly adapted from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

2 large eggplants, sliced into 1cm thick rounds

white sesame seeds, to garnish

marinade

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons hoisin sauce

1 tablespoon tamari

1 tablespoon golden syrup

2 teaspoons rice vinegar

1 teaspoon five-spice powder

Whisk together all of the marinade ingredients. Arrange the eggplant slices in a shallow dish and pour the marinade over them. Allow the eggplants to soak up the marinade for at least 30 minutes and up to 4 hours. Turn them over and/or relayer them in the dish along the way, for more even flavouring, if you're marinating them for a longer period.

Preheat an oven to 200°C. Line 1-2 baking trays with paper.

Arrange the eggplant slices in one layer across the baking trays and bake them for 15 minutes. Retrieve the trays, flip the eggplant slices, and spoon some of the remaining marinade over them. Return to the oven for a further 15 minutes of baking. 

Serve the eggplant slices with more marinade spooned over the top, and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

Cherry tomato & berry crumble

May 3, 2025

   

When making these two tomato desserts, it was important to me that the tomato wouldn't be hidden away - I wanted it to be a prominent, complementary flavour. I recalled having two inspiring back-to-back meals in New Zealand in 2013 that combined tomatoes with red berries - so bright and juicy, sweet and sour! It had me thinking that I could try bringing tomatoes and berries together in a warm fruit crumble for autumn.

My formula was pretty simple: equal weights of cherry tomatoes and frozen mixed berries, giving the tomatoes extra baking time to ensure they were properly soft. Then a crumble based on the proportions I relied on as far back as 2007 (apologies for the diet talk in that post - yeesh). I used gluten-free flour and wheat-free rolled oats to accommodate our favourite coeliac.

Those test proportions were just what I was after! The fruit layer was lush with a clear tomato flavour, subtly savoury amongst the berries, and an even texture across all the fruit pieces. The crumble was nutty and biscuity, not quite as golden as I reckon a wheat-flour version would be. I scooped Billy Van Creamy vegan peach and coconut icecream on the side, and everyone dug in with curiosity and compliments.

Cherry tomato & berry crumble

(based on this general crumble formula)

 

fruit layer

560g cherry tomatoes

560g frozen mixed berries

1/3 cup caster sugar

crumble

100g gluten-free flour

100g wheat-free rolled oats

100g caster sugar

100g margarine

50g flaked almonds

Preheat an oven to 160°C.

Halve the cherry tomatoes, place them in a casserole dish, and bake for 30 minutes, until they're soft and concentrated. 

While the tomatoes are baking, prepare the crumble. Place the flour, oats and sugar in a food processor and pulse briefly. Add the margarine and pulse further. Add the almonds and pulse a final time.

When the tomatoes are ready, retrieve them from the oven and raise the oven temperature to 190°C. Add the berries and sugar to the tomatoes and stir them all together. Dot the crumble haphazardly over the top. Bake until the fruit is bubbling and the crumble is golden brown, about 20 minutes. Allow the crumble to cool a little before serving, with a dollop of something creamy.

Chocolate tahini caramels

December 31, 2024

   

We saw in the new year with friends close by. The hosts were vegetarian and excellent cooks so we knew we'd be well fed and, as I often do, I thought I could best contribute by bringing something sweet. The guest list included dairy-free and gluten-free eaters and my mind swiftly turned to a chocolate tahini caramel recipe I'd bookmarked just a few weeks earlier.

The active preparation time looked pretty quick and I was so relaxed about it all that I took an afternoon nap and just barely allowed enough time for these sweets to set! The tahini caramel looks soft and smooth when poured into the loaf pan but it needs freezing to solidify and once that's achieved, it doesn't necessarily slice into neat little squares. I didn't mind odd little caramel shapes and trusted that my friends wouldn't, either. It's worth keeping the caramels in the freezer right until the last moment before coating them in chocolate, because they will melt - quick work is needed and then it's back into the freezer for a final set.

This is the one drawback of this treat - it's not stable at room temperature. These bites need to be carefully stored, ideally not touching each other, in the fridge or freezer until it's time to serve them. If you can manage that, there's much enjoyment to be had: a fudgy centre with a sweet, nutty flavour; a thin, silky layer of chocolate; and a bonus burst of texture from the sesame seeds on top. 

   

Chocolate tahini caramels

(slightly adapted from a recipe on Minimalist Baker)

2 tablespoons margarine

1/3 cup sweet syrup (e.g. maple, golden; I used brown sugar syrup)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup tahini

1 cup dark chocolate chips

sesame seeds, for garnishing

Line a loaf pan with baking paper. Place the margarine, syrup, vanilla and salt in a small saucepan and set it over medium heat. Whisk the mixture as you bring it to the boil. Turn off the heat and whisk in the tahini. Pour the mixture into the loaf pan and freeze for 1-2 hours, until solid.

When the caramel is solid, line a tray that will fit into your freezer with baking paper. Melt the chocolate using your preferred method. Retrieve the caramel from the freezer and slice it into bite-sized squares (as you can see from the photos above, my bite-sized chunks weren't always square). Use a teaspoon and a fork to swiftly drop one caramel at a time into the melted chocolate, coat it on all sides, and transfer it to the tray. Repeat with all the caramel bites. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the caramels and lightly press them into the top of the chocolate. Pop the chocolates back into the freezer for 30-45 minutes.

After serving, store any uneaten caramels in the fridge or freezer.

Caramelised garlic, zucchini & butter beans

October 24, 2024

   

Cindy keeps a pretty good list of recipes bookmarked from around the internet, and remembered this one when we had a few key ingredients aging in the fridge. It's very, very simple to make and the pay off is a nice, messy dish of veggies, beans and sauce that really does cry out for accompanying fresh bread to sop things up. A very satisfying weeknight meal that was surprisingly rich - I guess miso, olive oil, wine and garlic are a pretty hearty combination of ingredients. This makes a pretty scant four meals, so we had some lunchy leftovers out of it, but it's not going to fill the freezer for the week. 

Caramelised garlic, zucchini & butter beans

(based on this recipe from Meera Sodha's Guardian column)

500g zucchinis, cut into rough bite-sized pieces

6 tablespoons olive oil

6 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

150ml white wine

2 tablespoons white miso

800g butter beans, undrained

1 lemon, zested and juiced

small bunch parsley, leaves chopped

small bunch mint, leaves chopped

salt

Put a couple of tablespoons of oil into a frying pan on high heat and fry the zucchini, turning occasionally until they're golden, almost charred. Sprinkle with salt and set aside.

Put the rest of the oil in the same pan and fry the garlic for a couple of minutes until it's started to go golden. Add the wine and miso and stir the mix together so that it's smooth. Add the beans with their liquid and simmer for 10-15 minutes until you've got the texture you want - a bit liquidy, but you want it to have thickened up a bit.

Stir in the zucchini, lemon zest and juice and simmer for another minute. Kill the heat and stir through the herbs. Serve, with bread.

Sautéed rhubarb & fior di latte dressed in peppercorn oil

October 5, 2024

   

Here's the final component of our Ottolenghi grilling trilogy. This one's my favourite of the bunch and it actually hit the cast iron pan as intended. Sections of rhubarb are set on high heat just long enough to soften and char, then they're dressed with ginger honey, layered with big chunks of fior di latte, scattered with basil leaves and finished with peppercorn oil. It's tangy and creamy up against each other, shot through with sweetness and spice. I think I'd be as happy eating this for dessert as I was working it into my main meal!

Sautéed rhubarb & fior di latte dressed in peppercorn oil

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in The Guardian)

400g rhubarb, trimmed and sliced on the diagonal into 4-5cm lengths

350g fior di latte, burrata or other fresh, milky cheese, drained and roughly torn into large pieces

10g basil leaves

peppercorn oil

1 teaspoon peppercorns

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

flaked sea salt

2 tablespoons oil

ginger honey

90ml runny honey

15g fresh ginger, peeled and julienned

Using a mortar and pestle, lightly crush together the peppercorns, coriander seeds, chilli flakes, and a pinch of salt. Heat the oil in a small saucepan and then add the crushed spices. Cook them for just 30 seconds, then pour the spices and oil together into a small heat-proof bowl or jar. Clean the saucepan.

Set the small saucepan back over medium heat, adding the honey, ginger, a splash of water and a pinch of salt. Cook for about 5 minutes, then turn off the heat and set aside.

Set a cast iron pan over high heat. When it's hot, add the rhubarb in batches, cooking until just charred and softened and then setting aside in a bowl as you go. When they're all done, stir through about half of the honey mixture.

To serve, layer up the torn fior di latte and rhubarb pieces. Drizzle over the honey, scatter the basil leaves on top, and finally drizzle with the peppercorn oil.

Charred carrots & tofu with harissa

October 5, 2024

   

The second phase of our impromptu Ottolenghi afternoon was this double tofu ensemble, combining a silken tofu and tahini-based cream with some charred up firm tofu and carrots. We made a few simplifications from the original recipe, holding back on the spring onion garnish, but otherwise stuck pretty close to Yotam's directions. This packed a pretty decent punch - our supermarket harissa had a good kick, and you really needed the creamy silken tofu underlayer to balance things out. It was great in combination with the fresher greens and rhubarb dishes and the leftovers kept me going for a few lunches. Not a show-stopper, but a very solid contributor.

Charred carrots & tofu with harissa

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in The Guardian)

100g silken tofu

2 tablespoons tahini

salt

50g harissa

1 teaspoon golden syrup

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons tamari

5 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

20g fresh ginger, grated

1.5 tablespoons olive oil

300g firm tofu, cut into thin rectangles

250g baby carrots, trimmed

Blend the silken tofu, tahini and salt together and set aside

Combine the harissa, syrup, vinegar, tamari, garlic, ginger and oil in a biggish saucepan and saute over medium heat for five minutes, until fragrant.

Meanwhile put a frying pan over high heat (we used our cast iron one) and fry the tofu in batches, with just a spray of oil. You want it to char up, so leave it on each side for a couple of minutes. Once it's all cooked up, pop the tofu in the saucepan with your harissa mix, along with 100ml of water and stir together gently.

In the same frying pan, char up your baby carrots until they've blackened in a few spots and softened through - the time it takes will depend on how thick they are, ours probably only took 5 or 6 minutes with a couple of turns. When they're done stir them into your saucepan as well.

 

Serve it up by layering the silken tofu cream down first and then gently arranging the saucy tofu and carrots on top.

Broccolini & asparagus with green salsa & butter beans

October 5, 2024

   

On a weekend in early October, we had the time and energy for a big cook-up. I was in the mood for fresh flavours and hit on an Ottolenghi Guardian column that I bookmarked last year about grilling (i.e. using an open flame). It was bright and all-vegetarian and we were ambitious enough to cook all three dishes!

Since we were making three multi-component dishes, it wasn't realistic to grill everything. We actually grilled (as in 'broiled') the green capsicum and garlic involved. But we oven-baked the intended-to-be-grilled broccolini and aspargus, trusting that they'd acquire a gentle crispness and char around the edges. They're served on a bed of mashed butter beans, intermingled with a spicy green salsa and topped with toasted, cumin-spiked almond flakes.

It was a savoury, hearty dish on the night we made it, still great at room temperature on the following days, and Michael even had some bonus salsa to eat with hummus on toast.

Broccolini & asparagus with green salsa & butter beans

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in The Guardian)

250g broccolini, cut into large bite-sized pieces

200g asparagus, cut into large bite-sized pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

green salsa

1 green capsicum, sliced into four flat surfaces

6 cloves garlic, peel still on

3 large red chillies, sliced into large chunks

30g fresh coriander

10g fresh parsley

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly crushed

salt, to taste

fried almonds

1 tablespoon olive oil

30g flaked almonds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly crushed

salt, to taste

mashed butter beans

2 x 400g cans butter beans, drained

2 tablespoons lemon juice

salt, to taste

Turn a grill onto medium-high heat. Place the capsicum pieces skin-side-up on a baking tray and add the garlic cloves. Place them under the grill until the capsicum skin blisters and turns black, and the garlic cloves have softened. Turn off the heat and set them aside.

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Place the broccolini and asparagus pieces in a baking tray, drizzle over the olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss everything around. Bake for 15 minutes until tender, then set them aside.

When the capsicum is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin and place the pieces into a food processor. Peel the garlic cloves and add 3 of them to the food processor. Add the remaining salsa ingredients and blend until everything is almost smooth. Transfer the salsa to a bowl and rinse out the food processor.

Set a frypan over medium heat, add the oil for the almonds, then the almonds and a pinch of salt. Saute, stirring regularly, until the almonds are golden and fragrant. Turn off the heat and stir in the cumin.

Place the butter beans in the food processor, add the remaining 3 peeled garlic cloves, lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Blend until it's all as smooth as you can reasonably achieve.

Spread the butter bean mash over a large platter. Spoon most of the green salsa over the top and swirl it around. Pile on the broccolini and asparagus, drip over the remaining salsa, and sprinkle over the almonds. Serve.

Celery-cashew stir-fry with a food court omelette

October 3, 2024

   

We're pretty ambivalent about celery over here - it's a valued ingredient in a few favourite recipes, but often leaves more stalks behind than go into the chosen dish. Roasted cauliflower salad is my usual fall-back and it can take some extra beyond the written quantity. When I chose that as my first celery-laden dish this week, I decided to test whether Hetty Lui McKinnon's recipe for cashew celery could serve as a similar back-up.

McKinnon stir-fries celery chunks with your choice of green vegetable, strips of five-spice tofu and cashews, and coats it all in a cornflour-thickened savoury sauce that's lively with ginger. Served with rice, it's a full meal. Even so, I decided to serve it alongside McKinnon's food court omelette, another recipe I'd bookmarked from Tenderheart. It's stuffed with broccoli (or in my case, what remained of a bag of frozen mixed green vegetables) and smothered in a salty-soy gravy that echos the stir-fry sauce.

The omelette is another dish that, served atop rice, is potentially a full meal on its own. (I remember first encountering something similar at Middle Fish and absolutely loving it.) My omelette was much messier than McKinnon's, and I'll not repeat frozen veges for this one, but the gravy was fun and these two dishes worked together well. Time will tell whether we return to this tasty combination, either to use up more celery or entirely on its own terms.

Food court omelette

(slightly adapted from a recipe in Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil

a few spring onions, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

6 eggs

salt and white pepper, to taste

1 head broccoli, cut into small florets and a 5mm dice (or two handfuls frozen green vegetables)

rice, to serve

gravy

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 1/2 tablespoons tamari

3 teaspoons vegetarian oyster sauce

3 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 cup vegetable stock

pinch of white pepper

Make the gravy by placing all of the ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring consistently, for 4-5 minutes. When the gravy has thickened, turn off the heat and set it aside.

Heat a few teaspoons of oil in a frypan, then add the spring onions and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and set it aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, salt and pepper. Stir in the broccoli. Return the frypan to the heat and add a tablespoon of oil. Add a quarter of the spring onion mixture and a quarter of the egg mixture, cooking until the underside is golden and much of the egg has set. Flip the omelette over and allow it to cook through. Remove the omelette from the pan (I stored mine on a paper-lined tray in the oven on low heat) and repeat with the remaining oil, onions and eggs.

Serve each omelette over rice with gravy poured over the top.

Cashew celery

(slightly adapted from a recipe in Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

2 teaspoons cornflour

3 tablespoons vegetable stock or water

1 tablespoon tamari

2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

vegetable oil

4 stalks celery, trimmed and slice diagonally

1 tablespoon minced ginger

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

a few spring onions, finely chopped

green vegetable of your choice (we had kai lan), cut into 5cm lengths

200g very firm five-spice tofu, sliced into 5mm strips

1 cup roasted cashews

white sesame seeds, to serve

rice, to serve

In a small bowl, stir together the cornflour, stock/water, tamari, and wine until they're well mixed. Set them aside.

Set a wok over medium-high heat and add some oil. Add in the celery and stir-fry for a couple of minutes until the celery starts to soften. Push it to the side of the wok so that you can stir-fry the ginger, garlic and spring onion for 30 seconds, then bring the celery back in to the mix. Add the green vegetable, tofu and cashews, cooking for just a minute. The cornflour has probably separated from the other sauce ingredients in the small bowl, so stir them back together and pour them into the wok. Toss everything together until the sauce has slightly thickened and coated everything evenly.

Serve over rice, sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Seven spice chickpea stew

July 21, 2024

   

We've had a kale and coconut salad in our repertoire for nigh on a decade, but I've never quite hit on the right accompaniment for it. It's textured, chewy and quite filling; sweet with coconut, salty with soy, and just faintly bitter from the green leaves. It needs some protein. I've cycled through various marinated tofu recipes, but they usually include more soy sauce and the overall effect is a bit too samey and salty.

This week I browsed through my bookmarks, thinking I'd try chickpeas instead, and I pulled up this recipe from The First Mess. It's kind of like the vodka pasta sauce I made last month: cooked-down onions, and lots of tomato mellowed out with coconut milk (rather than oat cream). I adjusted some of the recipe quantities to use up full ingredient packages. The coconut is a nice echo across the two dishes and the soft, thick texture of this stew is a welcome contrast. It's a comforting meal hot from the kitchen, and just as enjoyable at room temperature packed into a lunchbox. At last, I've made a match!

Seven spice chickpea stew 

(slightly adapted from a recipe on The First Mess) 

spice blend

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

stew

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 x 400g cans chickpeas, drained

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 x 400g can diced/crushed tomatoes

1 x 400mL can coconut milk

salt and pepper, to taste

Stir together the ingredients for the spice blend in a small dish and set them aside.

Melt the coconut oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened; this will take up to 10 minutes. Stir the spice blend into the onions for 1 minute. Stir in the tomato paste for a further minute. Stir in the garlic and chickpeas for half a minute. Add the balsamic vinegar, then the tomatoes, then the coconut milk, and season the stew with salt and pepper. Stir everything together thoroughly and allow it to simmer for at least 10 minutes. (I cooked it down a lot longer while my kale and coconut baked.)    

Latin baked tofu

November 27, 2023

   

I was all set to make us a dinner based around tofu chicharrones one Monday night, but had forgotten the crucial 'freeze and defrost the tofu' stage. This failure had an upside though, in prompting me to get out Viva Vegan and try something different from a book that we really love but seldom explore these days. I settled on this really simple Latin baked tofu, remembering how much we liked the other baked tofu recipes in the book.

This one is probably the simplest of the lot - a very simple marinade and 45 minutes or so of baking and you get a serve of chewy, tangy tofu, ready for whatever you have planned. We combined it with a serve of the silverbeet with raisins and capers recipe that we've made a bunch of times and popped everything in some tortillas. Perfect Monday night meal.

Latin baked tofu

(slightly adapted from Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan)

500g of firm tofu, sliced into ~1cm thick rectangles

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon tamari

marinade

1/2 cup white wine

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon tamari

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Preheat the oven to 200°C. 

Combine the olive oil and tamari in a baking tray (approx 30cm x 20cm, but whatever fits your tofu comfortably). Lay the tofu slices in the baking dish and press into the oil mixture, before flipping them over and repeating - you want them nicely coated. 

Bake the tofu for 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, thoroughly combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Flip the tofu rectangles and pour the marinade over the top, popping everything back in the over for another 25-30 minutes of baking. The marinade should thicken up or evaporate and the tofu should be firm and chewy. 

Serve, scooping out any leftover marinade for extra deliciousness.

Crushed potatoes

November 3, 2023 

   

This is it! The final recipe that I resolved to cook from Six Seasons. We love potatoes and cubed roasted potatoes are on regular rotation in our kitchen, usually teamed with carrots, broccoli, and Quorn schnitzels. These crushed potatoes looked better, but I was skeptical about the extra work they'd require. I'm pleased to report that they're excellent and something we're likely to make again.

I think the key here it cutting the potatoes down to the size of a new potato, to ensure that they're tender within 30 minutes of baking. Then they just need a gentle smush with a fork and they go into a cast-iron pan of olive oil for browning and crunch, with a little garlic tossed in at the end.

We ate these potatoes alongside sausage rolls and Moroccan carrot salad (without the yoghurt). Since they're quite rich, I think they'd be even better with brighter, fresher platemates than pastry - a lemony green salad, or some braised tofu perhaps. It'll be a pleasure to test out a few different configurations.

Crushed potatoes

(slightly adapted from Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden & Martha Holmberg)

500g medium-starch potatoes

olive oil

2 cloves garlic

salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 200°C. Lightly oil a baking tray. 

If the potatoes are large, chop them down to the size of new potatoes (halves or thirds for mine). Place them on the baking tray, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake until tender, about 30 minutes.

Crush the potatoes with a fork so that they're closer to the shape of a thick patty. Pour about a 5mm depth of olive oil in a cast iron pan and heat it up. Add the potatoes one at a time - they should sizzle a bit. You may need to work in batches. When the potatoes are browned on the first side, flip them over. A minute before they're ready on the second side, crush some garlic into the pan and add more salt and pepper. Serve, hot and golden.

New potato salad with soft-boiled eggs

September 17, 2023 

   

Due to the limited options near my workplace, I am rather fastidious about having food ready at home to pack for lunch. It was my motivation for shopping and preparing this salad on a Sunday morning, even though we had a big afternoon and dinner out planned.

It's a recipe from Six Seasons, a book that I'm strategically working through as the seasons permit. The new potatoes and sugar snap peas seemed right for spring, and the soft-boiled eggs promised the protein I'd need to call this a full meal. Otherwise I was pretty loose with the recipe and I suspect the lead author Josh McFadden was, too: his photograph showed cute little radish rounds that I couldn't see anywhere in the ingredients list. I liked the idea, though, and worked some sesame-soy pickled radishes into my version.

I took a lot of license with the other ingredients and proportions too: more potatoes, less lemon, no scallions, sardines, chilli flakes or mint (but a bit of leftover parsley). Perhaps it's barely the same recipe at all! At the very least, it preserves the trinity of potatoes, peas and eggs that I was originally attracted to.

McFadden recommends that soft-boiled eggs be eaten within 24 hours, so this four-serving size was just right for getting us through two meals before I moved onto other packed lunch plans.

New potato salad with soft-boiled eggs

(heavily adapted from a recipe in Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg)

1/2 - 1 batch sesame-soy pickled radishes

~500g small new potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled

2-3 handfuls sugar snap peas, strings pulled off

zest and juice of 1 lemon

3 tablespoons parsley, roughly chopped

4 eggs, at room temperature

salt and pepper

Start with the radishes, slicing them up and getting them into their sugar-salt pickle mix.

Next, go for the potatoes. The aim is for large bite-sized chunks, so halve or third any potatoes that need it. Fill a large saucepan with water, add a generous dose of salt and the potatoes, and bring it all to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender but not falling apart, about 15 minutes.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the sugar snap peas, chopping any extra-large ones so that they're all on the generous end of bite-sized. Place them in a large bowl. Add the lemon juice and zest, parsley, and the potatoes when they're ready, stirring everything together. Add salt and pepper, to taste.

Time to soft-boil some eggs! Refill the saucepan with water and bring it to the boil. Gently lower in the eggs with a spoon, and boil them for 8 minutes. Get a bowl of ice water ready, and transfer the eggs into it when their time is up.

Finish off the radishes by squeezing off their pickling liquid and getting them dressed.

When the eggs are cool enough to handle, peel one for each person that's eating on the spot (I saved two eggs in their shells for our lunch the next day).

Scoop the potato-pea mixture into shallow bowls, add radish pickles and scrunched-up egg, and season with more salt and pepper to taste.

Potato salad with tamarind, coconut & cashews

September 3, 2023

   

Cindy picked this Meera Sodha recipe out for a friend's potluck picnic - it required just a few tweaks to tick everyone's dietary requirements (we cut the garlic and shallots out of the original), and it promised to be a full-flavoured variation on the bog standard picnic potato salad. I fumbled things a bit in the process - over-boiling my spuds, so the whole thing had less of a fancy potato salad vibe and more of a fancy mashed potato vibe. Luckily, it still tasted great - the curry leaves, tamarind, spices and coconut really elevating things and the cashews adding back some of the texture that I'd boiled away. I'll probably take another crack at this over this summer's picnic season, to see if I can come up with something more like the original photo. 

Potato salad with tamarind, coconut & cashews

(from this recipe on from Meera Sodha's Guardian column)

1kg baby new potatoes

3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

10-15 fresh curry leaves

5 large shallots, peeled and sliced finely (we omitted these for FODMAP reasons)

3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed (and these)

1 tablespoon of minced ginger

2 green chillies, finely chopped

100g cashews

2-3 teaspoons tamarind paste

200ml coconut milk

salt to taste

Cut the spuds into bite-sized pieces (big ones I'd suggest, maybe just halved) and cook them in boiling water for about 10 minutes, until tender - I chopped mine quite small and so they were falling apart rather than tender by the time I rescued them from the pot. Drain them and put them aside to cool.

Heat the coconut oil in a large frying pan and add the mustard and cumin seeds along with the curry leaves. Once the seeds start to pop a bit, throw in the shallots and cook gently until they soften and start to brown - about 8 minutes. 

Add the garlic, ginger, chillies and cashews, and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring. Put the potatoes and salt in to the frying pan and cook on high for 5 minutes, turning the spuds once (you're trying to get them a bit crispy here, but mine were well and truly losing their structure at this point). 

Stir through the tamarind paste and coconut milk and cook for a few more minutes - the coconut milk is supposed to evaporate and leave everything with a kind of sticky glaze, but my spuds just drank it all up. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Black pepper tofu & eggplant

August 26, 2023

   

Cindy heard the See Also podcasters raving about this Smitten Kitchen twist on one of our favourite Ottolenghi dishes and was quick to pop it into our rotation. We've made the black pepper tofu for a bunch of special occasions, and this seemed like a less fiddly variant that incorporates a few more veggies without losing any of the punch that had us fall in love with the original version. 

It was exactly that - baking things first means that the eggplant is falling-apart-soft. Our tofu didn't really get crispy, but I think our baking trays got a bit crowded. It starts out looking like an astonishing amount of food, but everything shrinks down to a more appropriate, serves-4 kind of size. Cutting down on the pepper and fresh chilli and just adding a drizzle of chilli oil at the end is the perfect approach for our household, meaning each person can make their plate as intense as they want. Vegan version below - the original has butter instead of Nuttelex.

We served it straight up with rice, and a little bean stir-fry or something would still be a nice side to add, but it's pretty perfect on its own. I suspect we'll make this version a few more times before we go back to the original again!

Black pepper tofu & eggplant

(from this recipe on Smitten Kitchen)

500g firm tofu

1-2 eggplants (you want about 500g)

sunflower oil

1 tablespoon cornflour

4 tablespoons Nuttelex

1 medium red onion, sliced finely

5-6 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1/2 cup tamari

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1-2 tablespoons ground black pepper

salt

chilli oil for serving

Preheat the oven to 220°C.  Cut the eggplant and tofu into rough 2cm cubes. 

Toss a tablespoon or two of oil with the eggplant cubes and a generous sprinkle of salt. Spread the eggplant on a baking tray or two with another drizzle of oil. Toss the tofu cubes with the cornflour and a bit more salt and spread those cubes out on the rest of your baking tray real estate (this was two very full baking trays for us, but all squeezed into one for Deb from Smitten Kitchen somehow). 

Roast for 20 minutes and then gently flip the tofu cubes and stir the eggplant around a bit before roasting for another 10 minutes. 

While everything is roasting, melt the Nuttelex in a large saucepan and gently cook the onion and garlic for 10 minutes or so, until it's beautiful and soft. Stir in the tamari, pepper and brown sugar and simmer for a few minutes. 

Stir the roasted eggplant and tofu back through the sauce and serve, over rice or breads or however you like!

Green miso bean soup

 August 18, 2023

   

One of my colleagues was eating this for lunch at work one day and I hassled her immediately for the recipe. She forwarded me a scrappy text version, but it turns out that it originates at Vegan Dinner Feed on Instagram, so jump over there if you want a sassy video version instead of our early 2000s blogspot approach. 

It's a super easy weeknight dinner that's loaded up with veggies and white beans and has some lovely creaminess from the blended cashews and great savoury flavours from the miso and nooch. The yoghurt/tahini topping is a must too, for a bit of acidity. Once you've stemmed your kale and chopped up your leeks and garlic, the whole thing comes together in no time. We served it with buttery bread, but I reckon it would be great with quinoa or rice too. 

Green miso bean soup

(from this recipe by Sophie Waplington from Soph's Plant Kitchen)

1 small bunch of kale, stems removed

1/2 cup of soaked cashews

2 tablespoons nooch

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons white miso paste

6 garlic cloves, minced

juice of 1 lemon

2 leeks, chopped finely

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

3 tins of butterbeans (including the liquid they come in)

salt and pepper

tahini yoghurt

2-3 tablespoons yoghurt

1 tablespoon tahini

juice of half a lemon

salt

Blanch the kale leaves for a minute or two and quickly run them under cold water. Blend them up with the cashews, nooch, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, miso, half the garlic and the lemon juice. You can add a bit of water here to loosen things up if your blender isn't hitting the mark.

Heat the rest of the olive oil in a big pot and gently fry the leeks for about 10 minutes, with a big shake of salt. You want them to soften and caramelise a bit.

Add in the rest of the minced garlic and the cumin and coriander and continue to fry gently for a few minutes, before stirring in the beans and their liquid. Once that's all combined, stir the blended green mix in as well. Simmer gently for a few minutes while you stir your tahini yoghurt ingredients together. Season with salt and pepper and then serve, with a slice of buttered bread and a bit dollop of yoghurt mix on top. 

Marinated Brussels sprouts

March 26, 2023

   

I have already found a new home for my copy of In Praise of Veg, but I tucked away a few more recipes to try before passing it on. I've been poised especially to use the 'seventies dinner party sprouts' one as soon as I noticed good Brussels sprouts at the shops. They're briefly marinated in a sweet soy mixture and cooked on high heat to achieve crisp, slightly burned edges.

My sprouts didn't have the high colour contrast of Zaslavsky's - perhaps I should have spread them across two trays to give them a bit of room and extra browning. The flavour was also more subtle than I expected but still very satisfying, especially with the peanuts in the mix. The room temperature leftovers were at least as good as the first go-round, and we ate them alongside leftover corn & tomato salad.

Marinated Brussels sprouts

(slightly adapted from a recipe in Alice Zaslavsky's In Praise of Veg)

500g Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved

roasted peanuts, to garnish (optional)

chopped red chilli, to garnish (optional)

marinade

2 tablespoons honey, maple syrup or golden syrup

2 tablespoons tamari

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

2-3 cloves garlic, crushed

Preheat an oven to 220°C. Place a baking tray in the oven to heat up.

Whisk the marinade ingredients together in a shallow container. Arrange the sprouts in the marinade and get them thoroughly coated in the liquid.

When the oven and the tray are hot, carefully retrieve the tray and line it with paper. Spread the sprouts out across the tray and hold onto the remaining marinade. Bake the sprouts for around 10 minutes, until they're slightly burned at the edges.

Serve the sprouts dressed in the leftover marinade, garnished with peanuts and chilli (if using).