We are now in the second half of winter, which means it’s last chances to have the oven and slow cooker running at the same time, without worrying that you are going to get cooked in your home alongside your lunch. So here are my favourite things to make in winter.
Let’s get those ovens running!!
Many Chinese dishes have stories behind them. Maybe it’s cause we know that food tastes richer with a legend or two, or maybe the lack of modern entertainment gave us cause to make things up. Either way, I love these tales that accompany my meal – it turns a simple lunch from a functional action, into a dining experience.
I think I’m a hippie at heart. There are a great many ideals I am in support of, and bringing together a community through food is definitely one of them.
Which is why I love the concept of Lentil as Anything – a not-for-profit restaurant with a unique business model of pay-as-you-like, all in the name of the community. But the question remains: how is the food?
I was researching party recipes lately, and I’ve come to learn that African dishes differ greatly. I guess I should have know, being an Asian and all, but it didn’t really click. Maybe it’s because African cuisine is not as documented, exported, and prolific, but there’s definitely a great wide area there to explore.
This particular marinade came from a hodge podge of influences. I had picked up a basic chermoula recipe from a chef I had worked with – coriander, garlic, paprika – and started adding my own variations based on ingredients that I’ve had at home. The result might not be the most authentic Chermoula, but it certainly has become a family favourite!
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Every year, the Refugee Council of Australia organises Refugee Week, a period where awareness is spread about the journey of refugees, and when we celebrate their positive contributions. This year, Refugee Week falls between 15th to 21st June, and to commemorate it, the I Ate My Way Through Meetup group went on a food crawl to explore these cultures the best way we know how: through food.
Leftovers. Both a blessing and a curse, they can be the most convenient thing in your fridge, or that tub of mystery meat that you don’t want to throw out but you’re absolutely tired of eating.
Enter pies: one tool in the modern cook’s arsenal to repurpose just about everything that you can throw in it. Just sandwich it between layers of puff pastry and call it a pie!
And what is that? Creamy cheese sauce? Why I think I will, thank you very much.
Dumplings and noodles – two of the foods that we can never get enough of in my house. To me, they are deeply comforting, and have the ability to take away all the tension from the day.
So when you open a dumpling and noodle shop right outside Aldi (my usual hangout), it’s like the heavens have opened and smiled down upon me, enabling me to get my noodle fix, anytime.
Winter is the season for noodle soups, and I don’t discriminate! From chicken noodle soups, to one-pot man soups, and everything in-between, noodle soups are the perfect all-in-one dish to soothe a cold and rejuvenate a tired body.
So why not expand your noodle soup horizons with this version of a Persian classic?
A basic red sauce is so versatile. Just tweaking aromatics and spices can turn it into a sauce from almost any culture. And it’s not only a culinary chameleon, it’s also freezer friendly!
So when I had a tub of red sauce defrosting in my fridge, I just knew that I had to do something different with it – I had already made lasagne and spaghetti bolognese, so what about meatballs?
Given that we had been eating a lot of pasta, I knew that I didn’t want to have meatballs over more pasta. So, inspired by the smells coming from the local bakery, we decided that meatball subs were in order!