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What I've Been Cooking
May. 31st, 2022 06:08 pmMy late tomatoes finally came ripe, so I made a batch of fresh tomato sauce and another batch of my favourite tomato chilli pickle.
I also went a bit mad at the local market after two years of mostly ordering my groceries online and letting Woollies deliver me sad bags of cold-stored fruit and veg on the very brink of expiry. I got my hands on some fresh quinces, so was able to make Nigella's roast quince recipe that I've been quietly lusting after for years. It's from Forever Summer and doesn't seem to be online, but it's really simple - it's just halved quinces, roasted for 3-4 hours in syrup made with another quince boiled to death in sugar water, until the flesh turns to jelly and the outside turns to thick, sticky toffee. So worth the wait. I also added a quince to my usual apple crumble, and it was heaven. About one part quince to two parts apple tasted like a good ratio to me.
I got some kohlrabi, which I'd never had before but will definitely have again. It ended up in a fairly impulsive slaw with red cabbage, baby radish, broccoli stem, carrot and apple that I actually thought was quite good. The kohlrabi and radish tasted especially nice together.
I had great success with these short ribs in barbecue sauce - they're beautifully pull-apart soft, and the barbecue sauce is as good as promised. I only made two short ribs but didn't reduce the sauce quantity, so I've got the leftovers squirrelled away in the freezer, all rich with meat juices.
Other successes: an unusually luxurious mac and cheese made with applewood smoked cheddar that was really too nice to cook with but what the hell, you only live once. An extra-lazy tiramisu - the texture was wrong because my eggs were older than I wanted to eat raw and I didn't have cream, but the taste was lovely. A roast chicken made with this rub plus some lemon zest and a whole lemon in the cavity. A Sri Lankan curry from Sarogini, again not online but similar to this (plus curry leaves, minus soy sauce, I used beef instead of lamb, and I added a bunch of water so it could simmer for hours and turn really soft). Also on the Sri Lankan theme, mallung (made once with brussels sprouts and once with cabbage, both worked great).
I still have a few bits and pieces left from my market splurge - some chestnuts to roast, some spices to play with, a bag of black rice to come up with a use for. I also have a bunch more green tomatoes waiting to ripen, though who knows how many of them will succeed. Unless a bolt of inspiration strikes me I'll probably just make more sauce with them. It's such a good thing to have on hand. And I own a chest freezer now, so I can build up a bit of a stash!
I also went a bit mad at the local market after two years of mostly ordering my groceries online and letting Woollies deliver me sad bags of cold-stored fruit and veg on the very brink of expiry. I got my hands on some fresh quinces, so was able to make Nigella's roast quince recipe that I've been quietly lusting after for years. It's from Forever Summer and doesn't seem to be online, but it's really simple - it's just halved quinces, roasted for 3-4 hours in syrup made with another quince boiled to death in sugar water, until the flesh turns to jelly and the outside turns to thick, sticky toffee. So worth the wait. I also added a quince to my usual apple crumble, and it was heaven. About one part quince to two parts apple tasted like a good ratio to me.
I got some kohlrabi, which I'd never had before but will definitely have again. It ended up in a fairly impulsive slaw with red cabbage, baby radish, broccoli stem, carrot and apple that I actually thought was quite good. The kohlrabi and radish tasted especially nice together.
I had great success with these short ribs in barbecue sauce - they're beautifully pull-apart soft, and the barbecue sauce is as good as promised. I only made two short ribs but didn't reduce the sauce quantity, so I've got the leftovers squirrelled away in the freezer, all rich with meat juices.
Other successes: an unusually luxurious mac and cheese made with applewood smoked cheddar that was really too nice to cook with but what the hell, you only live once. An extra-lazy tiramisu - the texture was wrong because my eggs were older than I wanted to eat raw and I didn't have cream, but the taste was lovely. A roast chicken made with this rub plus some lemon zest and a whole lemon in the cavity. A Sri Lankan curry from Sarogini, again not online but similar to this (plus curry leaves, minus soy sauce, I used beef instead of lamb, and I added a bunch of water so it could simmer for hours and turn really soft). Also on the Sri Lankan theme, mallung (made once with brussels sprouts and once with cabbage, both worked great).
I still have a few bits and pieces left from my market splurge - some chestnuts to roast, some spices to play with, a bag of black rice to come up with a use for. I also have a bunch more green tomatoes waiting to ripen, though who knows how many of them will succeed. Unless a bolt of inspiration strikes me I'll probably just make more sauce with them. It's such a good thing to have on hand. And I own a chest freezer now, so I can build up a bit of a stash!
