Entries Tagged 'One Dish Meals' ↓

I was walking up Spadina St, which is where much of Chinatown is in Toronto, looking for bits for a ‘thank you’ dinner party for my Canadian hosts.

Many of the grocers have baskets of produce out the front and one shop owner had to periodically wipe the snow off piles fruit and veg. It was all pleasingly charming and disorientating (no pun intended).

Anyway, one of these baskets was full of small, dried, white figs of the same type that I had discovered back home in Sydney earlier that year. They come from Iran and are often labelled as “Iranian figs”.

I bought a bag and popped one in my mouth for the walk home which, when I almost broke a tooth, was how I discovered I’d actually bought several handfuls of dried chestnut kernels.

Taking them back with me to Halifax I sought a recipe. And there in my sister-in-law’s collection was a doozy.

Continue reading →

Ah Spaghetti Bolognaise! The bachelor’s friend, muse and destroyer of waistlines. Here I offer a hot new take on an old favourite. All measures are calculated for two people of firm appetite with enough left over to fill a few jaffles on a hungover late winter morning.

This one’s a bit tricky though as it involves not one (1) but two (2) hotplates. You’ll need all your project management skills here.

Continue reading →

Five weeks now without a car, although the insurance company promises me it’ll be fixed on Wednesday. Promises, promises.

Having no car, even in Canberra, even in winter, has been absolutely fine until this last week when I’d already been sick for a week when both the kids got really crook. Bit of a bugger walking a five year old home from the doctor and having to wait while he vomits because he’s been coughing so hard. Could be worse, of course, as no-one has cancer (we hope) and everyone has all their limbs, but I felt sorry for the little bugger all the same.

So on Saturday morning I pounced on my dear friend Steevy when he dropped by IN HIS CAR and inveigled him into taking us to Choku Bai Jo. It was lovely to see Cristy, Paul and Lily there, even though I had to confess that I was buying a bunch of baby turnips just because they were tiny! (the largest nearly an inch wide) and cute! although I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

Pasta with baby turnips, bacon and turnip greens

This needs about 10 minutes preparation time and up to 15 minutes to cook, depending on the pasta you choose (wholemeal spirals for us). Will serve 3 adults or 2 adults and two kids.

Ingredients

1 bunch baby turnips, washed thoroughly with the greens cut into 3-4 cm lengths.
2 rashers bacon
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
toasted walnut fragments
romano cheese, grated finely
black pepper
a sturdy pasta that you like

Preparation

Put on a big pot of water to boil.

I’d planned to leave a little of the stems on the turnip bulbs, Japanese-style but was defeated by the tiny grit filled folds of stem and cleanly beheaded them before slicing each one into two or three thick slices. Go with whatever you’ve got the patience for.

Parboil the turnips for a minute or so and retrieve them. Add the turnip greens to the pot for just a minute and drain them, then add salt and the pasta to the pot.

Chop the bacon into 1 cm slices and fry gently. I only had that poxy flabby packet bacon – thanks, Dad – so cooked it veerrrrrrry slowly until it had crisped gently and then splashed on some some Camellia Oil. I have fallen in love with Camellia Oil thanks (again) to Fuchsia Dunlop – it’s earthy, peppery and delicious. Add in the crushed garlic and turnips and after a few minutes stir through the greens. In just a minute the pasta will be ready, and you can throw some in the pan.

Serving

Serve in a nice deep bowl, and sprinkle generously with parsley and walnuts and a bit less generously with cheese and pepper. The turnips are mellow and subtle, the greens are zingy and delicious and the pasta gives you enough energy to chase children all afternoon. Ann, you may omit the bacon, but then you’d want to add some salt.

So now I have to work out what to do with the cavolo nero (aka Tuscan kale, black kale or dinosaur kale) that was the other thing I couldn’t resist …

From epicurious, via the best-named food blog evah, Rachel’s Thus Bakes Zarathustra, a slightly spooky salad for Owy to take to the school fundraiser trivia night. (I was going, but have got an evil lurgy and instead I am going to bed with a pile of magazines. There is no need to feel sorry for me as I have been doing a very good job of that myself. But thank you.)

 
I hate it when “bring food to share” turns into six kinds of dip and two kinds of biscuits, so the plan is to take some trimmed up corn mountain bread and let people make little wrappy things with this rather lurid beetroot pesto from stone soup and the salad.
 

I used tinned black beans, which Rachel found impossible to find. I’ve only found organic ones, which suits me fine. I used a little hack picked up from another outspoken female (I think) and briefly boiled the tinned beans to remove any metallic flavour. Because I am undeniably poncy, and because it is Friday the 13th, I used black quinoa.

Who knew there was such a world of quinoa? I’ve seen the white and red varieties before, but the health food store at the local shops has a new owner and she’s really expanded their product range. She didn’t know much about it, other than it was organic, and she suggested that you could cook all three kinds together. Not sure about that, as the black to me is a little toothier than the white or red. I boiled then steamed it as per the epicurous method and I’m a convert. The little white rings so characteristic of quinoa become more apparent after cooking, so you lose some of the intensity of the colour, but it has that lovely quinoa nuttiness. The salad dressing features melted butter and lime juice so of course it’s excellent.

You’d think that realising how much of my thinking about what to have for dinner comes from food blogs might stop me buying cookbooks, wouldn’t you?