I’ve been thinking about the kitchen fireplace I saw at a friend’s place last year. It was lit for a winter lunch, where there were big bowls of beef and red wine stew, an apple and rhubarb crumble, followed by a fresh afternoon walk. This edition has a similar vibe, there’s a vegetarian stew, a comforting crumble, and lots of creamy accompaniments.
But let’s start with cinnamon toast, which I haven’t had in so long! The cinnamon sugar of my childhood was made exclusively by my sister, so I looked up a recipe 😅 Ali Slagle’s cinnamon toast (gift link) uses brown and white sugar, and the bread is gently fried in a pan with butter so it’s crunchy on both sides but stays soft in the middle. It’s nostalgic and low-key… unless you decide to bake your own bread.
I had some leftover milk bread and can highly recommend Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s shokupan from her latest cookbook. I’ve tried many milk bread recipes and this one came out perfectly first go. I’ve started using a bread proofer, which makes baking bread in a cold climate way more predictable (and less heartbreaking too).
Spaghetti all’amatricana
I knew I’d make this spaghetti as soon as I saw it in Gemma Plunkett’s cute recipe newsletter Ding! It’s a perfectly saucy, salty pasta that’s delicious and fast. I love a recipe that comes out looking just like the picture. Plus, there’s something special about a pasta that (generously) serves just two.
Spicy potato stew
Winter came early this year and I made Eric Kim’s gochujang potato stew (gift link) when it was snowing in parts of the state. We didn’t see any snow in Launceston, but you could feel it in the icy, icy air.
When this recipe first popped up, I was reminded of the beans and greens stew Eric kindly recommended for my first winter in Tasmania, which became a meal I made often.
I’m happy to report this is a weeknight-friendly meal that will warm you up from the inside out. You can’t really go wrong with a meal that combines the heat of gochujang with the creamy goodness of potatoes, butter beans and sour cream. Mine came out a bit ugly because I didn’t have any baby potatoes, so don’t judge it by the pic alone!
Jjajangmyeon (Korean black bean noodles)
Jjajangmyeon was my favourite meal to order when I lived in Seoul for a few months. It was a super fun time — I was on an internship and spent my nights copy editing an English-language Korean newspaper, which left plenty of time for eating and exploring.
It was a nice surprise to learn it’s easy to make at home, once I’d made a trip to an Asian grocer for the roasted black bean paste. I used this recipe from Eric Kim’s Food52 column which I scaled up to feed four. A pork belly meal in the middle of the week is a very good thing.
Crumble-heavy apple crumble
Apple crumble is one of my favourite hot desserts, but I haven’t had a go-to recipe until now. For the first one of the season, I made the crumble-heavy crumble from Jessica Elliott’s cookbook Lazy Baking. It has cinnamon, ginger, a nice crunch from almonds and important to me — not too many oats!
Also, what do you serve crumble with? I love the hot/cold combo of crumble and ice cream, but recently learnt a lot of people eat it with custard.
Cheat’s fruit crumble
For (hard) days when you don’t have the brain space to peel or cut fruit, there’s Ella Rossanis’s spiced fruit crumble that uses tinned or frozen fruit. I made a mini version with canned pears for a solo week at home.
Supermarket treats
Mini marshmallows! So cute, so melty.
And curly fettuccine to go with Alison Roman’s bolognese, which Tony made and I simply ate.
😋
thanks so much for this, it's just started raining really hard here in W.A. and I'm feeling in the mood for apple crumble......I like it with cream myself! But I see the virtues of icecream.