Hello!
I stumbled across Smitten Kitchen’s castle breakfast last month and was intrigued.
It’s a bed-and-breakfast inspired spread, built around freshly baked Irish soda rolls served with plenty of butter and jam, along with coffee and whatever fruit you have lying around. Just-baked soda rolls are so delicious and I’ve found myself making them on weekends as well as weekdays — basically anytime we’re out of bread. Two shortcuts: I make buttermilk with milk and lemon and use this Tasmanian whole wheat flour in place of the Irish flour the recipe recommends.
There’s a bit of everything in this edition (cold drinks, breakfasts, dinners and pie!) inspired by the back-to-everything experience of January.
Iced chai
I’m trying to load up on iced drinks while it’s still warm and have been making iced chocolate or chai as an afternoon treat. This chai concentrate from Melbourne is lovely (the bottle is cute too!). Then it’s just ice, chai concentrate and oat milk, shaken up for some lazy froth.
Old-school bircher muesli
There’s something about eating cold food in the peak of summer. This bircher muesli, along with a jug of cold brew helps me feel organised for the week, even when I’m still figuring out what day/date it is. The loose recipe makes enough for two and keeps in the fridge for a few days:
You’ll need:
1 cup and 1 heaped tablespoon of oats
1 tablespoon of hemp or chia seeds if you have/like them
2 tablespoons sultanas
4 heaped tablespoons of Greek yoghurt
1 apple, grated
1 cup milk (whatever kind you like)
A few sprinkles of ground cinnamon
Here’s how:
Mix all the ingredients in a container and leave it to soak overnight. It’s delicious with berries, chopped nuts and a splash of milk.
Colourful chicken ramen
Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s summer ramen is salady, saucy and designed to be eaten at room temperature, which takes pressure off the prep! You could easily chop the veggies and mix up the sauce earlier in the day, then cook the chicken, eggs and noodles come dinner time. I reckon it’d be a hit at a picnic and make a very nice work lunch. I finally bought an oil splatter guard to make this dish even easier next time.
Plum, almond and ginger galette
We have a plum tree in our yard and we went from patiently checking the fruit each day to picking bowls of plums before and after work (the dream!).
One Sunday afternoon I made a plum and almond galette using this recipe from The Guardian. The pastry is extra crumbly and tastes like a palmier. I second-guessed the ground ginger in this recipe and almost skipped it but I’m very glad I didn’t.
Summer pies and galettes are my favourite because the fruit-filling doesn’t need to be cooked separately before baking. I love Sophie Hansen’s nectarine and vanilla pie recipe (I’m programmed to make it with white peaches). If you’re in more of a cake mood, Smitten Kitchen’s dimply plum cake is easy and excellent.
Tomatoey spiced chickpeas
Heidi Sze’s spiced chickpeas combine so many of my comfort foods, specifically soft white rice and anything in a rich, tomatoey sauce. It’s also a recipe with hardly any prep, just soaking chickpeas, chopping some onion and garlic and 15 minutes of active cooking before it simmers and needs little else. Whatever you do, don’t skip the ghee to finish. This dinner freezes well and is what I want to eat any time I come home from a trip.
But the best meal I ate last month…
…was this sausage dinner, cooked on an Airbnb barbecue with a pile of greens that weren’t going to survive the weekend at home 😂 If you’re visiting Launceston, this butcher is great and right next door to the town’s most popular bakery.
Other fun food things
🎧 ‘Celebrity Book Club’ is a podcast that always makes me laugh. The premise is simple and so good. Their episode on Ruth Reichl’s Save Me The Plums is worth it for the Ruth impressions alone.
🍙 If watching food videos soothes you at the end of a long day, check out ’The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House’ on Netflix.
🍌 Banana Yoshimoto’s book of short stories ‘Dead-End Memories’ was released in English last year and it’s somehow both comforting and profound. Two stories have a delightful food focus and one left me craving a thick slice of Swiss roll cake.
👀 I’ve been on a steady diet of ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ award-season interviews. Three highlights: Actor Ke Huy Quan on ‘Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso’, directing duo The Daniels on ‘Death, Sex & Money’, and lead actors Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan on ‘The Naked Lunch’.
Another excellent roundup! Will definitely be trying the summer ramen recipe while summer is still here. And looking forward to listening to Celebrity Book Club!