Cosy soups and favourite pastas
Plus the recipes I'm repeating in autumn
Hello!
March was a huge month for milestone birthdays, meaning multiple trips to Sydney, a room service burger at my favourite hotel, and a total of five birthday cakes. I lost track of regular life for awhile and became a recipe repeater, returning to some easy favourites. There was a lot of pasta! Here are my highlights.
Obsessed with baked vodka sauce
I couldn’t stop thinking about this bowl of pici with tomato vodka sauce that my friends Angie and Dave made when they came to visit. She uses Ina Garten’s vodka sauce via Alexandra Cooks, which is simmered and then baked. Ang left the cream out of this one (we were also out of onions!!) and it tasted perfect to me. I was hassling her for the recipes as soon as she left.
Extra comforting chicken wonton soup
I loved this chicken soup with chicken wontons from Smitten Kitchen. It uses store bought stock, made extra tasty with a few easy additions, many of which are ingredients in the chicken wonton mixture. While my dumplings look more like… parcels, this was such a comforting meal as the weather started to turn cold and rainy. It was worth the effort and it would be so nice to have a stash of dumplings in the freezer.
Tuesday night mac and cheese
I also made and loved Deb Perelman’s quick, stovetop mac and cheese, which had cacio e pepe vibes. Tony recently bought a Kitchen Aid pasta attachment makes small shapes, like penne, fusili and macaroni, and insisted on making fresh macaroni. Somehow we pulled it off on a weeknight, probably because the mac and cheese part was so quick! Next time I want to try the recipe with smoked cheddar.
Almost-too-lazy-to-cook roasted tomato soup
This is an ideal weeknight dinner, made with plenty of garlic and tinned tomatoes that are roasted in olive oil until they smell delicious. The recipe comes from Gentle Foods by Christina Chaey and I made it on one of those nights when I wasn’t sure I had the time or brain space to cook.
Four reliable favourites
Eric Kim’s sheet-pan japchae (NYT Cooking gift link) is always so easy! The veggies bake while you boil the sweet potato noodles and mix up a quick sauce before it’s time to combine everything and dig in.
I made a batch of ever reliable lentil, potato and lemon soup with greens by Lina Jebeile. It’s a simple, comforting soup that’s lovely for lunch or dinner.
I was very happy to grab a container of lentil bolognese from the freezer after a very long travel day. This one is by Hetty Lui McKinnon and it’s now my go-to, even though I eat meat.
My local supermarket has started selling shokupan, fluffy Japanese milk bread. It’s the key ingredient of Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s Tokyo French toast, a recipe I have loved for years! I’m thinking of packing the ingredients for a beach trip we’re taking with friends soon.
Catch you next month!
Sonya
Thanks for all the great recipes.
But have to admit that a hotel made room service burger and fries with salad is a long missed fav.
And see a side of sliced Kiwi fruit on your front pic, which i usually eat with skin on, but washed and dried well, to some people's surprise.
At work for a while, we had Exotic Fruit Afternoon once a month during a long afternoon meeting. I had grown two large clumps of Dragonfruit which had attached to two large pine trees. These were popular; until some one actually stole them, but a few remnants left behind and were able to regrow but in another part of the garden, but not as successfully as the pine trees were v large, and the rough bark anchored them well.
Our workplace a bit like the UN, and so introduction to a lot of new things.
Big fan of Hetty Lui always, and like the wontons and cheesy mac for ease.
Regards.
Love a good lentil bolognese 🙌🙌🙌 I make it all the time https://makepurethyheart.com/vegan-bolognese-using-lentils-gardein/