Hello!
I signed up to my first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box from this Tassie farm last month and it’s completely changed the way I cook. Instead of making a shopping list each week, I pick up our weekly box and figure it out from there. It’s helped me discover new recipes and shop my pantry more often.
Here are my highlights from last month, some have already been made multiple times:
Green tea soba noodles with salmon
I’ve been making salmon with soba noodles for years using a bunch of different recipes, but this version by Julia Busuttil Nishimura is outstanding. The green tea noodles are fragrant, the salmon crispy, and the soup subtly sweet. It’s not an easy meal to make (I used every burner on my stove), but it’s worth it.
I made a double-batch of dashi as Julia recommends, so making it a second time was a lot easier, and perfect for a few solo nights at home. Out of laziness, I’ve normally used regular soba noodles in place of green tea ones, but I made a special trip to the Asian grocer this time and am so glad I did. This is my favourite meal of this edition!
Dumpling salad with chilli crisp vinaigrette
Hetty Lui McKinnon posted a link to this recipe during summer in Australia, saying it was a hit during tomato season in the US. I bookmarked it and made it two weeks in a row. Dumpling salad is such a fun concept and a delicious way to combine two good things — heirloom tomatoes and frozen dumplings (I used pork and chive). It was our dinner on Chinese New Year’s Day and then an easy meal after coming home from trip to nipaluna/Hobart. It’s from NYT Cooking, here’s a gift link if you’re keen to make it.
Scallion oil noodles, a favourite back pocket dinner
I included Betty Liu’s scallion oil in the first edition of this newsletter and it’s still a staple in my house. It’s such an easy way to use up bunches of scallions that are starting to wilt and you can keep it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
Once it’s made, you just need a single pot to boil some egg noodles. I throw chopped beans and a bunch of tatsoi into the pot for the last few minutes of cooking, before draining and stirring through the oil.
Crispy chicken thighs with zucchini and buttermilk dressing
The upside of receiving a lot of zucchini in our CSA box was having to find new ways to use them. I might not have found this crispy chicken dish by Ham El-Waylly (NYT Cooking gift link) otherwise.
Prep is simply salting the meat, chopping the zucchini into large chunks then blitzing together a creamy sauce. There’s a quick fry of the chicken then the zucchini before everything’s finished in the oven. The jalapeño buttermilk sauce is so zingy and creamy. We had it with buttered bread one night then the recommended white rice another. I had no idea zucchini could taste this good.
Two zucchini salads
Do you eat zucchini raw? I hadn’t and hesitated to make these salads, before seeing they were both by Ali Slagle. The first was a smashed zucchini salad with crispy chickpeas, jalapeño and peanuts (NYT Cooking gift link), which had a really nice kick.
For work lunches, I made her orzo salad with lentils and zucchini (NYT Cooking gift link). Because I love pasta, the orzo salad was my favourite.
Reader, I even made this chocolate zucchini loaf cake by Jesse Szewczyk (NYT Cooking gift link). It had the nicest pockets of melted choc chips.
Honey and seed muesli bars
I remembered these baked muesli bars by Heidi Sze recently, after writing about them for work. It’s such a comforting recipe, made with oats, pepitas, almond butter and melted butter. They made the house smell amazing and were so handy to have for breakfasts, snacks and road trips.
Sourdough updates
I’ve had the best run of sourdough baking, especially while it’s been warm in lutruwita/Tasmania. I’ve been feeding my starter every week to bake and the consistency has made it more predictable.
I am still using the same two recipes, the easy sourdough recipe from
’s e-book, and the seed bomb loaf from her newsletter.Catch you next month!
We eat dumpling salad maybe once a week!
Nice kitchen situations ❤️ I'm inspired 🫶