Simple pastas, salads and a dinner for one

Plus, everyday glasses from Japan

Hello!

It took me ages to get back into cooking at the start of the year, until I remembered it’s the best time of year to make a favourite cherry tomato pasta.

For this last month of summer, I’m sharing lunchbox-friendly salads, a creamy mango pie, and Japanese drinking glasses for morning iced lattes.

My favourite summer pasta

I basically wait all year for tomato season, when they’re cheap enough to make this burst cherry tomato pasta (Epicurious). It takes just 15 minutes to cook and tastes like summer! It’s made with very simple ingredients, just pasta, garlic, basil, tomatoes, parmesan and olive oil. It makes enough for six and would look beautiful served family-style.

A bright and easy rice salad

Pretty and delicious.

Hetty Lui McKinnon’s brown rice salad is a simple and surprising recipe I made two weeks in a row. It happens to be an excellent use-it-up recipe, perfect for the leftover bunches of herbs, celery and spring onions I had in the fridge. Each mouthful is delicious, with sultanas, herbs and feta cheese. I added the optional tin of chickpeas, which meant we had enough for Sunday lunch, plus packed lunches for two days (we’re a house of two).

Tony made this quinoa and broccoli spoon salad from NYT Cooking (gift link) by Sohla El-Waylly for work lunches and it was so good! There’s sweetness from dried cranberries, plus toasted pecans, and our favourite salad ingredient: cheese.

Tuna mayo onigiri

We make Eric Kim’s tuna mayo rice bowls (NYT Cooking gift link) often and over summer, I started using the filling for onigiri, following Hetty Lui McKinnon’s instructions (cook two cups of rice for this amount of tuna). Highly recommend! It’s quick and fun. I’ve made a version with tuna and avocado, and one with tuna and cucumber.

I’ve also been making onigirazu with teriyaki tofu, where you layer rice, your preferred fillings and then more rice before it’s wrapped almost burrito-style into a little parcel. I used a recipe from this very sweet Japanese food zine by Jade O’Donahoo, which my friend Luke gave me. Once you learn the wrapping method it’s easy to see how you could use leftovers to fill them. Thinking a baked teriyaki chicken or salmon filling would be excellent.

A simple marinara sauce

I gave Tony a pasta board for Christmas and have been enjoying hand-rolled pasta ever since! We were on the hunt for a sauce that was as delicious and easy as Marcella Hazan’s tomato, onion and butter sauce and found one! This is the classic marinara sauce (NYT Cooking gift link), made from tinned tomatoes, garlic, chilli flakes and fresh basil or dried oregano. The hardest part was peeling the garlic. I loved this instruction: to float the basil stem on the surface of the sauce “like a flower”.

A juicy burger for solo nights

I forget how easy burgers are to make at home. J. Kenji López-Alt’s ultra-smashed cheeseburger has just a few minutes of cooking and was a fun dinner for a solo night. I roll out my patties between baking paper to get them super thin, and then serve with tomato sauce, kewpie mayo, plenty of pickles, red onion and lettuce. Alison Roman’s smashburgers are also great, especially if you’re an onion-lover like me.

Mango coconut cream pie

You should make this mango cream pie while it’s still mango season. The recipe, by Ismat Awan, is surprisingly easy. You mix the base and the mango custard in the food processor (no need to clean it in between). Both are baked lightly before you top it with diced fresh mango and whipped cream. It looks and tastes so impressive for the amount of effort involved. I made it for Christmas and need to make it again before summer ends!

Everyday Japanese glassware

I was in Sydney over summer and visited Outta Coffee before flying home. The people-watching was excellent and my iced latte came in the perfect glass. I ended up buying the smaller size from Kinto when I got home (the one above is the beer glass size). They stack really well and aren’t too delicate.

P.S If you liked the jasmine and peppermint iced tea from this edition, I’ve been making a cheat’s version. It’s cold brewed peppermint tea served with a generous glug of shrub (I have a Meyer lemon and lemon verbana one).

Catch you next month!