I honestly think I'm not a bad cook. It suprises me how quick I can whip up a meal with scant ingredients and a bit of creativity. Spices, of course, are a must. But most of my meals are 'insta worthy' let alone Peakd worthy - they're served quick, slapped in a bowl or on a plate, and don't look pretty. But good food often doesn't.
Tofu Biryani
This week I've loved this tofu biryani. It's not really a biryani of course - it's an Indian dish tradititionally served with spiced rice and meat and layered and slow cooked. But it sure tasted like one, and the spices made it. I had some leftover brown rice and black rice I mixed together, and then concentrated on the flavours. I'm a huge fan of frying grated tofu as it firms up the protein and there's more surface area to absorb the spices. I always give a generous splash of tamari for the salt and umami, and then add generous sprinkles of spice - here I used garlic powder, cummin, cayenne, cinnamon, garam masala, and turmeric. Once the tofu has become good and brown, I stirred the rice in til heated and stirred in fresh coriander, and served with some homemae lime pickle. It was bloody fantastic. The tofu gives a moistness to the rice I really liked. This one will definitely be on repeat all year!
Trad Zucc Slice
With an excess of zucchini, one absolutely must make zucchini slice at least once over the summer. I figured out the trick - you HAVE to use self raising flour or add baking powder to plain flour as I did, which made a super fluffy souffle like texture. It's so easy - a cup of grated cheese, cup of flour, two large zucchini grated, salt and pepper, 5 eggs. To this one I couldn't help myself but added capsicusm and silverbeet from the garden, and some fried pink oyster mushrooms which kinda looked like bacon, and some salty capers. You didn't think I'd really go traditional, did you? Everyone loves a zucchini slice.
I ended up making it twice it was so good, and instead of the slice, made large muffins for lunch. That one was the one more loaded with vegetables which I liked better than the one below.
Zucchini Pizza
Those that know me know that every year I make zucchini pizza by frying onions and zucchini til soft, spreading it on a tomato paste spread pizza dough, adding olives and tons of basil, and cheese. This year's was even better by accident.
I only had a few spoons of tomato paste, so had to improve, mixing the eggplant chutney I had made the week before. I didn't have olives, so instead I added caper. It was definitley the best zucc pizza I've made, and I've been making this for 40 years.
Trad Zucchini Relish
Okay okay I was super trad with this one, following the recipe to the letter. It's a sweet relish that is fantastic with toasted cheese sandwiches or of course, with my homemade zucchini slice. I made heaps of jars to give away as well as everyone loves a traditional relish.
Okay okay, I kinda lie. I didn't follow it to the letter as they said to chop all the vegetables, add salt, and then leave overnight and rinse and drain the juice. Wait - why? Surely that juice adds flavour and nutrition? So I did half the salt, and left to juice up for an hour before just jumping into the rest of it and it worked fine. More trad recipes might use corn too but I dont like it, so just used red pepper, zucchini and red and white onion. Then it's a cup of vinegar and a cup of sugar and you simmer til it's cooked - I don't like it too mushy so for me I stopped when there was still a little bite in the zucchini and added a bit of cornflour paste to thicken it up.
And now for dal...
Because I have an earache from surfing too much, and I'm feeling tired and can't be bothered cooking anything. I do need to make more lime pickle but I've had some limes on to salt for ages so they're all tender and ready for spice. But that's me done for this week. I'm feeling like oven baked frozen fish and salad for dinner - I'm done with creative cooking for this week.
Although - maybe I should get around to apple cake, what do you reckon?
With Love,
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