james test

Lest you think that it's all virtuous breakfasts , golden vegetables and effortless treats in our kitchen, let me tell you about our latest cooking failure. For some time I've been wanting to try making my own gnocchi. Keen to enjoy it while the weather's still cool, Michael and I used a spare Saturday to pick out a recipe , buy a cheap potato ricer and some groceries on Sydney Rd and set to work. Along the way we decided to invite my aunt Carol to share dinner with us - it's been a while since we last had a meal with her . This was a team task, and Michael and I worked together well enough. We got started long before Carol was due to arrive but the hour-long baking that the potatoes required set us back. We'd chatted and prepped and drank for a good hour with Carol before we had the little pillows pictured above, ready for cooking. Sadly, cooking transformed them into this: We called for pizza. Pathetic as out not-cchi were, Michael and I weren't too embarras...

On our recent visit to Casa Iberica I picked up a large can of tomatillos. My one previous brush with tomatillos, where they constituted a broth , didn't reveal much about the fruit's flavour. So the first step was undoubtedly to drain them and have a little taste! I've learned how my mind and senses combine to fool me , and it's difficult to know how the signals of tomato-texture and definitely-not-tomato-colour influenced my sense of taste. These canned tomatillos struck me as tangier than tomatoes, though otherwise very similar. Michael prepared a dinner of black bean tofu tacos , while I decided to adapt Kurma's easy-bake salsa recipe to my green alternative. Mashing the tomatillos roughly; combining them with a chopped green chilli, a glug of olive oil and a few spoonfuls of brown sugar; baking the lot in a hot oven for half an hour; this was all it took to achieve the sweet and sour condiment you see above.

Michael's birthday was actually on Monday and he requested a fairly heavy dessert for the occasion. The dinner decision was left up to me and so I put my mind to finding a meal that would be warming and a bit special yet still leave room for cake. Mindful of Michael's long love of all things curry, I soon realised that laksa could be everything I was looking for. This recipe comes from Kurma Dasa's Vegetarian World Food, a favourite source of inspiration in this house for several years before I became addicted to blogs and bookmarking . There's a lot of chopping, grating and grinding involved but the reward is a huge pot of food (even with the halved quantity I made!), kaleidoscopic with flavours and textures, spices, veges and noodles. On the side were unnecessary but indulgent taro paratha - I've been a fan of the flaky, pastry-like paratha since I first encountered it, but the subtle sweetness of a taro one is new to me and just perfect for a coconut milk c...

It's been a while since we entertained anyone in our home, but some newcomers to my workplace provided a good reason to pull out the biggest saucepan and buy an extra 6-pack of beer. Tracy and her partner Lee are the latest Brisbane migrants to Melbourne's inner north and from even further afield (the Northern Territory!), Beth has now taken up residence at a desk adjacent to mine. On Wednesday evening they gave me an hour or so head start from the office to cook up a Mexican-themed dinner at home. On my previous night's planning, I made the decision to keep this weeknight meal quite casual and low-stress. This meant no-fuss appetisers and desserts, and a serve-yourself main course. Michael had picked out some perfectly ripe avocadoes and it didn't take too long to mash them with a very juicy lime and stir in some finely chopped red onion and a bit of sour cream. Voila! Tangy guacamole. I brought out the Chilli Factory salsa as a spicy side, and there were Corona...

In an attempt to use up a chunk of paneer left over from our Doof-inspired Indian night , Cindy decided to make marinated panir steaks from Kurma's 'Vegetarian World Food'. This had been our plan on Tuesday night , but this time we remembered to buy some fresh salad to accompany things. The marinade was delicious - sweet and a bit spicy, but we could probably have used tofu rather than paneer to improve the nutritional value without a big sacrifice in taste. Still, it was a speedy meal, and gave us another flavour to add to our salad rotation . Panir steaks with maple syrup marinade 2 blocks panir chopped into triangles 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 teaspoon asafetida powder Marinade 3 tablespoons maple syrup 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 tablespoon tomato paste (preferably from a bottle without mold on the top layer, but you do what you can) 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 tablepoon dijon mustard 2 tablespoons lemon juice Whisk all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl. ...

Our swag of goodies from the Collingwood markets had me pulled in all sorts of directions for the rest of the weekend's eating. Once I'd hit upon it, I become set on the idea of preparing a series of tapas-style tasting plates for the evening. Michael was feeling lazier, but kindly chipped in anyway. Round 1: strips of home-roasted capsicum with Holy Goat silk cheese, torn basil leaves, black pepper and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. The capsicum and cheese were a perfect pair, the cheese being as smooth as the name suggests and very mild in taste. The balsamic added the acidity it needed, as did the tiny glass of iced limoncello I had on the side. A fabulous start, inspiring me to return to the kitchen for... Round 2: shitake mushrooms fried in a little butter, flavoured with garlic, chilli and parsley. I intended to buy Swiss brown mushrooms but was careless at the shops (wish we'd hit the markets before the mushroom stand closed). I found the shitakes too rubbe...

I ate lots of candy during and after the Halloween party, resulting in a craving for something fresh to eat and plenty of excess energy with which to prepare it. We had a can of black beans in the cupboard that Michael picked up at Piedemontes , so we searched through our recipe books for something new and Mexican-themed to try. Eventually we picked out black bean tofu tacos from Ken Charney's The Bold Vegetarian Chef, extending ourselves to some salsa too. The salsa recipe is inspired by one in Kurma Dasa's World Vegetarian Food, my main alteration being to use canned chipotles and half a teaspoon of their abodo sauce. The abodo sauce adds a fantastic smoky flavour to everything it touches but packs a mighty chili punch, so its use is always a delicate balance. The black bean tofu taco filling also had a bit of bite: thus the accompanying salad of iceberg lettuce, red capsicum and avocado was a fresh and cooling contrast. I dressed the salad with a bit of pepper and lots ...

To celebrate our mid-afternoon Indian Film Festival outing (we saw Koi Aap Sa , which is passable, but definitely no Lagaan ), we planned an Indian-themed evening of food. I'd already filled up on the Indian chips we'd smuggled into the cinema, so it was quite late by the time I got cracking on my task: Khichari. This is another of Kurma's fine recipes, with a few alterations (for instance, we failed to find mung beans at Piedemontes , and opted for lentils instead). This recipe makes heaps - probably enough for 5 or 6 meals. I like to get all the chopping out of the way first, so I started out by cutting up a couple of washed potatoes, a big head of broccoli, two tomatoes and a large carrot into bite sized pieces and slicing a green chilli and some ginger finely. You could probably optimise your cooking time by doing most of this while the lentils are boiling, but I'm easily stressed when something's on the stove. Once you're all prepared, throw about ...

After enjoying Carol's last visit so much, we invited her back again. This time we decided to go beyond the nibbly approach and tackle two proper dishes - I was responsible for the main and Cindy, inevitably, took charge of the sweets. I'd previously used Kurma's tostada recipe as inspiration for a sweet potato based Mexican dinner , and decided that this time I'd just stick to the basics: refried beans, spicy tomato sauce and guacamole, all served on a shallow-fried tortilla with cheese and a smattering of salad. Nothing in the recipe is too complicated, but with a couple of frypans and a saucepan on the go, things can get a little frazzled. The best approach is to just make things one at a time - guacamole first, then the tomato sauce, followed by the beans and finally the tortilla frying. The guacamole can be done well ahead of time, and is really, really easy. Find two perfectly ripe avocados and mash them up with a fork. Add in half a cup of finely chopped s...

My new workplace is turning out to be my kinda scene, with a culinary competition to be held tomorrow in honour of the birthday of one of my colleagues. For a day or so I fantasised about winning friends and influencing people with entries far superior to anything else on the table. Then I reflected on a conversation with the guest of honour in the past, in which she talked about making her own harissa paste. I struck up an innocent conversation about last year's entries, which turned out to include Thai fish cakes, gyoza with water chestnut filling, and souffles with goats' cheese oozing out of them. OK... tough competition. I pared back my plan to simply to keeping up with the Joneses and not looking like a culinary klutz. Well, a little more than that: the email invitation incites me to "Increase your chances of winning!! Unlimited entries!!" I still have enough ambition to submit an entry for each category, Antipasto/Entree and Dessert. (Really, when I thin...

Given all the spare time I’ve had while waiting to start my new job, I’ve been trying to come up with some vaguely interesting things to cook for dinner. Our discovery of a Spanish/Mexican deli nearby prompted me to scour our recipe books for meals containing black beans and chipotles . While nothing was quite what I was after, I decided to combine a black bean and sweet potato hash from our Moosewood book with a tortilla stack recipe from one of Kurma’s books. The meal itself was pretty straightforward – sweet potato cubes are cooked up with black beans, onion, garlic and cumin and then served on shallow-fried tortillas with salad and sour cream. The hash mix was supposed to include jalapenos, but I substituted in some of the sauce that the chipotles (which I’ve just discovered are actually smoked jalapenos – you learn something new every day) came in (called adobo sauce). This gave the whole mix a faint of spicy-smoke flavour – reminiscent of hot salami more than anything else. I ...

Having settled in properly to our flat, it was time to really test out the kitchen with a more elaborate menu. I opted for an old standard: spiced chickpeas and a yoghurt-based vege curry. The first stage of making the spiced chickpeas (picked up during our Indian cooking course at Mondo Organics) is making lila masala spice paste, which basically involves turning this: Into this: This paste (along with a glob of tomato paste and a few extra spices) is combined with cooked chickpeas to make a big, tasty feast. However, the chickpeas are a bit samey and, given my vast amount of leisure time at the moment, I opted to make a mixed vege curry to provide a bit of contrast. This curry is basically a pile of steamed vegetables thrown into a paste made of yoghurt, chickpea flour and a pile of spices. Usually, the combination of these two dishes is quite delicious – the spicy, tangy chickpeas moderated by the blander, cooling yoghurt based curry. However, things were somehow reversed: the...