A la naturale

I’ve been gone. That’s what happens when you decide to take up a masters course and continue with your day job. But I’m back. It’s late spring, and there are lots of delicious things to eat.

As a quick catch up, so you can have some idea of all the exciting things you missed out on when I wasn’t posting, over the past couple of months I’ve been eating a lot of:
- sautéed broccoli, kale or other green with lots of garlic, a bit of chilli, and poached egg and lots of parmesan cheese plopped on top.
- Miso soup with soba noodles, steamed vegies and a poached egg on top
- Boiled artichokes/baby leeks/asparagus with vinagrette and a hard boiled egg on top

And that’s pretty much about it. So don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything, except perhaps an inordinate number of eggs.

This recipe comes from Luisa at The Wednesday Chef – she wrote about it whilst lamenting the last days of summer over in Berlin. Back on this side of the world, this dish is a perfect celebration of what can be called, “pants off weather”. It’s not as outrageous as it sounds, it’s just that we’re finally starting to get those evenings that are warm and slightly sticky. Those evenings when catching the train is like a Dali painting, everything slowly melting. Those evenings when you drag yourself up the three flights of stairs to your apartment and the first thing you do is pull off your jeans to cool down, and they stay off.

Even when you know full well your neighbours can see into your apartment, there’s nothing quite like sitting down to dinner in your undies.

This recipe is quick and simple, light and summery and works perfectly whether you are dining solo a la undie or have some company and more clothes on. I ate it sitting on the couch, in my undies, with the end of a fresh sourdough rye loaf, frantically reading my bookclub book (got to be finished by tomorrow night!!)

I could see it going just as well as a side dish for a more substantial meal or served as part of a mezze/range of salads type dinner.

Whatever you do, try it once just in your undies, for me.




Zucchini salad with harissa
I’ve tweaked the salad a bit to make it for one person and also to match what I had in the fridge. Feel free to play around with it – the amount of harissa will make it quite spicey which is great in the warm weather, but not everyone’s cup of tea.

3 small zucchini cut into 1cm thick rounds
Juice of ½ a large lemon
1-2Tbs harissa (taste and see how you go)
3Tbs good olive oil
1 small garlic clove minced
Handful of olives, pitted and roughly chopped (Luisa used Kalamata but I only had Spanish green in my fridge, they worked well)
¼ cup roughly chopped feta cheese
Small handful of flat-leaf parsley roughly chopped

Steam the zucchini over simmering water until tender but not falling apart (about 7-10minutes)

In a small bowl whisk together lemon juice, harissa, oil and garlic.

Once zucchini is done, transfer into serving bowl, pour over half the dressing and slowly toss through.

Sprinkle olives, feta and parsley on top, add a little more of the dressing (to taste) and toss gently.

You can serve it immediately as a hot side dish or at room temperature.

Summertime....

...and the living's easy.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve felt like this song should be playing on repeat.

Back when I moved into my new apartment 8 months ago, the mornings were dark, the evenings were darker and howling winds blew straight from Antarctica into my bathroom window (which never closes properly). The whole place shuddered and groaned with cold, and my little faux-fireplace gas heater became my best friend. But I knew then that the time would come, in late summer, when the decision to live directly opposite the beach would be the one of the best I ever made. And indeed it was.

We have now entered late summer, or, as it seems in Melbourne, true summer. The days are ridiculously long, the days are hot, the nights are warm and the beach beckons every day as I trudge home from the station. There’s nothing quite like scurrying across the hot bitumen in nothing but a bikini and bare feet, having a quick dunk and splash in the cool sea, and then scurrying home again for a cold beer – especially if the whole exercise takes you no longer than about 5 minutes.

Of course, the one downside to all this glorious weather is that it’s just too too hot to cook anything. Believe me, last night I made a bit of a Lebanese feast, which required 3 burners on the stove and the oven on – it was about 50 degrees in that little kitchen of mine! Remind me not to do that again, and rather, to stick to cold beer, juicy peaches, homemade banana ice-cream (recipe to come soon) and the occasional refreshing, crunchy salad – just to even out the sweet/savoury ratio.

This salad is the perfect summer salad – cool, fresh, easy to put together, and with enough substance to pass as a proper meal when served with some crusty sourdough bread.

I’m usually all for innovation and creativity in the kitchen, and fully support making substitutions and experiments with basically every recipe I post – this one is different. I wouldn’t change a thing, ever. The flavours couldn’t be more perfect if they tried. So throw one together, as soon as the next hot day comes along (which will probably be tomorrow around here) and enjoy a clean, crunchy, fresh salad for dinner.




Fennel Pea and Ricotta Salad

Inspired by an old Karen Martini recipe

Serves 1


1 small head of fennel

¼ cup peas (I used frozen, but fresh if you’ve got them)

Juice half lemon

100g ricotta

Small handful mint leaves

Olive oil


Bring a small pot of water to the boil. Drop in the peas and let them cook for 30 seconds – no longer or they’ll get shriveled and sad rather than sweet and juicy.

Drain the peas, pour over the oil, lemon juice and season well with salt and pepper.

Coarsely chop the mint leaves and add them to the peas

Trim the stalks and fronds off the fennel

Shave the fennel as thin as possible cross-ways with a sharp knife if you want to hone your knife skills, or a mandoline if you’re lucky enough to have one and haven’t chopped your finger off on it yet – thereby swearing off mandolines forever.

Toss the shaved fennel and reserved fennel fronds through the minty peas.

Smear the ricotta onto a plate and top with the salad.

Drizzle with a bit more olive oil.

And that’s it, you’re done! Best enjoyed sitting on the balcony in still slightly damp bikini bottoms on a warm evening.

Beans glorious beans

This is going to have to be a short one... Busy seems to be my default setting at the moment.

This is not the sort of salad that you just throw together while the pasta's boiling as a cursory nod to health, greenery and convincing your mother you're eating well. With sweet, golden roasted baby carrots and earthy beetroot and it's more serious, wholesome and interesting than that. It's the sort of salad that you can pack up and take to work with you for lunch all week, and rather than getting soggy, it will actually improve.

This recipe was inspired by a recipe I picked up at Heidi's 101 cookbooks - I've made it a couple of times now with slightly different variations on the herbs, veggies and beans used, I'm pretty sure this one though is my favourite - although get back to me in a week or two and I may very well have a new favourite - after all, with bean salad, it never pays to be closed minded.

Carrot, Beetroot and Cannellini salad

1 bunch baby carrots
3 small/medium sized beetroots
2 cans cannellini beans - drained and rinsed
1/2 bunch of fresh parsley or dill - washed and roughly chopped
1/2 red onion - quartered and finely sliced
1tbs balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup good olive oil
Juice half a lemon
Salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 200c

Wrap the beetroots tightly in silver-foil, place on a baking tray and pop in the oven for about an hour (or until a knife goes in easily)

Meanwhile scrub the baby carrots and trim off the leafy bits

Pop these in a roasting tray or baking dish and toss with 1tbs of olive oil and the balsamic - these go in the oven too for about 30mins or until just tender and golden.

Place the beans in a large fry pan or pot with a splash of oil and some salt and heat gently until warm.

Remove beetroot and carrots from the oven

Chop beetroot into approx 1cm chunks and carrots in simliar sized rounds

Quickly throw all ingredients (while still warm) into a bowl and toss well with the remaining oil and lemon juice.

Serve immediately with a savoury ricotta tart or on its own for a healthy, beany and satisfying lunch.

Cheesy Potato Cure

Upon reading a title like “Cheesy Potato Cure” you could be forgiven for thinking that this post would contain stories of cold weather, long days in the office and the need for rich, stodgy comfort food, like Cheesy Potatoes to cure all the ills in the world... but you would be wrong. In fact, it is a post about what to eat as a cure when you've eaten too much greasy food and feel like, well a cheesy potato. I think I should go back a little bit and explain...

The term “Cheesy Potato” was coined what seems like an age ago when my lovely sister flew half way around the world to save me from dying of a broken heart, all alone, in Italy. Ok, so I was nineteen and probably a little melodramatic, but it was definitely a sad and lonely place to be.

We met up in Barcelona for what turned out to be a wonderful 10 days or so of touring, talking, drinking, healing and, of course eating. Only problem is, Spain is not such a friendly place for the vegetarian and over the course our time there we ate more bread, egg, potato, cheese and miscellaneous fried stuff than anyone could ever wish to. Not to mention all washed down with plenty of cerveza (which is really just more bread in liquid form!)

It was one day when we'd been wandering the Alhambra in Granada for untold hours and the lack of food was beginning to make us both a little hangry (hungry-angry) that we relented and ate a boccadillo (don't be fooled by the fancy name it is, you guessed it, bread filled with egg and potato) from the touristy food stall just outside the Alhambra. It was gross – stodgy, dry and greasy all at the same time. After inhaling the whole thing, Thea groaned “Urgh, I feel like a cheesy potato!” And so, a legend was born – from that point on, whenever too much unhealthy food has been consumed, we cry “Cheesy Potato”!!!

Now, there are a number of ways to cure this particular feeling. Often something as simple as a tart apple or a stick of celery will suffice to freshen up your insides and make you feel clean and sparkly again, but sometimes, a quick fix just won't do and a whole meal must be devoted to scrubbing the cheesy potato out of your system. These times call for something that make you feel virtuous and taste delicious, something that tastes green, something like the salad I made this week for dinner, and then again for lunch. Inspired by the sorrel I bought from the farmers market and the red quinoa bestowed upon me by Dave's mum, this salad was the perfect cure for my cheesy potato feeling brought on by an indulgent weekend in Tasmania and too many lunches and dinners out and about.



The beauty of this salad is that it is substantial enough to eat for dinner, stays fresh left overs, and lends itself very nicely to whatever variations of vegetables you have in your frigde – although I would have to say that if you can find a nice bunch of sorrel, use it – it's tangy and zingy yet earthy flavour is really something special.


Cheesy Potato Cure Salad – or Sorrel and Red Quinoa Salad

1 bunch fresh sorrel, washed, dried and cut into ribbons (you could also use rocket, spinach or a mixture of all three)
1 cup red quinoa (or other quinoa)
1 bunch spring onion, chopped into 1 cm pieces
½ avocado, sliced
1 small cucumber, chopped into half circles
1 tomato, diced
1 bunch asparagus, briefly blanched or steamed and chopped into 2cm pieces
100g feta cheese (optional)

Vinaigrette

1 tbs dijon mustard
3 tbs white wine vinegar
5 tbs olive oil


Rinse the quinoa well under running water for a minute or so (then take a shorter shower that night to off-set the guilt of running the tap for so long)

Pop the rinsed quinoa and 2 cups of water in a pot on the stove. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally then reduce to a simmer, pop on a tight fitting lid and let it cook until almost transluscent and tender and all the water is absorbed. My packet of quinoa said 10-15 minutes but it took more like 20mins.

In the meantime, prepare all the veggies and whisk together all ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl.

Dump everything (except feta) into a big bowl, and pour all the dressing on top – toss well – at this stage, if you're not going to use the feta, add some salt to the salad too.

Crumble some feta on top and enjoy straight from the serving bowl.

Serves 2 people for a light dinner and the perfect cure to cheesey potato guilt.