Red rice - rice cooked in tomato juice/puree with onion and capsicum, and herbs added at the end.

Tastes just like tomato rice-a-riso if you use short grain rice. Remember that?

#fromTheArchives #FromTheKitchen #Rice #food #Vegetarian

Years ago, around 1998, I made a spur of the moment dish that turned out to be a keeper. It came together on a Spring evening while hunting around for something to serve with dinner. It is amazing!

The sauce for this dish takes less time than it takes to cook your pasta. It is a dish that has multiple uses and you will love it for its simplicity, clean fresh taste, and versatility.

Cook some onions and tomatoes - the microwave is good for this, but stove-top is Ok too. No need to cook them down too much, just until saucy.

Add the crème fraîche, stir well and continue to cook for another few minutes. Add pepper. Thin with some water or olive oil, if necessary.

Use as a dip, sauce, salad dressing, pasta sauce, …. etc. Use warm for a sauce and cold for a dip.

You can peel the tomatoes if you want, but why bother?

Delicious over ziti pasta.

#FromTheArchives #FromTheKitchen #Pasta #Food #Vegetarian

Potatoes are in the instant pot, cooking so I can make a Gujarati potato curry. It's a dry curry, meaning no sauce. Just cubes of potatoes and peas sauteed with
onions, chillies and a beautifully balanced mix of spices.

It reminded me of a comment on my blog years ago, from an irate gentleman. He started to cook one of my Madras curries which was also a dry curry, and he wanted to know where the sauce was, and it wasn't a real curry and so on and so on.

Ah well.

The recipe I am making is from To Gujarat with Love by Vina Patel. It is all in the spice mix 😋

To have with the Dal with Greens I made yesterday.

Come round 🍽️

#FromTheKitchen #whatIAmCooking #whatIAmEating #indianFood #Food #GujaratiFood #CookbookBrowsing

I made some dal today - being Summer I haven't made it for a while and have been eating very light foods in the heat. But I wanted to pick some Moringa/drumstick leaves and they are great in dal.

So I have a nice tasty dal for dinner, which will be soon. With pickles I have rediscovered in the fridge, and a summery side garden salad. Brown basmati rice.

When I buy moringa leaves I leave them in the fridge for a couple of days and the leaves have mostly fallen off the stems. Fresh from the garden takes a bit more work to strip the leaves 😄 But uber uber fresh!

Each year the moringa plant grows better, but I am still at the stage of perhaps 4 or 5 dishes worth of leaves. When will it grow me some pods too?

Just kidding, I am very grateful it grows at all.

#FromTheKitchen #WhatIAmCooking #FromTheGarden #GrowYourOwn #Food #vegetarian

I am making more larger ferments this year, and don't want to buy more large jars. It now means when they go into the fridge I transfer them to smaller jars. I am doing a little sorting out of the fridge's #fermentation shelf to release some larger jars.

Also, two bottles of beetroot kvass are capped off and in the fridge - the one with beetroot, carrot, celery and parsley stems is extra nice.

I am reusing the beetroot for a second round of kvass - I have had difficulty doing this in the past, but I think I have the salt levels for reuse sorted out now.

There is so much purslane in the garden I might do another jar, or maybe dehydrate more.

#FromTheKitchen #Food

#Kimchi

While I was steaming the tempeh last night I taste-tested the kimchi where I had 3 jars of exactly the same kimchi but fermented for different times.

The first jar was fermented for 1 week, the second for 2 and the third for 3. The weather is very hot, so of course these will ferment quicker than in most other countries or in different seasons.

First of all, all three were still very crisp and delicious in their own right. (Perfect amount of salt in the brine.)

1 week kimchi: tastes light and fresh, very nice

2 week kimchi: noticeably more tang and more complex flavours coming through, yum

3 week kimchi: the best tasting. More complex flavours. The umami added by the inclusion of nori is detectable.

All were far far better than any store-bought kimchi.

Next time I will do a 3, 4, and 5 week kimchi.

Of course the fermentation time can be adjusted to your preferences and mood. Light and fresh can be very good in Summer, longer fermentation in Winter.

#KimchiLove #FromTheKitchen #WhatIAmCooking #WhatIAmEating #Food #Ferment #Fermentation #Fermenting

When comfort food is needed, this is the ultimate. You can even braise some leeks and toss them through the mash.

#FromTheArchives #FromTheKitchen #Food #Parsnips #Mash #Vegetarian