Category Archives: Cooking

Why a Wok?

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Last week we were doing the grocery shopping and I fell victim to the centre aisle in Aldi. For anyone who is not familiar with Aldi in Australia (and possibly elsewhere), the centre aisle is a relvolving door of special buys which include everything from furniture to homewares, garden supplies and clothing.

Anyway, I bought a wok.

It is not the first wok I have ever owned. Many moons ago I had a lightweight aluminium one, however, that went by the wayside and was replaced by a fancy ‘non-stick’ wok which had a small flat base which was more effective on the cooktop I was using at the time. That eventually was deemed unusable due to wear and tear on the surface and it was really too big for our current requirements for just the 2 of us. I have not had a wok for a couple of years but instead used a large stainless steel frying pan which was adequate at best.

It is now just over 12 months since we changed from gas burners to an induction cooktop. You can read about that here. I was fortunate to have stainless steel saucepans which work perfectly on the induction cooktop but the large frying pan from the same set would not work. I have a smaller cast-iron pan which I love but it is really not large enough for stir-fries so a debate about getting a wok or large pan ensued but with no clear outcome.

That was………until we walked into Aldi and GMan spotted this medium-sized stainless steel wok with an added steaming rack for $50.

Last night I made a vegetable stirfry which turned out perfectly. There will definitely be more stirfries, curries and risottos coming up.

This is the steaming rack which I have yet to try.

Cooking, Brewing, Bottling and Freezing

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It is nearly 2 weeks since the family came to visit and we celebrated a milestone birthday for our younger daughter. Thank you for your patience while I get back into the swing of regular blog posts.

There was afternoon tea and socialising with friends and family. Of course, there was cake!!

Dinner with the extended family. It was so good to be together.

So, now it is back to regular transmission.

Today was a busy one in the kitchen.

GMan bottled the latest batch of home brew.

He also started 2 more loaves of sourdough bread. These will be baked tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I had a large bunch of celery and a leek which I had bought earlier in the week with a plan to make soup. I ended up with 14 serves of celery soup and 12 of leek, poato and broccoli soup. It is really just leek and potato with the addition of whatever broccoli stalk I have in the freezer. Today there were 5 large stalks.

I also retrieved a bag of frozen cherry tomatoes from the freezer and made another batch of tomato sauce.

The links to the recipes for all of these can be found in the recipe index.

Here is the result of my handiwork.

All of this was done between 11am and 2pm to make use of the free electricity offer from our energy retailer.

A New Favourite

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I have bought sunflower seeds in bulk for several years now as they are one of the ingredients in my home-made gluten-free muesli. Additionally, I discovered that I could use them to make vegan ‘sour cream’. Personally, I do struggle a bit to see the resemblance to sour cream, however, it makes quite a nice savoury sauce/salad dressing.

Recently, I have begun toasting sunflower seeds to use. You do need to be careful and stir them constantly or they can go from raw to burnt very quickly.

I generally toast more than I need and store them in a sealed jar.

The toasted seeds add crunch and a pleasant nutty flavour to salads and savoury dishes.

I make a crunchy topping which is a mix of flaxseed meal, toasted sunflower seeds and nutritional yeast and seasoned with black pepper and garlic salt. Then I add a small amount of grated cheese but you could omit the cheese if you want an entirely plant-based topping.

Tonight’s dinner was a pasta casserole with the topping to add some extra interest and nutrients.

Changing Routines

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We all have our routines and in many instances they serve us well for a variety of reasons. However, nothing is ever set in stone and it is worth being flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances. Retirement certainly brings changes in routine – for instance, we no longer set the alarm and get up at 5am to get ready for work. Those days are long gone.

A few weeks ago we changed our electricity plan to take advantage of the ‘Free Three’. That is, the 3 hours of free electricity being offered between 11am and 2 pm each day. The rationale behind this is, where possible, to encourage people to use electricity in the middle of the day instead of during the peak hours of demand between 3pm-8pm.

Our decision was primarily to facilitate charging our new EV using 3 hours of free electricity. However, we have also made a conscious effort to run the washing machine and dishwasher in the middle of the day, too. Both appliances have a delayed start option which I had never used but it is invaluable if you are not home between 11am and 2pm.

Finally, we have decided to make a habit of having our main meal for lunch rather than in the evening or if this is not convenient to consider preparing and cooking the meal ahead of time. As well as saving power, I believe it is better for our health and I am more inclined to spend time cooking in the middle of the day rather than late in the afternoon/evening when I am tired or otherwise engaged.

This was our lunch today. A baked potato topped with refried beans and cheese. Sides of coleslaw, avocado and fried onion, mushroom and capsicum.

For those of you in Australia. Have you changed your electricity plan to take advantage of the free electricity between 11am and 2pm? Are you at home during the day? Don’t forget that it applies on weekends as well as weekdays. Do you have appliances that have a delayed start option? I am interested in how you can make it work for you.

Today I Made……………

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A quiche.

I knew that I had about 150ml of cream left over from something I had made to take to an event. Cream is not something that I buy routinely but I did not want to see this portion go to waste. So, I decided to make a quiche.

Because I eat a gluten-free diet I do not use regular pastry. I have made my own gluten-free pastry on a couple of occasions but it is hard work and uses a lot of butter so I opted for a quiche base which I have known about since long before I began to eat a gluten-free diet.

QUICHE BASE

2.5 cups of cooked rice
1 egg (lightly beaten)

Stir the egg into the rice while it is still warm. Spread the mixture to cover the base and sides of quiche dish or pan.

QUICHE FILLING

1/4 onion, finely diced
1 rasher bacon, finely chopped
2 mushrooms, sliced
3-4 florets of broccoli, lightly steamed then chopped
1/2 cup grated cheese
3 eggs
150ml cream
Salt, pepper and smoky paprika to taste

Lightly fry the onion, bacon and mushrooms. Spread the mixture over the base of the quiche followed by the broccoli and grated cheese. Beat the eggs and add the cream and seasonings. Pour the mixture evenly over the other ingredients. Bake at 180C for 30 mins or until firm to touch in the middle.

This is the result.

I already had our meals planned for today so the quiche and some salad will be an easy dinner tomorrow when I have been out all afternoon playing Scrabble. The remainder will be portioned up and frozen for future meals

The ingredients I used were simply what I had on hand that needed to be used up. Quiche, like pizza, fried rice and a multitude of other dishes can be different every time you make them depending on what is available and/or in abundance. The principle is simply some sort of crust, a mix of suitable vegetables, cheese and possibly meat in what is essentially a savoury custard filling. When I do not have cream available I sometimes use milk with a couple of tablespoonful of milk powder to create a creamier consistency.

Daily Doings

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In the week since my last post I have celebrated another year around the sun. My birthday was fairly low-key but enjoyable. GMan and I had dinner at the local hotel and I was overwhelmed by the many celebratory messages from family and friends both near and far.

The soundtrack to our lives for the past several weeks has been the heavy machinery working on completely resurfacing a couple of kilometres of our road. It is the main truck route which bypasses the historic centre of town and some sections were in very poor condition so the upgrade is welcome. It should be finished within the next week or so.

These are a couple of views at the moment. It is all wet as the water truck had just been past. They are working hard to minimise the impact of dust on adjacent properties.

As you can see from the photos we are enjoying some glorious autumn weather but we know that winter is not too far away.

Hence, one of my activities today was to cook up a big pot of leek and potato soup. I bought a 5kg bag of local potatoes from the farm gate about 10 days ago so the soup was a perfect way to use quite a few of them. I bought 3 large leeks a few days ago.

Here they are sliced up and ready.

I like to have a stock of premade soup in the freezer as it is perfect for a quick lunch or evening meal in the cooler weather. I have a bunch of celery which will also be turned into soup. That could be a job for tomorrow.

Backyard Business

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When we moved to this house almost 3 years ago we downsized the land area from 1.5 acres to a 991 square metre block. While we did not utilise all of our land previously it was still a significant change. We have a long driveway as well as a shed so the usable space is not massive.

Nevertheless, we have more than enough space to grow some of our own food.

Yesterday I collected 17 passionfruit. The fruit are super sweet. This was in addition to a couple of similar hauls over the past few weeks and there are still dozens more on the vine. I scooped out the pulp and will freeze it.

Here is the result.

The passionfruit vine was here when we moved in but it did not amount to much. There were no fruit the first year and a few last year. The vine seems to have thrived in the past year despite no attention from us. We are now reaping the rewards.

The somewhat unexpected bounty of passionfruit led me to thinking about how much food you can produce in a relatively modest space.

This year I planted one Roma tomato plant which has been a raging success with over 20kg of tomatoes from this single plant. I managed to nurse it through the 40C+ heat in January and we are certainly nearing the end of the crop. The trellised archway provided the perfect support and allowed for plenty of airflow.

Of course, there were cherry tomatoes by the bucketful. Some have become passata, others tomato paste and there are multiple bags of them in the freezer which will go into winter casseroles or be turned into sauce.

The other summer success story has been the capsicums (bell peppers). I have had a couple of previous attempts over the years which have yielded small, green capsicums but nothing of note. These have been nothing short of amazing. I have harvested multiple large, fully red fruit and there are at least a dozen on the bushes. The main threat is the cooler autumn weather and the risk of the first frost which will finish them off in the blink of an eyelid. I am watching the forecasts closely and mentally designing a portable greenhouse to protect them for as long as I can.

You can see a red and a green capsicum in the foreground of the photo.

This morning I picked a bowl full of birdseye chillies. I removed the stalks and cut them in half lengthwise and here they are ready to go in the dehydrator. Once they are dried I will grind them to add to the jar of chilli powder.

We are not super-serious gardeners and put in only a minimum amount of effort yet we have been able to grow a variety of food across 2 distinct growing seasons – summer and winter. We have not grown all of these every year but this is a list of what we have grown here and gives an idea of the possibilities.

Grapefruit Cabbage Basil
Lemons Capsicum Chillies
Nashi pears Cauliflower Chives
Nectarines Cucumber Garlic
Oranges Eggplant Mint
Passionfruit Lettuce Olives
Raspberries Silverbeet (Chard) Rosemary
Rhubarb Snow Peas
Strawberries Spinach
Zucchini

According to AI this is our climate. It is absolutely accurate.

  • Climate Zone: Zone 6 (Mild Temperate).
  • Conditions: Mild temperate with distinct seasons, characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters.
  • Temperatures: Summer high temperatures often around 30°C, with increasing days over 40°C, and winter temperatures with regular morning frosts and occasionally falling below zero.
  • Rainfall: Relatively low rainfall, generally under 600mm annually.

I hope to be a bit more consistent with my gardening efforts and expand the range, specifically to include beans, peas and possibly other things too.

Oil and Dead Fish

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There has been such a lot going on behind the scenes while there have been no blog posts for just over a week.

Last night was the regular monthly film screening for our local film society. As secretary of the group I am usually occupied making sure that everything is ready for film night. There have also been other community activities as well as some administrative work at home.

The harvest continues with nashi pears to be stewed and I have also dehydrated quite a lot. GMan’s help has been invaluable in peeling, coring and slicing.

However, by far the largest disruption to my preferred pattern of blog posts has been the frightening existential threat posed by the invasion of Iran and the subsequent global chaos. Like many of you, my general mental state and equilibrium has been severely tested as I try to balance my day-to-day existence with the very real spectre of a global conflict affecting us all. The functional closure of the Strait of Hormuz is playing havoc with the accessibility of oil, petrol and other fuels.

Meanwhile, back to the title of this post – Oil and Dead Fish.

A few weeks ago I was the recipient of a substantial platter of excess food from a corporate catering event. It is not unusual to have significant leftovers from these type of events which happen thousands of times every day. Most of the food was distributed and able to used and I was extremely grateful to see it not end up in landfill. Included on the platter was a container of individual serves of condiments for sushi. These were soy sauce and wasabi paste. The soy sauce was in the ubiquitous, tiny plastic fish. These plastic fish were banned in South Australia in September 2025 in a world-first but they are still currently used elsewhere.

I emptied all of the soy sauce from these tiny containers and this is the pile of plastic waste which will literally take hundreds of year to break down in landfill.

The yield was 100ml of soy sauce which I have put in a jar and will use in my regular meal preparation.

There is a very obvious environmental hazard that these small containers, and their even smaller plastic lids pose to wildlife, particularly of the marine variety. They are plastic and where does plastic come from? That’s right……oil. Yes, the very same oil that is required in one form or another for a large percentage of our transport fuel, medical equipment, food, fertilisers and a thousand and one things that are part and parcel of our daily lives.

Could there possibly be a more wasteful and frivolous use of a finite resource upon which our very civilisation depends than making single-use plastic containers to dispense a mere 3-5ml of soy sauce onto your takeaway sushi?

Plastic is made from oil. Oil is finite. Oil is expensive. Perhaps now is the time to stop and consider everything that we take for granted that is made from plastic in some form or another. Is it necessary? Is there an alternative?

Time to buy a glass bottle of soy sauce?

Harvest Happenings

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Even with a relatively small garden the late summer and early autumn harvests are enough to keep idle hands occupied.

We have 2 varieties of Nashi pear trees espaliered and we have had them netted for the past 3 months to allow the fruit to grow and ripen unhindered by our feathered friends.

Today we picked all of the fruit from one tree. 70 Nashi pears.

GMan has been busy for several hours peeling, cutting and slicing. We cooked them in batches in the microwave and they are now cooling before we freeze them. We use the lightly stewed fruit on our breakfast cereal.

The fruit from the other tree will need to be picked before too long. Meanwhile the tomato harvest continues. This all from a single plant. We have enjoyed generous serves of tomato in lots of meals over the past few weeks. I think I will need to dice and freeze some of them for use in casseroles and other cooking during the winter.

Additionally, the cherry tomato plants are now ripening so I am simply destalking and rinsing them and freezing in 1kg bags. I can see some sauce making in the not too distant future.

Butcher – Bulk Buying

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I buy a significant portion of of grocery items in bulk nowadays but that was not always the case. However, I have bought meat in bulk for as long as I can remember. It is not because we eat a lot of meat, in fact, we eat less now than we ever have. Convenience is the name of the game and sometimes it is more cost-effective, too.

Yesterday I bought 10 chicken breast fillets and 2kg of premium beef mince. This cost me $80 which works out at $2.22 per serve. That is based on using 250g of mince or 1 chicken breast fillet for a meal for the 2 of us. Depending on what I make there can be leftovers for lunches or it may make 4 serves. Lasagne is a case in point where I actually stretch 250g of mince to make a lasagne that serves 4-6 people.

I generally go to a butcher where I am happy with the quality and price as well as ensuring that I can take my own containers. This is what my purchase looked like when I arrived home.

I spread the chicken on trays to freeze them individually then I bag them up in large bags.

The mince is weighed out in 250g portions and flattened in freezer bags which makes it quicker and easier to thaw when required.

Finally, when I was digging around in the freezer I found a bag of green tomatoes from last summer. I have thawed them ready to make some chutney. They are sliced and resting overnight with the diced onion and I will make the chutney tomorrow. The recipe is here.