Tag: Pumpkin

Two favourite Ethiopian dishes

Injera in three colours - wheat (white), sorghum (pink) and teff (brown)Atakilt - Ethiopian turmeric and ginger cabbage with potato and beans

I count myself lucky to live in a multicultural pocket of Melbourne. Footscray is particularly rich with Vietnamese and African communities, and when COVID hit I felt luckier than ever. As restaurants closed and we had to stick to our homes and neighbourhoods for months, I relished all the magical little food shops and groceries that stayed open. I made a short video about living and cooking in Footscray if you want to take a look! [Jump to my IGTV here.] The injera bakeries are my favourite, especially one, where the Ethiopian ladies behind the counter smile so broadly when you enter. My face cracks open too – no matter that we are all wearing masks; you can feel it. Continue reading Two favourite Ethiopian dishes

Pasta salad with olives and roasted garlic

Pasta salad with olives and roast garlic

I started out making pasta when I moved out of home, at age 17, featuring a crisper worth of vegetables plus some pesto from a jar. (Wry smile thinking about the strange tiles of pumpkin I used to cut, and the undercooked eggplant. But I was doing a good job of eating vegetables at least!) Continue reading Pasta salad with olives and roasted garlic

Pumpkin, leek and anchovy pizza

Pumpkin, leek and anchovy pizza

We get a weekly box of fruit and vegetables through a small suburban co-op that buys directly from a local organic farm. The co-op has 25 member households, and I wrote a story about how it all works and about box shopping in general for the winter issue of Slow Living magazine (joy!). I used the story as a good excuse to go out and visit the farm that supplies us, which is called Green Gully Organics on the edge of the Yarra Valley. Here are my favourite photos taken in the packing shed while talking to one of the lovely owners Shelley Chilton, and wandering around the farm trying to dodge all the mud (should have worn gumboots!). (Can you tell it was leek season?!) Scroll to the bottom for a few words about the farm and a favourite pizza recipe featuring the beautiful pumpkin and leeks we get in our box at this time of year. Continue reading Pumpkin, leek and anchovy pizza

Spring soup with green garlic

Spring soup with green garlicHomegrown green garlic bulbs

I’ve been watching a bird make a nest in our lemon tree through our kitchen window. First I made sure it wasn’t a nasty Indian myna (it turned out to be a more benign but still imported suburban blackbird), then thought to myself, this is going to be good viewing – a touch of David Attenborough in our own backyard. Continue reading Spring soup with green garlic

Pumpkin and quinoa patties

pumpkin quinoa patties 1pumpkin quinoa patties 2

Fritters and patties are big at home right now. It seems a quirky developmental stage our children go through; a unique thing that happens in our house like bum-shuffle crawling and oh-so-late walking! (Our little boy is 20 months old and has just taken a few steps! But he generally prefers to scoot about on his bottom, wearing all his pants to threads.) Continue reading Pumpkin and quinoa patties

Stuffed flatbreads

Pumpkin walnut and silverbeet feta fillings for flatbreadsGraters, illustration by Katherine Bird

Sometimes life goes so fast you completely forget to take photographs. Or you feel too giddy with the experience to stop to write anything down.

Pulling the back off our house two years ago and embarking on our renovation was like this. My husband worked his butt off through winter rebuilding as fast as he could, while our then-1-year-old daughter and I got on as best we could in our draughty half-house with its bathroom in a tin shed in the backyard. Continue reading Stuffed flatbreads