From the Kitchen

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A couple more things I like about where we are in Sydney is that:

A) We have a kitchen stocked with important implements such as a garlic press and food processor
B) We're within 15 minutes walking distance of three different grocery stores and one farmer's market.

Well, it was on sale but I have no idea what to do with it.



In India and southeast Asia it made more economic sense to have someone else prepare your meals versus self catering. Of course that came with the baggage of the finding an eatery that didn't appear too dodgy, fending off droves of touts, deciphering a menu(if there was one), negotiating a price(if there wasn't a menu and sometimes even if there was), and investigating the mysterious fees that often appeared on the check (napkin service charges and the like). At the end of the average day, Jean and I were often quite proud of ourselves if we had managed to feed ourselves two our three times in a day and squeeze in a sight or two.

In Sydney, Jean and I took quite readily to eating in. I quickly found that my meal planning skills were pretty rusty. For the two and half a years or so I spent in Georgia and the following two and half  in Texas being well provisioned by the culinary expertise of Mzia and Sheryl (respectively) my forays into the kitchen were infrequent at best. Cooking for ourselves during our stint at the volunteer project in Kefalonia had been a nice warm up but it was pretty standard fare not veering far from variations on pasta dishes.

Since taking up residence in Sydney I've brought back some favorites from my childhood including criss cross potatoes and enchiladas. I've also converted some of my old meat-based dishes to being vegetarian. See the stuffed mushrooms below where I replaced sausage with roasted red peppers.
Stuffed mushrooms and a raw broccoli salad inspired by my sister-in-law.
 
Nutella spread over homemade sourdough bred with sliced strawberries on top. Yummy!

And finally, a veggie burger that doesn't fall apart on the grill.


Comments

sly said…
Are you sharing your secret on veggie burgers that don't fall apart on the grill? Is that a spaghetti squash that you found on sale? Thank goodness for the internet...you can google "weird squash" recipes and get LOTS of menu suggestions! Bon appetit!
20 September 2011 at 09:01
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