Cooking Session 28
Roasted Cauliflower Salad + Sydney Oyster Farm Tour + Weekly Meal Plan
Happy New Year! Hope you've all had a great start to the new year. After a lovely long break, I am back in my kitchen - energized and buzzing with ideas and new recipes. Here's to a year of more vegetables at every meal, smarter cooking and loads of deliciousness!
As always, Thank you for your continued support and all your wonderful emails/messages telling me how adventurous you are getting with more veg-centric meals and planning your weekly cooks using my recipes. Please keep cooking and don't forget to SHARE THIS NEWSLETTER with your friends.Â
ROASTED CAULIFLOWER SALAD W CHICKPEAS & QUINOA
This one is for all the "roasted cauliflower" lovers out there! As an occasional Pescatarian, I eat vegetarian meals 5-6 days a week and THIS salad is my current favourite. Cauliflower roasted with many spices and tossed with lots of protein, herbs, nuts and a punchy dressing. Absolutely delicious and ready in about 25 minutes! Put this on your weekly meal prep roster.
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In & Out Of The Kitchen
Over Christmas; I made homemade granola for gifting. Lots of it!
This week in my kitchen, I have been baking more of this gorgeous granola. Batch after batch on these huge trays (my favourite trays ever. A true workhorse that I use for baking cookies, roasting veggies, toasting nuts and of course making granola).
The recipe is now perfected and I shall be sharing it with you this month. Look at that clumpage! Crispy golden granola that you can break into chunks, no eggs involved whatsoever. You are going to love it!
Every year we try and do an immersive food experience as a family. One that is different and educational. This year, we booked ourselves in for an Oyster Farm Tour up in Sydney's north. Set in Hawkesbury, Sydney Oyster Farms took us around on a boat while Sheridan (our most wonderful host!) conversationally taught us about oyster farming, the difference between Sydney Rock and Pacific oysters, why some oysters were creamy, the methods, the challenges, the whole yards.
And at the end, we spent two hours standing waist high in the Hawkesbury river in a quiet cove that reminded me of the show "Lost", learning to shuck our own oysters on beautiful tables set right in the water. There were fresh prawns, delicious homemade dressing and bubbly to share. I bought my little bottle of Tabasco which was a brilliant little touch. And the oysters were out of this world, the freshest I have ever tasted! I also made a little video about our day. Happy memories!
Plan Your Week
A lot of us are back to work and a lot of us are still on holidays (lucky!). But I speak for all of us when I say that we are all maybe itching to get back to a normal cooking and eating schedule that is lighter, brighter and low-in-effort after the indulgent meals of the holiday season. Am I right?
If you have an hour or two set aside this weekend, then these recipes will make your weekly meals a lot easier.
Breakfast Things (Pop the banana bread in to bake, mix the bircher muesli and pop in fridge, make the sun smoothie and bottle it - Approx 30 minutes)
Coffee Banana Bread | Sun Smoothie | Orange Bircher Muesli
Healthier Snacks / Light Meals (Get your muffin batter ready in the muffin tin, make the fish cakes, once bread is done, pop in the muffins - Approx 30 minutes)
Easy Potato Fish Cakes | Good Veggie Muffins
Salads / Bigger Meals (Make the Kidney bean curry and pop on the hob, it pretty much cooks by itself - then make the Thai pesto for the zucchini salad, make the chicken salad dressing, prep veggies for both salads - Approx 30 minutes)
Creamy Thai Chicken Noodle Salad | Zucchini Noodle Pesto Salad | Vegan Rajma (Red Kidney Bean Curry)
Cook Republic Cooking Club / Year Long Book
This year, I am excited to announce Rick Stein's India - In Search Of The Perfect Curry as our YEAR-LONG Cookbook in the cooking club.
This means we'll not only be cooking from a monthly cookbook (starting February 2023) but we'll also cook from this gem of a book all year long. There will be online cooking sessions where we'll explore some easy-to-make as well as more advanced technique-heavy recipes from this cookbook.
So make sure you join the cooking club. Once you are in the club, feel free to invite your friends to the club too!
Join the Cook Republic Cooking Club
The Sunday Project
Sundays are best for making something special. Something you might not usually cook. This weekend, I am making a small batch of fresh lemon curd. And the we'll make Tray-baked French Toast for breakfast and have it topped with lemon curd and all the abundant fresh market berries! To make lemon curd, follow the Yuzu Curd recipe on this page and substitute yuzu juice with lemon juice. So simple and delicious!
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Food In Prose
(I had to share this little snippet from a cookbook I was reading because this exact same thing happened to me, literally exact same thing. And I found it heartwarming that it can happen to a veteran cook like Stephanie and a simple cook like myself and our love for food draws us in similar directions and that cooking isn't an exact science but an idea that ebbs and flows. I have since bought a paella pan and stocked up on Bomba rice for the next time I plan an impromptu paella.)
"I planned a dinner with the neighbours on a warm evening. I had a couple of smallish calamari and I started thinking barbecue, and then I invite a few more people and my menu had to expand. Prawns, I thought, and then I remembered I also had a few soft shell crabs in the freezer intended for stock rather than a dish on their own. Off to the market I went for some snapper and to scout out Spanish rice. By now, I was planning a sort-of paella, without a proper paella pan. I couldn't find the rice! No matter, I used rice intended for risotto."
~ Stephanie Alexander (Home)