Recipes

Food is always on my mind. I simply never tire of it. Weekdays for me are early starts, and can be rather rushed, so breakfast is usually a quick fix and very rigmarole, with weekends the only time to enjoy a proper cooked egg and bacon brekkie.

Packed lunch is the order of the week Monday through to Friday (typically entailing leftovers from dinner or the occasional sandwich), making dinner king, as it is for most folks.

Living with my partner Googlie, it can be said I am the prime caretaker. Our table for two is always abundant. My philosophy for life and most importantly to food is to buy the best I can, to go the extra mile and enjoy the experience.

While time is dear to me since I work full time, quality is as important. No one wants to spend their evenings at the supermarket and where possible I prefer shopping at my local butcher or green grocer.

I do a monthly shop for meat at Melbourne’s Victoria Market where I have a couple of trusty butchers that offer the best of the best, and all at fabulous prices. I freeze most of it, thawing as and when required. Yes, I love to plan meals for the week and everynight before I go to bed I usually defrost what we plan to have for dinner the following day.

Fish and seafood are usually something I schedule to prepare the week I have just shopped at the Vic Market as I prefer to eat seafood as fresh as possible.

Where veggies are concerned its a toss up between our local Saturday Farmers Market on Bridge Road, Richmond or Victoria Street where Asian veggies reign supreme. Both afford superb quality and honest prices – great value all round! And talking of Victoria Street, it is the place to score all your Asian staples – coconut milk to oyster sauce you are sure to find everything you need, and as authentic as it gets Down Under.

For all things Continental and Mediterranean (and I do love my Italian, Spanish, Greek and Lebanese food oh, so much) I make my way to Syndey Road in Brunswick to stock up on everything from chickpeas and tinned tomato to cured meats and cheeses.

Most of my recipes are creations developed from meals from my past based on my recollections of their taste. I love having a play with new and old ingredients and will usually throw in a bit of this, that and the other and see where it takes me. So far the winners have outweighed the disasters, so I’m never too worried.

Rarely do I open a cookbook or google a recipe and follow it through and through, unless it involves pastry or baking. Instead I love to take inspiration from a range of media, cookbooks, cooking shows on television and magazine recipes and come up with my own flavours and dimensions to a dish I can call my own.

Because cooking comes rather naturally to me, I cook with instinct, pinching a bit of spice from here, adding a fistful of rice there and a dollop of cream to finish. But because I have had more friends than I can remember ask me for recipes with exact instructions and quantities, (partly the reason for this blog) I have tried to keep measurements as accurate as possible since I understand there are many out there that struggle a bit without the actuals.

I hope you enjoy flicking through my recipes, maybe even giving them a go but most of all I hope they inspire you to get into the kitchen and whip up something wonderful!

Happy Cooking…