You don’t get any more retro than a tuna pasta bake (extra points for for using bow-shaped pasta and baking it in a Temuka pottery dish). I hesitated over sharing this recipe as it’s retro in a totally unfashionable way, but you know what? Who the hell cares — it’s bloody delicious and that’s the most…
Category: dinner
Green polenta with butter bean & chorizo ragu & Parmesan gremolata
This is my idea of midwinter dream food. A bowl of buttery polenta (with a kick of virtuous greens) topped with a rich ragu with a lemony zing of the parmesan gremolata on top. Add a glass of red, crank the heat pump right up (30°C) and this is as good as winter gets IMO….
Fish larb with vermicelli & mint salad in cos lettuce leaves
There’s nothing that grinds my gloof gears more than ordering a bao/slider/taco thinking I’m getting a gluten-free version of the original, when instead those unimaginative buggers have just wrapped the filling in a lettuce leaf. Lettuce is not and will never be a delicious carb. When there’s full disclosure that my dinner involves a lettuce leaf carrier then…
Polenta-crusted fish with zucchini ratatouille & garlic aioli
Polenta and wine are two things that make life without gluten not such a bad time after all. Baked polenta with a slow-cooked ragu and a glass of red: good. Polenta fries with a glass of prosecco: great. Polenta-crusted fish with a glass of rosé: yes thanks, I will. Fish coated in polenta is a great…
Chargrilled corn, green bean & spice-rubbed chicken salad
A cast iron griddle pan is one of my essential kitchen implements. If you don’t have a barbecue or even if you do have a barbecue and just can’t be bothered firing it up, a griddle pan can be used to quickly chargrill vegetables and meat. Perfect for cooking asparagus and the best crispy skinned salmon…
Chorizo & fish summer stew
Summer holidays in Wellington: sunny one moment, southerly storming the next. A plan of a summer supper of zucchini fritters, tomato and corn salsa, and potato salad was blown away (almost quite literally) when what was a beautiful blue sky day turned into sideways rain and gales. Summer plans were scrapped: I wanted something substantial, soothing…
Black bean, chargrilled corn & feta tacos
A couple of months after I was diagnosed as a Coeliac I woke up from a nightmare. I was in hospital and two nurses had brought me a tray of plastic-wrapped cabin bread (presumably gloof), ‘We’ve got bad news for you’ they said. ‘As well as being Coeliac, we’ve discovered that you’re also vegan’. I jolted awake, sweating and heart…
Venison, cherry & asparagus salad
This salad instinctively came together as a response to the contents of my pre-Christmas holiday fridge: a gift of some venison, spinach leaves needing to be eaten, a handful of exorbitantly-priced new season cherries, and a bunch of asparagus bought because at any moment it will disappear from the vegetable aisle never to be seen again (until…
Nigella’s steak with lemon, thyme & garlic
I love Nigella. But let me qualify that by saying that I love old Nigella; I’m ignoring every cook book from Nigellisima onwards. Old Nigella is good Nigella. How to Eat, Nigella’s first cook book, lives beside my bed and whenever I feel the need to gently soothed to sleep by Nigella’s distinctively descriptive assertive tone,…
Fish tacos with mango salsa, smoky aioli & slaw
I bloody love tacos. Effortlessly gluten free, they’re the perfect thing to make to feed a crowd or just a couple of humans on a Tuesday night. If you don’t have a tortilla press and like me, you consider tacos to be a bloody exceptional time, I highly recommend investing in a tortilla press. Yes, they are a ‘single-use…
Eggplant parmigiana
Making up for a lack of gluten with cheese is pretty much my approach to life these days. My version of eggplant parmigiana skips out the step of coating the eggplant in breadcrumbs which reeks of effort anyway. Instead the eggplant is baked until browned and tender, then sandwiched between layers of chilli and lemon infused tomato sauce,…
Asparagus in browned butter with shallots, capers & parsley
Another contribution to the ongoing seasonal series of, ‘It’s spring, so asparagus with everything until I never want to eat it again (until next spring)’. Asparagus in browned butter with shallots, capers & parsley is spring-time dinner perfection with pan-fried fish, some roasted kumara, and a mound of wilted greens. Asparagus in browned butter with shallots, capers &…
cake for breakfast 