pots & vans

We had a fillet of deep sea bream which I was going to use last night for dinner but we went out and had burgers instead (!) so had to use for lunch today. It's been raining constantly this morning, so we felt like bunkering down and having something nourishing and warm. Servings 2 Ingredients sesame oil (couple of glugs) dollop of minced ginger decent handful of finely sliced red cabbage decent handful of finely sliced kale 1 litre of miso stock (about a dessert spoon of miso paste) few glugs of soy sauce few dashes of fish oil about 300g of fish (bream), cubed Method sauté the ginger, cabbage and kale in the sesame oil for a few mins add the stock, soy sauce and fish sauce and bring to a simmer add the fish and cook for few mins until the fish is cooked but still tender garnish with sesame seeds and dried shallots

I read somewhere once that paella was party food. Not in the same way party pies and frankfurters are, but in the sense that when you put a paella dish on the table, its invites a celebratory mood. Indeed it does. I've got my good mate Gavan to thank for getting me onto paella, and the sofrito he shared with me is the key to this recipe ... magic juice. Some recipes integrate the sofrito into the dish. I like this approach because we make enough of it to store in small containers in the freezer (sometimes twice the recipe below), so when the the occasion calls for paella, the preparation effort is drastically reduced. We keep a paella dish in the van, so when we leave home for a decent stint, the sofrito from the freezer comes with us. Perhaps like no other dish, I was determined to figure out how to cook paella properly, and in particular, how to end up with socarrat, one of the most important parts of an authentic paella, and for me, an indicator that I was getting the hang of it...

We had been exploring the coastline between Ballina and Evan Head by driving along the beach. It was going to be late afternoon by the time we got home so we needed something simple and quick for dinner. We knew there was some ocean trout in the fridge and we also had a packet of fresh lasagna sheets, so we figured if we called into the IGA on the way back for some cherry tomatoes we'd be set. It was a winner. Servings 2 Time Really quick, a few minutes to prepare and then once the water is boiling, less than 5 minutes to cook. Equipment (main) Deep pan Large saucepan (for pasta) Colander  Chopping boards and knife Tongs (I find tongs are the best utensil to manage pasta such as spaghetti, linguini etc.) Ingredients Pasta (instead of tagliatelle, I cut the lasagna sheets into strips. Rule of thumb is 100g of pasta per person, the lasagna packet was 375g so I used half and saved the rest for another meal.) Salt (for pasta water) Oil, a generous glug (for sautéing tomatoes) Half a pu...