Nibbles #3
Portable soup 'cakes', a recipe for chilled tofu salad, and what I managed to salvage from my vegetable garden.
Welcome to Nibbles where once a month I share everything brilliant I’ve been reading on the web as well as some general updates from my kitchen, my vegetable garden and other miscellaneous ‘you really need to know about’ updates.
If you’ve arrived here from elsewhere and you’re not yet a subscriber, you can sign up here so not to miss out on monthly ingredient essays (featuring a different ingredient every month), exclusive recipes and the occasional long read! Oh, and a brand new subscriber-only column I’ll be launching this autumn - watch this space!
I know it’s just a TikTok drink, but this Corona Sunrise cocktail hack has slightly blown my mind.
So it turns out Generation Z don’t really go to restaurants as much as we do.
I’ve had Anne’s piece and recipe on cooking green beans marked as unread in my emails to try ever since it arrived.
How historic explorers were fuelled by portable cakes of soup.
I loved this fascinating piece on how ‘natural’ wine is a misleading term.
This is the Sungold cherry tomato pasta recipe of my dreams:
Homemade Vienatta seems retro-magical in the best possible way.
Samantha has written a lovely vignette of her life in Cairo, the challenges of grocery shopping and on the joys of local ingredients.
Also from the brilliant Kitchen Projects, if you’re British and you’ve ever been confused by the difference between the whole polenta / cornmeal thing (also if you want to learn the cleverest hack ever for making blueberries taste more like blueberries) this post on a Blueberry Swirl Polenta Cake is for you.
What I’ve been cooking: It seems a bit mad to think we were experiencing true heatwave weather for most of the past month now we’re simply enjoying regular English summer days (albiet with dry lawns and a heatwave ban) but the recipes I’ve put out in the world elsewhere this past month really reflect the temperatures: this Cold Cucumber Soup with Greek Yogurt and Dill only requires turning the hob on if you want to make the honey sesame almonds for sprinkling on top, and the Chilled Aubergine Salad with Cucumber & Tofu I put together for my Macknade residency is perfect for making ahead, and only involves roasting a tray of aubergines during the cooler part of the day in order to experience the cool interplay of flavours and textures I adore here.
Still summery, but a bit more of what I fancy right now is my Whipped Feta & Beetroot with Dill and Pistachios - the ultimate salad plate perfect for serving either as a show-stopping side dish, or before a meal with warm flatbreads for dipping and scooping.
Also, to deal with that tomato glut, I’ve got a basil-heavy Pesto alla Trapanese tossed with some trofi pasta which I ate 4 days on the trot for lunch to keep me going through a solid week of painting the window frames in our conservatory conversion. Who knew painstakingly painting around brand new panes of glass would take so long?
What I’ve been growing: Things in the garden were already a little bit, well, dead before the hosepipe ban was announced, so I made the decision to let everything go except for the tomatoes (obviously), the squash plants that seem happy but are only flowering, not fruiting, the yellow courgette that I do fear might have given up, and my first ever attempt at growing fennel which I fear I might only get to eat as fronds. But that is gardening for you.
I did however have a big success with by first ever attempt at growing borlotti beans, which I simply braised to serve alongside griddled chicken and a few salads. Utterly delicious.
Thanks for the link! :)
I love these round-ups! The article on portable soup is so interesting. And I’ve been on a cucumber kick recently, so I need to try that soup before the weather gets too cold. I could see myself making the honey sesame almonds year-round, though!