Mango and corn slaw with peanut tofu – jump to recipe. 

I’m often asked by friends what recipes I use for work lunch meals, and I have to admit I rarely prep food purely for lunch – it’s usually a dinner with excess leftovers. This is a prime example of that over summer. It may seem like a lot of chopping, but with a mandoline you can slice everything incredibly finely in 15 minutes tops  (a kitchen must – we have this one which is great and absolutely not sponsored).  The herbs are also key. Use as much as you like of coriander, Thai basil and either (or both!) regular mint or Vietnamese mint, depending on what’s available. The mango and corn slaw keeps well for around 3 days in the fridge, and the peanut tofu makes enough for 4-5 total serves. You can take it to work with extra avocado and Japanese mayo to make it fancy, and rice depending on hunger levels.  

A few more ideas for summery leftover dinner-to-work lunches:

• Make a Greek salad with chopped cos, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, feta, black olives and add tuna and/or chickpeas. Lots of cracked black pepper and salt. Dress with lemon juice and olive oil. 
• This pea, spinach and lemon risoni salad – add smoked salmon, use whatever green vegetables you have.
• Ottolenghi’s corn, pumpkin and feta salad with hummus
• Meera Sodha’s eggplant, green bean and thai basil stir fry
• Zucchini soba noodles with peanut tofu
• Zucchini ginger udon noodles
• Spring lemon, white bean, green beans and avocado salad 

And when there are no leftovers? I keep a stash of good toast in the freezer to pull out to make avocado toast at work (try adding feta or smoked salmon to be extra luxe). A lunch worth looking forward to is important, in my opinion.

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Summer corn, nectarine and haloumi salad with fried zucchini, herbs and za-tar: jump to recipe here.

A record low single recipe here in 2023 – at least the bar for improvement is low. It’s not that I didn’t cook, but the cycle of study, exams and work meant time and motivation for recipe development and photos was missing. The rise of Instagram reels and Tiktok has resulted in a decline in traditional food blogging as it was when I started: many of my favourite bloggers have stopped all together, or switched medium to cookbooks, videos or pure social media content. 

I’m not quite ready to give it up yet. Food remains both a huge way to show love (dinner parties and birthday cakes are IN for 2024) and a creative outlet, and combining those here in this format of words + photo + recipe is the only way I can continue to squeeze it into life in a more permanent way than disappearing moments within a deep phone scroll. Maybe an optimistic statement – only time will tell whether this holds me slightly more accountable! 

This is the first of what will (hopefully) be a series of my favourite meals for weeknights or work lunches or dinner parties – mostly, for food with friends. It’s a summer corn, nectarine and haloumi salad, a favourite in the ‘fruit in salad’ category. The most important thing is perfectly ripe, juicy and sweet but not bruised or floury stone fruit. Nectarines or peaches ideally. Gooey haloumi fried at the last minute, smoky charred corn, fried zucchini for heft, lots of herbs and a lemon-y olive dressing make it a salad that can do it all: barbecue, pot luck, work lunch or quick dinner. Variants have been on repeat around here- use peaches and tomatoes if that’s what you’ve got, swap the haloumi for feta or a ball of burrata, use basil and shaved parmesan and add walnuts or pinenuts for a more Italian take.

If you’re looking for more summer recipe inspiration, here are my standouts for 2023: 

• Charred eggplant, tomato, tahini by Eden Grinshpan. Always a hit. See also her incredible roast sweet potatoes with sunflower seed and basil gremolata– we love a whole roast sweet potato moment.
• Ottolenghi’s fusion eggplant caponata with silken tofu – a classic in our lives at least. 
• My work lunches on repeat: lemon-y asparagus risoni salad (skip the salmon and use smoked instead for even more speed), zucchini soba noodles with miso salmon, corn or mango slaw with peanut tofu. 
• Ricotta gnudi with cherry tomato sauce: the friends dinner or date dinner you never knew you needed- mostly for the way you can get all cleaned up while it finishes off in the oven. And the mandatory sourdough for moping it up. 

And just because reading has made a post exam comeback, my favourite reads of 2023:

• Lola in the Mirror, Trent Dalton: the only one that for me has come close to Boy Swallows Universe (or surpassed?!).
• Birnham Wood, Eleanor Catton: writing like The Luminaries, but a environmental thriller set in small town New Zealand. Creepy and I loved it. 
• Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver. 10/10
• Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin: don’t let the initial gaming chapters put you off if you’re not a gaming person!
• Good Material, Dolly Alderton: not my favourite in the first half, but Dolly Alderton realllyyy has a way with words and that second half made it worth it. 
• Crushing, Genevieve Novak: contemporary Melbourne 20s/30s life in a novel. Almost a Sally Rooney-esque feel. 
• Love and Virtue, Diana Reed.

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Baked spinach and ricotta gnudi in roast tomato eggplant sauce. Jump to recipe.

Gnudi: Tuscan dumplings, akin to extra large ricotta gnocchi without the shaping and boiling steps. It often takes people aback when you say it, like they might have just heard you suggest nudes of some variety (gnudi does literally mean naked in Italian). The name apparently comes from the fact that they are similar to ravioli filling, only disrobed without their surrounding pasta. The term gnudi is more commonly used in areas near Florence, whereas they are also known as malfatti (meaning badly made) in Siena. This version were born of a day during COVID isolation when a friend dropped off a care package including ricotta, cherry tomatoes and a sourdough baguette (a friend that knew me well, clearly). True comfort food in a bubbling dish, and much easier than either ravioli or gnocchi – less potential for mishap.

As a sidenote, friends dropping off coffee and treats really got us through that home isolation period and I would highly recommend it to anyone else (especially New Zealanders right now who are in the midst of a COVID outbreak). Who knew how exciting a door knock would become when you weren’t allowed to leave the house – our days were bookmarked by what might come through it.

These baked gnudi are soft and pillowy, reliant on good ricotta with wrung out spinach, lemon and parmesan then nestled in a simple roast cherry tomato and eggplant sauce and baked for half an hour. They can be prepped ahead right up until the baking step (just keep covered in the fridge in the baking dish) if you’re short on time later. It’s the sort of meal where you end up having done all the dishes by the time you’re ready to serve it straight from the oven, ideal for both weeknights and easy entertaining. 

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Better ricotta gnocchi with kale & pangrattato. Jump to recipe.

Ricotta gnocchi are easily the superior gnocchi. Maybe I’m biased, but I wouldn’t even bother with the potato version – the risk is far greater than the reward. Who wants to boil and peel and mash potatoes only to increase your chances of ending up with a stodgy end product? (That being said, Ottolenghi’s swede gnocchi with miso butter remain on my to-make list, but only because any recipe he touches turns to gold). Ricotta, on the other hand, are the light, delicate, easy but casual gnocchi. The throw-together-for-friends-on-a-weeknight gnocchi (when we can finally have friends over again – I’m READY). 

This version is slightly different to the recipe I’ve previously published – it has the addition of parmesan and an extra egg yolk with a little less flour, which I think gives a lighter, slightly more decadent end result. The main thing with ricotta gnocchi is the type of ricotta you buy, because all ricotta is not one and the same. Some are very wet and creamy, others quite hard and crumbly – I like to buy something in between, but the main thing is that you want it to be quite dry, so if it is very damp, drain it in a sieve and lay it between a few layers of paper towels to squidge some of that extra liquid out. Usually the regular supermarket ricotta is fine for this recipe. 

We’ve gone with a vibrantly green tuscan kale sauce (blanch the kale and use your favourite food processor/blender situation to turn it into a nutty lemony pesto) and crunchy sourdough pangrattato to top (toast with a decent slug of olive oil until golden and crispy, no store-bought breadcrumbs allowed). These crunchy bits also keep extremely well in the fridge to be repurposed wherever you see fit and texture is required – on top of salad, eggs, a shakshuka. Pinenuts, lemon zest and a hefty dose of extra parmesan and black pepper finish it off. You can practice it in lockdown to one day impress your friends, or just for yourself. Cooking gnocchi has to be an act of love. 

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Zucchini ginger udon noodles with maple tofu: a simple 30 minute dinner with lots of veg, herbs and crispy bits. Jump to recipe

We are back with a new recipe and a new lockdown!! Two things that seem to go hand in hand these days – apparently the only moments I have available to cook/test/photograph are when forced to stay home. It’s lockdown V5 in Melbourne (just to recap, here we have lockdown one (passionfruit meringue bars), two (pear miso galette; rhubarb custard brûlée tarts), three (pannacotta lamington cake) and four (tiramisu tart) for a bit of viewing nostalgia/PTSD). Not much to say about it that has not already been said before: just feeling particularly stagnant this time around. So much for those dinners out! Those holidays! Seeing friends! Seeing more than the four walls of our house! (Great four walls, to be fair). 

Anyway. Zucchini ginger udon noodles with maple tofu. It’s a mouthful but I couldn’t work out how to describe it better (let me know if you come up with an alternative). First we have LOTS of thinly sliced zucchini, cooked down low and slow a la @ottolenghi. No browning allowed. Cook gently with oil, salt, ginger and garlic for 15-20 minutes, stirring whenever you remember, until it’s soft, almost translucent and very fragrant. Meanwhile you soak the tofu in a sesame, maple and soy combination, chop some herbs, throw together the lime/fish sauce dressing and cook the udon. Careful with the latter or it’ll end up soft and soggy, opposite of al dente, not what we want. Stir it all together and adorn with your favourite crispy bits – fried shallots, togarashi, extra herbs and the tofu you’ve just pan fried. It might make you feel better about lockdown. It might not either (that would be too much to promise). 

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