Curried raw kale, roasted red pepper, and spelt salad

It’s spring here, so I’ve been enjoying my life here in Sydney by refinishing furniture (as pictured here),

replanting seeds, and getting up to my usual shenanigans in the kitchen. This curried salad is from one of my CSA box experiments, and uses up some of the first signs of summer’s impending heat in the form of a roasted red pepper and some beautiful curly kale. I can’t wait until I have enough of my own produce to try a version of this from our balcony garden.

Curried raw kale, roasted red pepper, and spelt salad

French tart

I have a sinking suspicion I’ll get more interesting hits for the title of this post than usual. But I’m not sure how to describe it. Blasphemous tart dough? Perhaps. The recipe is from here (I won’t repeat it here), and when I saw the instructions, I headed straight for the kitchen. See, I hate making tart crusts. I screw them up almost every time.  But this one looked simple — foolproof, in fact.

Which is why I messed with the recipe, and sort of stopped following directions at some point. Typical.

I substituted olive oil for vegetable oil, and used 3 oz all purpose flour, 2 oz almond flour instead of just 5 oz. all purpose flour.  I also had no sugar, so I used golden syrup in its place.  Everything else was pretty much the same.  I did not parbake the shell before filling it (with pineapple and quince jam and some canned pineapple we had in the house — we were getting kind of low on supplies before we left).  In hindsight, I really should have done this, but even despite that, it turned out pretty well.  Here’s the tart, just before going in the oven:

The dough did not hold together, which I expected with the almond flour substitution. This is why I don’t have a plated shot — it looked sort of like a fruit cobbler looks after kids attack.  After ~50 minutes of cooking (which would be shorter if I had parbaked, but I digress), the crust was almost shortbread-like, and paired nicely with the fruit.  I will definitely be making this again … Though maybe I’ll follow the instructions next time.

** I’m on vacation at the moment, and won’t be responding to comments.  This is also the last post I managed to cobble together before I left.  No worries, though — I’ll be back at the end of May with more about my trip! **

Early spring

Picture the scene: just another endless weekday here at home. The kitchen is as chilly and cluttered as I left it, early that morning, when the sun decided to stay hidden behind a vast shroud of gray. Twilight’s no different — perhaps a bit more melancholic — but how would I know? I’ve been on shift all day, in the windowless bunker I call work, playing with wires and signals and listening to the monotonous drone of vacuum pumps and fans all working away at establishing the 24-hour rhythm of a lab that never sleeps.

Yes, it’s February, and I fear this month is getting to me. But after seeing this seductive little creation, I had to try my hand at creating a little bowl of springtime sun to call my own.

My version is pale green, like the first buds emerging from the monotonous brownish gray of winter, and calls for nothing more than a small bunch of cilantro and a few staples you probably already have in your pantry. It’s light, despite the potatoes, and a perfect antidote to the shortest month of the year.