Quicklinks
Posted by kathryn in Ethics & Sustainablity and Dinners
- Cooking pasta: Harold McGee has done some experiments. To find out how much water you actually need to cook pasta. And it’s not as much as you think.
- Pasta bake: I cooked Heidi’s almost cheeseless pasta bake this week and it’s really, really good. Next time I’d also add some broccoli to the mix.
- Stuffing a roast: I really liked Mark Bittman’s easy idea for stuffing a roast. He just sticks a wooden spoon in and then fills that hole with dried fruit.
- Packing a lunchbox: This week I talked about the snacks I’m taking to work. On a similar topic I saw Nigel Slater’s piece on packed lunches. He is wonderfully enthusiastic about the whole process and offers some good suggestions.
- Using ginger: I write a regular recipe column for Life etc magazine. This edition is all about ginger and you can download them from their website. Just click on the link about half way down the right hand sidebar.
- Where does your jam come from? Beerenberg jams have just added a nifty feature to their website. It’s called provenance pathway and enables you to trace where a jar of their jam has come from. Where the fruit was grown, who cooked it and when it was made. I really like this idea, and hope more companies take this on board. There’s an outline of the service on Springwise.
- Buying garlic: I recently read that 80 – 90% of the garlic sold here in Australia is grown in China. Which is quite shocking. The same article linked to Garlic Farm Sales an online store where you can buy locally grown garlic. It’s seasonal produce and I’m fascinated by all the different garlic varieties they offer.
Photograph by Ian-S.
20 March, 2009
Comments
Another terrible thing about the Chinese Garlic is that it is all bleached.
They grow it for quantity, not quality, so it tastes terrible. A few years ago they dumped a whole lot of garlic here, flooding the market with ridiculously cheap product, forcing all the Australian growers out of the market. Australian farmers couldn’t make a profit on the garlic anymore, so most of them stopped growing it. Now, thanks to Patrice Newell (http://patricenewellgarlic.com.au/), garlic that tastes like something is returning for Australia!
Oh, I forgot, I recently tried cooking pasta with much less water, and it was delicious!
Sorry if you’re seeing this a second time – I just received an error message!
I have often wondered about pasta:water ratio, and rarely use quite as much as the packet advises!
I noticed a brief mention in the article of cooking pasta by absorption. I first read about this on Chocolate & Zucchini and tried it myself a year ago. It’s more fiddly than a straightforward boil but far less effort than a risotto. The bonus is that you can cook your vegetables with the pasta and make it a one-pot meal. :-)
i love the thought of buying garlic over the net, but boy it is expensive! i must look in some of the local shops to see which garlics they have. I think some are grown locally and i will search them out!
Lili: the article I read also talked about the decline in Australian growers, and also in the sheer number of varieties that were grown here. I bought some of Patrice Newell’s garlic last year and it was wonderful.
Cindy: thanks for the recipe link. That’s an interesting pasta method. I’ve also tried using less water this week – and it works just fine.
I have been aware for some time of the issues with imported garlic, especially the bleaching. I never felt that there was an alternative, but now I have one, many thanks, Kathryn.
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