Single Penguin Food – days one to four

D was away in Tasmania last week for lca, so I had seven days of Single Penguin Food. I had the best intentions of lots of new to me things, and I managed to pretty much stick to this, but I also had the best intentions of no take out or restaurants. This last was not so strictly adhered to, as I was distracted by family members, pizza with C + E, curry with my sister, noodles with my parents.



I spent Sunday curled up on the couch, mainlining Merlin. What a ridiculous show! I ventured out of the house at the last minute, as I realised I had no noodles suitable for claypot (which I blogged about in detail here).



Monday night I tried this Moroccan cauliflower recipe. It was not great. The steamed cauliflower was okay, but the flavour wasn't as strong as I'd thought it was, and in the end it was just some steamed cauliflower with a bit of cumin. I added a side of aloo muttar, because I'd been worried the cauliflower wouldn't be sufficient, and I was glad I added it. Mixing the potatoes together with the cauliflower made dinner pretty tasty.



Tuesday night I hung out with D's brother C, his partner E, and E's brother and brother's girlfriend. We played my new favourite game, and had pizza from East End Pizza, in East Perth. East End lets you make your own pizza, and on Tuesday nights all MYO large pizzas are $12, and that was pretty awesome. I had eggplant, chili flakes, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, and spinach. The flavour was fantastic, though a little dry, and I wish I had added normal tomatoes. It was pretty great though!



Wednesday night I was suffering from cramps and feeling sulky, so I had my #1 comfort food, noodle soup. It is the best, easy and it has been my favourite since I was a child, it brings me such delight and comfort.


Stay tuned for days five through seven!

adventures with the ppk

I love noodles, all the time, so when the zucchini and peanut noodles from the PPK were recommended to D, we decided to give it a go.





I think the proportions in the recipe are a bit off, or just perhaps not to my taste. The recipe calls for one pound of noodles (and recommends whole wheat pasta), which is just under a 500g packet of pasta noodles. I would recommend perhaps half a pack, something like 200 or 250 grams. I used angel hair pasta, which I've never used before. I found it very gluggy and sticky, perhaps because I don't usually rince my pasta, something I'm going to try to do now, having had this experience. Zucchini didn't seem adequate, given the huge amount of pasta the recipe called for, so I added some carrot and gai lan that I had in my fridge. If I'd had some bean shoots I'd probably have added these also.

Overall, I was satisfied with this pasta. It had a fun flavour, and was very quick and easy. I'm not sure I'd make it again though.





I love taking cookbooks on the bus so I can spend the busride thinking about new things to try. Vegan With a Vengeance is a book nicely sized for PT, and features a moroccan spring vegetables recipe. I don't really know much about Moroccan flavours, and the recipe admits to probably not being authentic, but it was fun to try this mix of flavours and spices. I've made this twice in the last few weeks, it's very easy to make and really tasty.