Mesmerising foamy waves breaking on the shoreline, sand between the toes and nodding off over the crossword; corn on the cob and more avos than you can eat; salads of white nectarines and peaches, red-fleshed plums; chilled frothy beers, salty lips and sizzling seafood … I hope your summer experience is all you want it to be.
Some days I don’t feel like cooking much, though I always want something tasty to eat.
That’s when Ilaria and I experiment: grabbing fresh produce, snipping herbs, crushing young garlic, toasting spices, putting anything that appeals on a plate, though we often return to our favourites.
Surf ‘n turf – who would have thought? I know what I thought when I first heard of carpetbag steak (oysters stuffed inside a steak): Blaaah. I liked my meat and seafood separate, well, that was until I went to Spain a few decades back and encountered prawns and chorizo on the same plate, and other variations of seafood and meat cooked together. Each is delicious, but they become more so when cooked together. Just get yourself decent prawns to begin with – In this part of the world, buy Australian prawns, none other.
Have you ever wondered why not every zucchini flower grows a zucchini? That’s because some of the flowers are male. Don’t waste them! See how to harvest and prepare them here. Get ’em stuffed! Get ’em fried! Get them sizzling and spluttering in a frypan, a joy to the ears! And an even bigger joy to scoff!
You can also add them to a frittata or a pasta sauce. Some people sprinkle them over a salad but I reckon uncooked they’re like eating a dish cloth …
And I’m going to talk about cats, well, just mine. Humpf is a bit of a water babe. He’s got a story to tell, so I said, okay pus, you can have another turn on Shared Kitchen. Something to make you smile. Who said cats hate water?
Here’s to a good week.
Julie
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