In the Kitchen

I seem to mainly post about knitting, so I thought this week I would talk about another interest of mine, cooking. I really only became interested in cooking a few years ago, before that I found cooking to be such a chore, I'm not sure what changed my opinion but I think it had a lot to do with a) my love of gardening and realising the importance of eating seasonally and b) my discovery of travel cookbooks.


I love food with a lot of flavour and I love cooking with spices and fresh herbs, I will never forget going to visit the Egyptian Spice Bazaar in Istanbul, ahhhh the smell was just heavenly all those wonderful spices! However I have found a much smaller substitute, the Fiji market in Newtown (see He Needs Food blog for great photos and write up on the market and all things culinary), smaller yes, but they have a HUGE selection of spices, just about every spice under the sun! I assure you that's no exaggeration.

So this weekend I cooked sweet-sour lamb yahni with black-eyed peas and almonds, a recipe from Greg Maloufs cookbook Turquoise. The recipe called for sour cherries, which I couldn't find anywhere, so I substituted them for cranberries (frozen cranberries) which just looked so good I had to take a photo, and in the end worked really well as a sour cherry substitute.

On the menu tonight...mushroom risotto with a garden salad and dry white wine!