What to eat?

Kate Underwood, Food Editor @relishthememory @eat.newzealand

Thinking of what to eat, cook, buy, and make can be exhausting. Even with a world of recipes at my fingertips, sometimes I still can’t decide what I’m having for dinner.

In a season where our produce options are scarce, and our wallets are squeezed, I thought I’d share a few ideas that I’ve been basing my meals on lately that are affordably delicious, in the hope that it may inspire you too.

Around this time of year, every year, I notice myself getting even more hungry. As the temperature drops, I’ve discovered deep comfort in canned beans and dabbling in big pots of vegetable-laden stews. Butter beans are my bean of the moment. Their voluptuous shape and creamy flesh are super satisfying to bite through, but I’ll often use chickpeas, cannellini beans, or black beans.

It starts with generously seasoned and deeply caramelised onion, garlic, or ginger. To this, you can layer in starchy veges like potatoes, kūmara or pumpkin, or go straight in with the beans! A few flavour hacks to help ramp things up can come from a squeeze of harissa or tomato paste, a dash of soy sauce and a glug of wine.

If you press some of the beans up against the side of the pot, you’ll release their starchy interior, which will help thicken the sauce, allowing for a more stew-like texture rather than a watery soup situation. Add leafy greens towards the end, sliced cabbage, kale, silverbeet or anything you have. Always go heavy on the toppings. A jammy boiled egg, Greek yoghurt, whatever herbs are surviving in the garden, and a squeeze of something tangy and acidic, like lemon, or even a dash of white wine vinegar, works too.

I’ve also been making sushi bowls. Essentially rice topped with a myriad of colourful ingredients. Embracing the fibrous chew of brown rice, I season it with rice wine vinegar and stir through chopped-up seaweed or nori sheets. Utilising the frozen vegetable stash, I’ll make miso butter corn kernels and a black pepper tofu with maple and soy, a delicious recipe from cookbook author Emma Galloway.

There’s always a chopped salad or slaw involving cabbage, carrots, and sliced-up pickled ginger and its pickling liquid in the dressing. Blanched broccoli or sauteed greens round it all out with a compulsory slug of kewpie mayo and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds. The next day, the leftover seasoned rice gets folded through scrambled eggs and dotted with hot sauce.

On the sweet side of things, a few weekends ago, my nephews requested honey rice bubble slice. You know the one. That nostalgic treat with the crunch that takes you back to childhood parties. We made some with a mix of coconut oil and butter, honey, sugar, and rice bubbles. Messy and moreish. Even better when you happen to have a bowl of whipped cream in the fridge to top them with! Yum!