Lately, I've been getting frisky in the kitchen
I'm a mega utilitarian so it feels *really* good to make use of my cookbooks, try new recipes out for the first time, and end up with yummy-in-my-tummy results!
An Australian heart of a tart.
I’ve enjoyed cooking a variety of dishes four to five times per week while living here in Las Vegas. In the past two years, I’ve tightened it down to a pretty simple standard rotation that I’ve committed to muscle memory — any sort of spicy bird’s eye chili and tomato pasta (classic tomato sprinkled with gorgonzola or parmesan, lasagna, sardines and fennel), hearty stews with beans of all sorts, khai jeow (Thai omelette) with khao nung (sticky rice), gochujang roasted chicken with veg — and once in a while, I’d throw in the occasional wildcard meal from one of my cookbooks.
In the last four weeks especially, I’ve had the time and desire to be more adventurous in the kitchen, diving into recipes that have wiggled my waffle but made me nervous based on the ingredients list or prep work intensity.
Making a pie crust from scratch was one of those scary things that I previously stayed away from: dough has long been a fearsome foe to me, what with all the yucky spine-tingling feels from making a lump of dough too wet and sticky and getting it caked and crusty in between my fingernails. I woke up on Wednesday morning and thumbed through the Autumn chapter of Flamingo Estate’s Fridays from the Garden. I was inspired to make a savoury apple and leek tart to bring for dinner at our dear friend Ally’s house that evening and luckily, I had all the ingredients on hand or could make do with substitutions (like ricotta for goat cheese or pears for apples) without having to go to the shops — big win!
There was a level of I don’t particularly like this feeling right now when making the dough (it had to do with the crushing of cold butter slices into the flour between my thumb and index fingers) but I persevered, followed the directions through to completion, happily washed my flour-y hands, and ended up with a such a treat. I was bloody chuffed! An easy reminder that I can overcome certain physical sensations and come out the other side with something satisfying.
Ella’s Perfect Pie Crust and the Apple & Leek Tart recipes from Fridays from the Garden.
Other things that brought me big joy this week:
🛍️ I neatly organised and labelled my old children’s program arts+crafts materials so they are now ready to be donated to SCRAP SF the next time I make it out to the Bay.
🩰 I found my ballet school report card from when I was 6 years old. My teacher wrote, “Tiffany tries her best in class… She could learn to relax a little.” My teacher knew me.
🎂 Vik and I FaceTimed my Mom (her and my Dad are in Singapore this week) to wish her a happy birthday! She opened her birthday card and was confused. “Wah, ini kartu yang Cici bikin waktu masih kecil, yah? Tulis Kristina. (Wow, this is the card you made me when you were a kid, huh? You wrote Kristina.)” I’m all about reusing masterpieces I crafted decades ago.
Put something extra YUM in your belly! Sampai j(h)umpa, peeps.
xx tiff