Brain food.

Andy and I have been working fairly hard since I?ve come back from Canberra?me on writing (I?m nearly done with a rough-as-guts draft of chapter 4!!), him on organising field trips (he?s currently at Orpheus Island and will be back in PNG at the end of March). Thus, much of our time has been spent at uni rather than at home in the kitchen. Add to this the crazy weather we?ve had. When it has rained, the highways flood in the blink of an eye, leaving us cut off from fresh fruit and veggies. When it?s not raining, it?s hot and humid. At least the bike paths are no longer too flooded to ride to uni. However, the conditions are perfect for growing mould?I?m thinking of starting some sort of commercial venture, since it grows so readily on every surface in our house, from the desktop to the outside doors to my clothes in the closet.

But unlike mould, kitchen inspiration has been a bit hard to come by this summer. Still, we have managed to come up with a few good meals...

An easy favourite, when the right ingredients are on hand, are burgers. This recipe for ?Mexican Patties?, which we loosely followed, is from Wild Morsels and it was good. Beans, polenta, tomatoes and Mexican-inspired spices all combined into these yummy, easy to put together patties. Andy is the master of burger-assembly, and he didn?t disappoint. White bread burger buns, lettuce, tomato, beetroot and cucumber formed the base on which the patty rested. On top were onions sautéed with a few diced Spanish olives, and a generous scoop of Almost Sour Cream (from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah).

There have been a lot of nights when I haven?t felt like eating much more than a bowl of cereal, let alone cooking, so luckily there is someone else in the house to pick up the slack. Andy set out to make me a secret meal and set to flipping through recipes in the cupboard. He settled on SusanV?s mini-crustless tofu quiches. Our experience with these in the past has been tasty but structurally a mess, so he planned to add a crust. Unfortunately, we were out of frozen pastry, so the surprise was ruined and I was mustered off the couch to make pastry. It was worth the minimal effort?they turned out really well, all filled with spinach and love.

Speaking of love, who doesn?t love marked down food? Andy and I always scoop up reduced items, so when I saw the telltale green sticker on this soy cheese I got all excited. The texture is similar to the super-processed Velveeta cheese block, but a bit grainier.

I tried to dice it up to put on pizza, but it is pretty gooey and stuck to the knife. So instead I sort of crumbled it. It has a really cheddary flavour, and didn?t melt, but it made a nice addition to our usual repertoire of toppings (seitan, pineapple, tomato/bbq sauce, and parsley).

On the bright side, the first day of Autumn is in less than a week. On the not-so-bright side, that means almost nothing here in north Queensland!