tomato | date with a plate.

Quick & easy Thai beef salad

December 14, 2017 by date with a plate.

I am back. Finally. Sorry – I got really distracted. It’s been a long time coming but I am slowly stepping back into blog-land. Now I need to figure out how to stay consistent…any tips? I have been thinking a lot lately about healthy meals – and that healthy doesn’t have to mean boring, bland or difficult. In fact, it’s my new mission to make it quite the opposite. And while I apprentice that there’s lots of others already doing […]

Categories: Asian, BBQ, Beef, Dinner, Lunch, mid-week, Salad • Tags: beansprouts, beef, capsicum, coriander, cucumber, dinner, easy, lime, Mint, onion, tomato

Baked eggs with chickpeas, tomato and basil

January 18, 2016 by date with a plate.

The great thing about eggs is they don’t need to be confined to breakfast. Dinner, snack time or lunch, eggs are one versatile and affordable ingredient and it’s probably why I utilise them in my cooking so often. Although I made this meal for breakfast, it can just as easily be eaten for lunch or dinner. It’s quick, easy, cheap and most importantly; tasty and filling. It’s also very adaptable, for example, feel free to add some grilled chorizo/bacon or […]

Categories: Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, One Pot Wonder, Vegetarian • Tags: basil, Breakfast, chickpea, chili, dinner, eggs, garlic, onion, oregano, tomato

Pasta with pipis

November 9, 2015 by date with a plate.

Despite living in a really great neighbourhood, I often find myself driving questionably long distances to source great produce, especially seafood. It feels like I live in a bit of a produce black-hole. There just wasn’t anything in my local area that really floated my boat with respect to good quality seafood. So when a new local small business opened its doors, I was grateful to have access to both fresh and frozen seafood. I have never thought of seafood […]

Categories: Dinner, Italian, Lunch, Pasta, seafood • Tags: chili, garlic, Italian, Italian flat leaf parsley, lemon, onion, Pasta, pipis, seafood, tomato, white wine

Tabbouleh

June 4, 2015 by date with a plate.

I hadn’t planned on blogging this recipe, it was just something I threw together on Monday evening to accompany some homemade falafels, but after a few requests I figured it was worth sharing. As you can probably tell, the two quick snaps I managed to get were for Insty purposes only and a little rushed – I had to quickly snap before rushing out the door to our friends house for our weekly ‘family dinner’, but hey – you get […]

Categories: Salad, Side • Tags: Italian flat leaf parsley, lemon, lemon juice, Mint, olive oil, tomato

Fish and shrimp po’boy

May 12, 2015 by date with a plate.

Nostalgia can take our minds wandering at the most unexpected moments. Last week I couldn’t get po’boys (or poor boys) off my mind as I reminisced about balmy autumn days spent wandering the streets of New Orleans. A po’boy, for those who haven’t travelled to Louisiana, is traditional Southern comfort food – a French bread roll filled with deep fried catfish, shrimp, oysters etc and topped off with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, dill pickles and mayonnaise. Of the many that I […]

Categories: seafood • Tags: dill pickle, fish, lettuce, pickle, prawn, tomato

Italian sausage and lentil soup

April 8, 2015 by date with a plate.

Sick? Tired? My Italian sausage and lentil soup is a real crowd pleaser. It’s easy to make, cheap and freezes like a boss – so I tend to make large batches and keep some (quite literally) for a rainy day. Like so many good home cooking recipes, this was born from a mixture of being sick at home and resisting a trip to the shops. The result was pleasantly surprising and it’s been on the menu ever since. While technically […]

Categories: Dinner, mid-week, One Pot Wonder, Soup • Tags: asparagus, capsicum, carrot, garlic, Italian sausages, lentils, onion, tomato

Gnocchi with braised beef sauce

August 20, 2014 by date with a plate.

Just a short post today, it has been a rough couple of weeks battling the ever complicated onslaught of flu, work, personal life and trip planning – my upcoming trip to the United States is possibly the only thing keeping me sane at the moment. Counting down the days until we jet off for a month long adventure keeps me working hard through everything that’s been thrown at me lately. Sick at home, bored out of my mind (yes, there’s […]

Categories: Beef, Dinner, Lunch, Pasta • Tags: beef, braised beef, carrot, celery, garlic, gnocchi, Jamie Oliver, onion, Pasta, pearl barley, poached eggs, potato, slow cooking, tomato

Fish stew Ancona-style

June 23, 2014 by date with a plate.

We don’t eat seafood nearly as much as we should, but on Sunday afternoon we spoiled ourselves with a trip to a local fish market – scoring some awesome treasures for a Sunday night feast. Oysters, fish, prawns, pipis and scallops…..I was seriously excited to get home and get cooking! Recently I bought Antonio Carluccio’s book, The Collection, and was continuously drawn to his Fish stew Ancona-style – no matter how aimlessly I thought I was skipping through the pages, […]

Categories: One Pot Wonder, seafood, Special Occasion • Tags: Antonio Carluccio, chili, fish, Fish stew, garlic, Italian, Italian flat leaf parsley, onion, pipis, prawn, scallop, seafood, tomato

Gnocchi with pancetta, tomato & basil sauce

June 16, 2014 by date with a plate.

Lazily wandering through our local grocer yesterday, the boy asked me if I could make gnocchi for dinner – considering he bought me a potato ricer months ago and I haven’t used it yet, I figured it was a decent request. Two potatoes, a small block of pancetta and a handful of basil later we were pretty much set for dinner. Gnocchi is deceptively easy to make and requires few ingredients – perfect. I think the key to a good […]

Categories: Dinner, Lunch, Pasta • Tags: basil, gnocchi, Italian, onion, pancetta, Pasta, potato, potato gnocchi, potato ricer, tomato

Ragù alla napoletana (…I really love Italians)

May 12, 2014 by date with a plate.

So it was Mother’s Day in Australia on Sunday, and rather than take our Mothers out for an average meal at a local pub, where the quality never quite matches the cost and the waiter forgets your drinks because everyone else decided to take their Mum out for a pub lunch as well – we decided to have the families over and cook for them. Not only cheaper, but more relaxed and far more enjoyable. This was our gift to […]

Categories: Beef, Dinner, Lunch, One Pot Wonder, Pasta, Pork • Tags: basil, beef, Gennaro Contaldo, Italian, Italian sausages, onion, pork ribs, red wine, slow cooking, tomato

Greek salad

April 9, 2014 by date with a plate.

There’s something about this super simple salad that makes me happy, but I’m not sure what exactly it is. Perhaps it is my all consuming love for juicy, ripe tomatoes, or perhaps my love for creamy, salty feta that results in me absentmindedly placing the ingredients into my trolley every time I go to the shops. As you can imagine, traveling the Greek Islands for me was a real pleasure, I spent two weeks island hopping with my travel buddy […]

Categories: Salad • Tags: capsicum, dill, easy, feta, Greek, Jamie Oliver, olive oil, olives, onion, oregano, tomato

Gumbo

March 24, 2014 by date with a plate.

Later this year the boyfriend and I are adventuring for a month in the US, and I honestly cannot wait. All this talk about the places we are going to got me hankering for some Gumbo….since we are going to New Orleans and all I figured I should give this dish a go. I haven’t made it before, but it came out just right – or at least I am told by Ollie it did. He grew up surrounded by […]

Categories: Chicken, Dinner, One Pot Wonder • Tags: carrot, celery, garlic, Italian flat leaf parsley, onion, rice, roux, slow cooking, tomato, Worcestershire sauce

date with a plate.

food for everyday.

Tag: tomato