About | Kitchengardenrhythms

Hello and welcome to my online recipe journal.

Here you will find a tried and tested collection of wholesome, seasonal vegetarian recipes with a focus on healthy home cooking.

If you would like to learn more about me, my food experiences, cooking influences and ethos, keep scrolling further down.

If you would like to find a recipe use the menu below to search for one, or use the drop down menu at the top of the page.

Breakfasts & Drinks

Light Meals, Sides & Soups

Dinner

Desserts & Sweets

Condiments & Staples

The food I cook for my family is shaped by the seasons and what is being harvested in our garden, so that I can feed my children the most nourishing and local produce possible while also knowing it is fresh and organic. Over the years my partner and I have developed two major permaculture gardens on two differing pieces of land (you can read more about them here), each time with the aim of being as self-sufficient as possible. We go fishing occasionally in the summertime and we sometimes eat the fish we have caught, but for now the recipes on this site are purely vegetarian, as that is where my expertise lies, and it is how we eat most of the time.

Because a lot of my recipes are influenced by ethnic cuisines you may need to invest in a few specialised ingredients to add to your pantry, such as pomegranate molasses, nigella seeds, or star anise, but once you have bought them you will find they last forever, and it is these small pops of flavour that will bring your dish to the next level.

My cooking style is to create healthy yet indulgent wholefood in a rustic seasonal manner. A typical meal at our house is a spread of bread or flatbreads, a main dish or small dishes of tapas style food all stemming from that days garden harvest, and finally a selection of condiments.

vegen butter tofu with roti breads and banana coconut sambal

Within my recipe journal you will see I use limited amounts of refined cane sugar, because consuming too much refined sugar does not agree with my body, and we could all benefit from eating a lot less of it. The empty calories contained within refined sugar have very little benefits, while tasty alternatives such as honey and maple syrup still contain many favourable nutrients. Dried fruits and dates are another way I sweeten desserts, as they not only contain nutrients but also fibre, which is great for your body.

I am so happy to finally have a means to share my recipes, and I know you will enjoy cooking and eating these meals as much as we do. I also hope you can find some inspiration in my Garden Blog, and maybe even try growing something new.

Come and Join Me

vegan chocolate and zucchini mud cake with dark chocolate ganache

Chocolate & Zucchini Mud Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

seasonal vegetable and cannelini bean stew with cheese and herb dumplings

Seasonal Vegetable & Cannellini Bean Stew with Cheese & Herb Dumplings

About Aby

About Aby...

I am a mother to two talented boys who are growing up way too fast, and partner to a vibrant and amazing man called Brett. I love dancing, hula hooping and of course cooking and gardening. When I'm not out in my garden (or hooping), I feel most at home in the kitchen, stirring a sauce or chopping up some freshly harvested vegetables, wondering which herbs I should pick to compliment the meal. For me, just like my garden, my kitchen is a peaceful reassuring space that I can always come back to, no matter how mad the world gets, and calmly create something delicious and beautiful to feed my family.

While building our house we lived in a tiny bach, then a caravan (picture a family of four, two cats and a dog, outside long drop toilet and no hot water!) but even in these trying circumstances I have always created a central kitchen hub, so that no matter what we can still cook and eat healthy tasty wholefoods.

aby chlamers from kitchen garden rhythms making pizza in her tiny kitchen

Here you can see a picture of me in what felt like the smallest kitchen ever in the bach we lived in while we were designing our house - but this kitchen was still my haven and it was heavily jam packed with as many ingredients as we could fit into it, so that when the house build was becoming overwhelming, or the kids were fighting in our tiny space I could retreat here and manifest a comforting homely meal.

Influences...

My maternal Grandmother was a beautiful cook, and even though she was a farmer's wife she always had a spread of exotic vegetarian food on offer, which was lucky for me because I discovered very early on that meat was not something I wanted to consume thank you very much! Whenever we visited, I would head straight to Granny’s kitchen, get the red stool out of the corner and ask her if she needed help. From a very young age she had me slicing vegetables, mixing cake batters, peeling garlic and chopping peanuts. I never bored of this time in the kitchen with her and gained so much knowledge which is inherent in me now.

While Granny got me interested in the intricacies and practical knowledge of cooking, my mother passed on her insatiable passion for all things delicious and decadent from around the world and she was always introducing us to wonderful and obscure meals and desserts. Mum also had many cookbooks I would pore over, one of the most influential being Mollie Katzen's classic vegetarian cookbook “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.”

The knowledge and passion I learnt from Granny and Mum meant that from the age of 15 I could regularly cook for my family, and as I developed confidence I began playing around with recipes, until eventually I started making my own.

the farmhouse kitchen corner at kitchen garden rhythms with seasonal vegatables harvested from the garden

Many years and two children later I have learnt cheesemaking, tended to sourdough and ginger beer bugs, stretched beetroot and silver beet pasta through my mother's Italian pasta maker, and delved into making my own pickles, sauces and ferments of all types. I have finetuned my recipes and developed a love for foreign cuisines, especially Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican and Italian, so you will notice these influences within this blog.