Mac n Cheese with fresh Garden Vegies!

Ingredients
250g Macaroni
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 tbsp butter
handful of grated Colby easy melt cheese
salt and pepper
From the garden:
6 baby leeks, white parts only, sliced thinly two fresh garlic cloves
1 cup blanched and hulled bread beans
1 cup hulled sugar snap peas
handful of lettuce, sliced
1/2 avocado diced

Method
Boil the pasta
Meanwhile, saute the leeks and garlic in the butter and oil.
Add the lettuce, beans and peas.
When pasta is done, strain and add to pan with the vegies.
Add the cheese and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Garnish with avocado

Best Birthday Lasagne

Best Birthday Lasagne for my friend Paul!

French Spaghetti Bol

This is a recipe from a book called 'The sharper your knife the less you cry' by Kathleen Flinn. The book is about an american woman who goes to the French Cooking School attended by Julia Childs : Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Her friend in class is actually italian but makes a french version of her Bolognese. Its very meaty and creamy. I added peas because I was brought up on peas with my Spag Bol!

Serves 6 to 8

2 large onions. chopped (about 2.5 cups)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 kg lean ground beef
1 bottle of dry red wine minus one glass
4 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp italian herbs
1 cup thickened cream
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
500g spaghetti, cooked and drained
Parmesan, grated

Method

In a heavy bottomed saute pan, cook the onions in olive oil over medium heat until softened. Stir in the garlic, add the beef, and stir until the meat cooks through and is separated into crumbly pieces.

Add the wine after pouring yourself a glass.
Turn the heat up to high so the wine bubbles continuously. Reduce by about half. Skimm off any grey foam.

Add the tomato paste and stir. Cover and turn down the heat to very low. Cook for a minimum of two hours and up to four. Stir from time to time and scrape the bottom to ensure nothing burns.

Shortly before serving stir in the cream, and italian herbs. Taste then add salt and pepper.
NB: I tossed some green peas in at this point.
Let simmer uncovered for another ten minutes. Taste again. Adjust seasoning. Stir in parsley.

Serve tossed with pasta sprinkled with parmesan.

Jufa Pasta

This traditional type of pasta from the Trentino Alto Adige northern region of Italy.  It is meant for eating in the mountains during the cold months.


Ingredients

1 glass of water
1 litre of milk
100g flour
50g granoturco (cornflour)
1 egg
pinch salt
butter

Making it

Place a saucepan on a hot flame or ideally a cauldron on an open fire in a clearing in the Alpine woods.

Bring the water to boil, adding the milk and salt and let boil for a couple of minutes.

Slowly add the two types of flour which have been mixed together, then stir the water energetically with a hand whisk. Continue to stir well for 15-20 minutes on a low heat.

Crack open an egg, whisk it briefly and pour it over the mixture or 'mosa'.

Finish by dripping melted butter over the mixture to add flavor.
Add any edible herbs that can be found around the campsite.

Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Lemon Thyme Chicken w/ soba noodles & stuffed zucchini flowers

Ingredients
1 lemon
handful of thyme
1 chicken breast, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tsp chicken stock powder
4 tbsp water
1/2 a packet of soba noodles
4 zucchini flowers
14 kalamata olives
2 tbsp ricotta
1 tbsp feta
1 tbsp bread crumbs
handful of basil, chopped
1 tsp butter
1/2 cup parmesan

Method
Finely chop the flesh off 6 olives. Combine with ricotta, feta, basil, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper.
Use this stuffing to fill the flowers. Twist the tops to seal the petals together.
Heat a small frypan and add 1 tsp margarine or butter. Place flowers in and cook, turning occasionally while you prepare the rest of the meal. You are warming the inside and slightly browning the outside.
Combine chicken, thyme, water, stock and olive oil in a medium frypan and cook on medium heat for 6-8 minutes till just done.
Meanwhile boil a saucepan of water and cook the soba noodles for 4 minutes. When done, toss with the ready chicken, and add the lemon zest and juice.
Assemble in bowls, sprinkle over parmesan and garnish with basil and zucchini flowers.

Sage crust Salmon w/ Udon noodle & spring vegetable soup

It has been raining in Dubbo and I made this lovely warming dinner with many nice flavourings from the garden.

Ingredients

half a salmon tail fillet

1 tsp flour

6 sage leaves

1 small green zucchini, chopped

1 small yellow zucchini, chopped

2 spring onions, chopped

1 baby leek, chopped

half a tomato, chopped

1 tsp chicken stock powder

freshly cracked pepper

handful of dried udon noodles

Method

Boil 2 cups of water in a saucepan. Add the stock powder, vegetables and the dried udon noodles.

Boil for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, sprinkle flour, salt, pepper and chopped sage over salmon.

In a hot pan place a tsp nuttlex and a tsp olive oil. Sear the Salmon for 4 minutes on each side.

Serve soup in bowl with salmon placed on top and some more freshly cracked pepper.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh basil, and some parmesan is nice.

Pauls and Davids Gnocci

Ingredients

9 medium desiree potatoes, boiled till soft and steamed off till cool.

4 free range medium eggs

Approx 1 cup plain strong flour

Fresh tomato sauce with basil.

 Squeeeeze potatoes through ricer

 Add 4 eggs and enough flour to make a very soft dough.

The texture should be light and able to be rolled out.

If unsure, roll a test piece before adding too much extra flour.

Then, if you have excellent hand-eye coordination, use the precision technique of cutting the Gnocci as fast as you can in the same size pieces. Can YOU do it?

Boil in salted water for approx 10 minutes.

Watch them carefully after the 6 minute mark. They may go gooey!

So make lots of taste tests ...mmm

Thanks Paul.

Pumpkin, Thyme and Ricotta Ravioli w/ Burnt Sage Butter

Pumpkin, Thyme and Ricotta Ravioli w/ burnt Sage Butter

I went to my friend Geoff's place to make this amazing pasta!

Nice sunset over Toorale Road Dubbo.

Chicken Carbonara (w/ Spinach and Garlic Fettucini)

Chicken Carbonara w/ Spinach and Garlic Fettucini

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 chicken breast diced into 2cm chunks

Mulga smoked bacon, 2 x 0.5cm slices, cut into 1x3cm strips

Proscuitto 2 x 0.5 cm slices, cut into 0.2x1cm strips

2 handfuls button mushrooms, sliced

2 large fresh free range farm eggs, whisked briefly

handful of pecorino pepato finely grated

1/2 cup duralina (durum wheat semolina flour)

1/2 cup tipo '00' flour

1 fresh free range farm egg

Cooked baby spinach leaves, squeezed of juices into a ball the size of an egg.

1 clove garlic, crushed

optional: (+ - 1 egg yolk)

Method

To make the pasta combine the duralina, tipo flour, 1 whole egg, spinach and garlic in a food processor and pulse till crumbs form. Add a little more flour if it is too sticky. Add the extra egg yolk if it is too dry.

Knead briefly into a ball. It should be a firm, mouldable consistency.

Geoff and his pet pasta:

Wrap in plastic and place in fridge for at least 20 minutes. Pour yourself a nice drink, Semillion was our choice.

Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Secure the Pasta Maker and roll out the dough working it through the first setting a few times while repeatedly folding the dough onto itself to create a silky consistency.

Continue to the 7th setting (2 down from the thinnest).

Cut the fettucini yourself with a knife by rolling up the sheet or pass through a fettucini cutter.

Lovely green pasta.
Toss with flour on the bench and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the garlic and chicken with some salt and pepper. Once browned, add the bacon and proscuitto and cook for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook till browned.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and salt generously. Add the pasta and stir immediately to stop sticking.

Cook for 5-8 minutes. Dan put in his token 5 minutes of assistance!

Remove with tongs and add to the saute pan. take the pan off the heat and add the two whole eggs. Stir through to cover the pasta. Do not stir too vigorously as the eggs will scramble. This is still nice though, dare I say it.

Add more pepper to taste and serve with a fine grating of pecorino pepato.

Freshly Rolled Ravioli Pasta

Sweet Potato & Pumpkin Ravioli with Thyme and Poppy Butter Sauce

Beetroot Mascarpone Ravioli with fresh Pesto Sauce

Spinach, Garlic and Ricotta and Rich Bolognese Cannelloni

On Sunday night I hosted a Pasta Making night with my new Pasta Roller I got for my birthday. We invited all the new interns that will be at Dubbo Base Hospital for the next two years - Kelly Greentree, Joel Petite, Chrissie Hayden, Dan Bunker, and Beth was visiting for the weekend who also came along to help.

Kelly and Joel came over early and helped me make the dough, and eggs were flying everywhere. Lots of fun.

The dough recipe we used is a simple but versatile Jamie Oliver recipe:

Pasta Dough

600g Strong Flour (high protien, high gluten, triple sifted)

6 free range organic eggs

1/2 tsp salt

Method

Sift flour onto table with salt, make a well, add eggs, mix in with hands and knead for up to 10 mins until it is a silky texture. Add flour along the way if it gets sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and refridgerate 30 mins.

Once we kneaded and put the dough in the fridge to rest, we went foraging in our garden of pots for fresh herbs. We collected Marjoram, Parsely, Coriander, Rosemary, Dill, Thyme and Basil. We then started to prepare the Ravioli fillings and the sauces together.

Daniel was in charge of the Pesto sauce which primarily used the herbs from our garden. Joel worked on the beetroot and mascarpone filling, Kelly did the Sweet Potato and Pumpkin filling (mashed by hand!) and I prepared the spinach and ricotta and bolognese fillings for the Cannelloni. I made these in advance because I thought it would be too much to do on the night - which worked well so I had time to do the sauces.

Beetroot and Mascarpone Ravioli Filling:
1.5 cups of cooked (boiled or baked) pureed beetroots (can use canned beets but these have more liquid)
200g Tamar Valley Tasmanian Mascarpone
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Wholemeal breadcrumbs
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

With a spoon, mix the Beetroot puree with the mascarpone and parmesan and add breadcrumbs to achieve a paste consistency (so it is not runny). Taste for seasoning.

Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Ravioli Filling:

1 red skinned sweet potato, skinned and roasted

1/2 butternut pumpkin, skinned and roasted

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon butter, room temperature

pinch of fresh grated nutmeg

pinch of mixed spice

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated

1/2 cup dried, fine breadcrumbs

Method:
Mash the Sweet Potato and Pumpkin and add the other ingredients, mixing well.

Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni Filling;
Two handfuls spinach, wilted and chopped finely
200g fresh ricotta cheese
handful of marjoram leaves, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Method:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl mixing well.

Rich Bolognese Ravioli Filling:
300g lean beef mince

5 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tsp brown sugar

1/2 cup water

Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method:
Fry the mince in olive oil till browned and add the oregano and sugar and let caramelise for 5 mins.
Add the tomato paste, red wine vinegar and seasoning, and fry for another 5 mins.
Add the water and simmer till reduced back to a thick rich paste.

Ravioli Herb Pesto (from the Garden)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
½ tsp sea salt & 8 black peppercorns, ground
Two big handfuls fresh basil leaves

Two big handfuls fresh rocket

Few sprigs fresh parsely
1 tsp unsalted butter
Juice and zest from ½ lemon
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil to make a paste

Method:

Add all ingredients to the food processor, except the olive oil, and process till finely chopped. Add oil in a thin stream to the pesto until just combined. Dont process for too long because it may emulsify the olive oil and make it frothy.

Thyme and Poppy Butter sauce

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup poppy seeds

1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves

1 tbsp hot pasta cooking water

Method:
Fizz the butter in a saucepan on the stove then add the other ingredients and toss through fresh pasta.

Tomato Cannelloni Sauce
knob of butter
8 Fresh Roma Tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 cup hot water
pinch of sugar
salt and pepper

Method:
Fry the tomatoes in the butter on high heat to caramelise, about 5 mins.
Add the sugar and garlic and fry another 3 mins.
Add the salt, pepper and water and bring to a simmer, reducing down to a loose tomato sauce.

Spoon into Cannelloni baking tray and place Cannelloni tubes on top.

Tear basil and pour over the cream, finishing with parmesan and slices of mozarella.

After all our fillings and sauces were ready and extra ingredients laid out we started pasta rolling!

Joel already had experience with his own pasta roller so he was really good at judging when the dough was 'right' - when it was silky and worked well enough through the first setting that we could proceed down the thicknesses to get paper thin ravioli pasta.

Chrissie, Bunker and Beth also came over and joined in the pasta rolling, and everyone helped so I was really really impressed. The ravioli maker attachment didnt work very well at first because of a few possible reasons: we put too much filling in, the pasta sheets were not wide enough, we didnt flour the sheets enough to stop them sticking and we needed to roll through the double sheets a  bit before putting any filling in. Beth ended up cleaning it and successfully rolling out some little square ravioli!

We became really good at rolling the sheets of dough so we decided to start also making ravioli pillows by hand, because we could get more filling in that way! For one ball of dough we added finely chopped marjoram and then rolled it out and used it to make beetroot pillows.

The Cannelloni needed to go in the oven so we rolled out a long strip of plain dough and cut squares from it to roll the Spinach and Ricotta and the Bolognese fillings. The tomato sauce was spooned into Daniels new baking dish and the Cannelloni were placed on top, with cream, parmesan, torn basil and big slices of Mozzarella. Into the oven it went for 20 mins.

Meanwhile, Beth ended up working out how to use the ravioli maker without it sticking and got a few handfuls of little ravioli from it. They were good but very small and we had so much filling left so we decided to continure making more by hand (with a roller cutter to make zigzag edges) and that was fun to do. A few minutes in boling salted water and they were done! We tossed half in pesto and half in the Thyme and Poppy Butter sauces.

It had taken a bit longer than expected, so we were really hungry, and it was well worth the wait and the effort.

Cannelloni

The leftover Ravioli dough to make Semolina Spaghetti for another nights meal, by adding some semolina flour while rolling it out. It has made a wonderful rugged spaghetti, that will, I am sure, catch the sauce of a nice Rabbit Ragu I plan to make this weekend. 

Semolina Spaghetti

This Spaghetti is a recipe uses dough left over from a pasta making night. I created a more rustic dough by adding semolina flour while rolling and produced some wonderful Spaghetti that will hold a good Ragu' sauce. This recipe is a winner.

Semolina Spaghetti ingredients:
300g strong flour
3 free range organic eggs
100g Semolina flour for dusting and rolling
Method:
Pour the flour on the table and make a well in the centre for the eggs. Mix together with hands and knead, adding semolina flour if sticky, till soft and silky, approx 8 minutes.

Use a pasta roller or rolling pin to roll out the pasta dough, dusting with more Semolina, and cut Spaghetti with a roller. If you don't have a pasta roller, consider cutting a different type of pasta that will still do the same job of holding a great sauce - such as Tagliatelle (0.65-1cm ribbons).

Cook for 3-5 mins in boling salted water immediately, or hang over chairs on tea towels till dry and store in airtight containers in fridge for up to a month.

I imagine it will make a nice cold pasta salad in summer, with a tangy dressing and freshly podded green peas, parmesan and new season olive oil.

While its still winter, I think this spaghetti will go really well with a rich meat sauce that it can catch with its texture; such as Rich Rabbit Ragu.

Homemade Herb Pappardelle

I got inspiration for cooking fresh pasta from Peter who owns a local Deli in Dubbo called Newtown Providores. Pete showed me some great flour he has that is about half semolina half durum wheat by Bellata Gold Australian Millers called "Duralina" and that it is the best flour for making fresh pasta. I have been wanting to buy a pasta roller but I couldn't wait and I thought I should make an effort to roll it by hand a few times for fun. I got some organic eggs from the Cobb & Co between Bathurst and Orange on our road trip out to Dubbo. I had some on toast and they were lovely eggs, so I used them to make this Pappardelle pasta. The name derives from the verb “pappare,” to gobble up.

Ingredients:

2 cups Duralina flour

2 organic free range eggs

3 more egg yolks

2 tbsp fresh garden herbs chopped finely

1 tbsp freshly cracked black pepper

Method:

Place the flour on the bench and make a well for the eggs.

Stir them in with a crab hand like so:

Add fresh garden herbs and pepper. Knead for about 5 minutes to get a shiny, silky dough. Hard work!

Leave for 60 minutes in fridge covered in plastic wrap. Remove when ready to cook and roll out on the bench. Always roll away from you, turning the circle as you go until it gets about 1-2mm thick - more hard work!

Cut into 3cm wide ribbons.

In a large pot boil 5 litres of water with a tablespoon of sea salt.

Drop in and stir straight away to stop sticking. Cook for around about 5 mintues till al dente (some taste testing in this stage is essential.....of course).

Serve with a yummy sauce - I used a wild mushroom Jamie Oliver recipe that has a chilli, garlic, butter, parmesan and parsely sauce. I think it would also go really well with a duck or veal and pork ragu with tomato and pancetta based sauce.

We had this pasta with a really nice wine; "Idyllic Hills" Shiraz from the Canberra region, given to us by Jess & Geoff - I thought the wine tasted really nice just after a taste of the lemon/butter/garlic sauce because it has a really nice strength and energy about the flavour and matched the meal well.