Out for Lunch - Pepper Lounge, Jindalee

We had a family lunch at Pepper Lounge, Jindalee. This post has been a little while in coming, We actually went there for Fathers Day, so almost a month ago now!



We started with this Garlic Bread, which was a little disappointing. In that the bread itself was cold. It had nice melted garlicy butter on te top, but there was no crispness or warmth to the bread. I suppose it wasn't called garlic toast, so maybe this is the way its meant to be.


Mum had this prawn pizza. The base was nice and crispy!


Dad had this pasta - fettucine in a creamy carbonara sauce with mushrooms.


I had this open vegie sandwich, which was absolutely delicious! There was zuccini, eggplant, capsicum and feta on toasted turkish bread! YUM!!


My brother had this chicken burger and chips. The chips were calling out to be sampled, so how could I resist. Great chips! Chicken burger was reportedly good also


Janet had the bacon eggs and toast! Looks like a Janet meal doesn't it!

We all enjoyed our meals, and whilst there was a little confusion over whether we were given the correct menu's, the service was good - there seemed to be several new staff, so they were being carefully supervised.

I'd love to go back and try something else from the menu!

Cooking Class - Dessert - Chocolate Ravioli with Honey Marscapone

Now I do not have the actual recipe for this one, but to the regular pasta dough, some of the flour was substituted wit cocoa powder and some icing sugar. I do not know the ratio sorry (the recipe wasn't on the cd we recieved!)

After rolling out the pasta dough, we cut it into circles, and then filled it with a mixture of melted chocolate and cream. THese ravioli's were assembled in the same way as the wonton ravioli - each circle was brushed with egg wash, filled and then folded into a semicircle.  The ravioli was then cooked briefly in boiling water, and served with a mixture of Marscapone & honey





now after eating pasta for entree and pasta for main course, this was a little much for dessert, however, the oozy chocolate filling was absolutely delicious, and ravioli for dessert was a bit of a novelty.

This "Perfect Pasta" cooking class was really enjoyable, and a great way to spend an afternoon - cooking and eating!!

Main Course - Fettucine with Cauliflower, Chilli, Olive & Parsley

For this recipe we made our own pasta! I hae a pasta machine at home, but hardly ever use it. And when I do, I usually end up making lasagne sheets because I can't be bothered with the last step of cutting into strips. But its not even difficult, so will have to do better in the future!!







Fresh Noodle/Pasta Dough Recipe


Ingredients – serves 4:

250gm plain flour

3 eggs (55gm)

10ml oil

pinch of salt

Method 1:

1. Sift the flour into a bowl and form a bay in the middle

2. Whisk the eggs and pour into the bay

3. Add the oil and salt

4. Gradually incorporate the flour into the egg

5. Knead the dough until its smooth and doesn’t stick to your hand

6. Wrap and refrigerate for ½ hour

7. Roll as desired

Method 2:

1. Alternatively sift flour into a food processor, add the egg, oil and

salt and process until smooth

2. Wrap and refrigerate for ½ hour


The sauce we did for the Fettucine was simple, different and delicious!!

¼ cup olive oil


300gm fettucinne

½ head cauliflower

½ red chilli

40 gm kalamatta olives (pitted)

½ Bunch continental parsley

1 x sprig rosemary

1 teaspoon mini capers (preserved in salt)

1 teaspoon anchovies

60gm Pecorino cheese

2 cloves garlic

salt and pepper

I didt let my partner put the anchovy into our sauce because I wanted to keep it vegetarian!

Cut cauliflower into small 2cm florets


1. 2. Pick rosemary leaves

3. In deep frypan, fry florets with ½ cup olive oil until golden brown

4. Rinse capers, and leave to dry on paper towel

5. Slice garlic and chilli, add to cauliflower

6. Cook for 3 minutes or until soft

7. Add dried capers, chopped anchovies, olives and rosemary

8. Stir on medium heat until anchovies dissolve

9. Meanwhile, chop parsley, grate cheese

10. Boil a medium pot of salted water and cook fettucine until pasta is al dente

11. Drain off excess water

12. Add half of grated pecorino and the half of the parsley

13. Stir with metal spoon off bottom of pan until mix to begins to

stick

14. Add remaining cheese and parsley

15. Toss through pasta and serve




IT was really delicious!!!

Recipe for Ravioli

Ravioli filled with Roast Pumpkin, Persian Fetta, Garlic and


Lemon Thyme, with a Sage Burnt Butter Sauce

Ingredients – serves 2:

¼ pkt fresh wonton sheets

100g butternut pumpkin

1 brown onion

¼ bunch fresh basil

¼ bunch fresh sage

¼ bunch lemon thyme

1 clove garlic

35g Persian fetta

75g grated parmesan cheese

100g butter

1 egg

olive oil

salt and pepper
 
1. Pre-heat oven to 200°C


2. Cut pumpkin into small pieces place on roasting tray, splash a bit of

olive oil and lemon thyme over it and roast until soft

3. Meanwhile, dice the onion and garlic finely

4. Fry onion, garlic in the pan on a low heat until soft, add pumpkin

5. Chop basil and add to mix (save some leaves for garnish)

6. Add fetta to the mix. Season to taste, take off heat

7. Put large pot of water on the boil

8. Brush outside edges of wonton wrappers with egg

9. Place filling in centre of each ravioli, and fold circle in half to form

pasta parcels, press edges together to seal, then trim edges

10. Cook ravioli in boiling water till

pasta is soft and rises to the surface. This should take about

two minutes

11. Grate parmesan with microplane while you wait

12. In a frying pan, melt butter and add chopped sage

13. Cook on medium heat until butter just begins to brown, and

sage leaves go crisp

14. Season to taste

15. Immerse cooked ravioli in sauce briefly to take up sauce

16. Plate the ravioli, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese and top

with saved basil leaves

17. Serve hot and immediately

Cooking Class - Perfect Pasta @ Focus by James part 1 - entree!

For my birthday, Janet gave me this cooking class!! It was held at the Focus by James restaurant @ Springwood, and led by their chef! The cooking stations were all set up in the restaurant - with a gas burner for each pair of students.  A lot of the participants seemed to come with someone else, but there were a few of us who came on our own.


For each dish we cooked, the ingredients were brought to us all measured out in little containers!


For entree, we made Pumpkin & Persian Feta Ravioli with Sage Butter.  This dish was made using wonton wrappers, rather than fresh pasta, a good shortcut to know if you don't want to mess around making the pasta dough yourself!.  The filling was simple to make, we simply mixed together roasted pumpkin, sauted onion, garlic & thyme, and some persian feta.  The key to making neat ravioli was to not try and put too much filling in!


mmmmmm butery goodness! The ravioli was cooked briefly in boiling water, then tossed in the sage and butter.


the finished dish!! After we created each course, we sat down in the restaurant and ate our creation. and little fairies appeared to clear up our used pots and pans!

stay tuned for part 2 - the main course!

Pizza!! - Dominoes.

a takeaway dinner from quite a while ago, but one that may well be repeated rather soon as we are moving house tomorrow......


A Meatasaurus for Janet


and a Vegorama for me - minus mushrooms, plus pineapple. YUM!!!!