Monday, October 25, 2010

Dinner at Home - Feta & Pumpkin Ravioli

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yes, another "wonton wrapper" ravioli! These ones were better than my last attempt - I baked some pumpkin and mixed it with feta, garlic and sauted onion to create an absolutely delicious filling! I used a soft feta, so it mixed with the pumpkin beautifully. 

Friday, October 22, 2010

Dinner at home - Nigella's Kitchen!!

I got the new Nigella Lawson book "Kitchen" so I have been trying some of the recipes!! When my Mum & Dad came for dinner to see our now unpacked new house, I made "Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and potaotes" for the meat eaters.... This was a super easy recipe, which involves throwing everything into a roasting tin and baking in the oven!!
I halved the recipe, since I was only feeding 3 rather than 6. 

( I also cooked some pumpkin and peas to go with)



Nigellas Spanish Chicken with Chorizo & Potatoes

This recipe got the thumbs up from everyone - Janet had the left overs for dinner the next night.



roast vegies & Haloumi

for myself, I made roast vegies with haloumi - I threw potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, onion and halved tomatoes into a roasting tin, sprinkled with oregano and a little olive oil, and put some slices of haloumi on the top, and baked along with the chicken dish.  MMMMM delicious!!!

For desert? Nigellas Chocolate Key Lime Pie! This was a chance to use my new flan tin! Another easy recipe with great results!!! No baking involved here - just whizzing up digestive biscuits, cocoa, choc chips and butter for the base, and beating together condensed milk, cream, and lime juice for the filling. If I made this again, I think I would use chocolate wheatens for the base, to eliminate the need to use choc bits!


Nigella's Chocolate Key Lime Pie

Nigella's Chocolate Key Lime Pie

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Out for Dinner - Coffee Club Village Square

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At the end of September I went out with my fellow boot-campers for a meal at the Coffee Club at Village Square.  I had this Mediteranean open grill. I think it was also meant ot come with Olives, but I asked for none, because I am not a fan. This was a tasty dinner of tomato, red onion, feta, pesto and melted cheese on toasted turkish bread! Delicious!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Breakfast At home - haloumi, spinach, tomato & toast

Breakfast

This is the delicious breakfast I enjoyed Saturday morning when I came home from training.  I will admit to having a bit of an addiction to haloumi cheese at the moment :-) .

This is a super easy breakfast to make and I think its better than any breakfast I have ever gotten out at a cafe!

I simply put some sliced haloumi into a non stick frying pan with some sliced tomato and cook until the haloumi is deliciously golden on both sides. When that is done, I move it to the side of the pan and pop in some chopped red onion, once the onion has softened I add some baby spinach leaves and a splash of balsamic vinegar and cook briefly until the spinach has wilted a little. Then serve with some wholemeal toast!

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Dinner at home - Pumpkin & Parmesan Ravioli in homegrown tomato sauce

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I adapted the recipe from the cooking class and made this Ravioli. Actually I didn't look at the recipe at all. Its easy enough to just make whatever sort of filling you want!!

For this one, I cooked some pumpkin in the microwave, added some sauted garlic and onion and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. I mixed and mashed this all together and placed half teaspoonful blobs into the centre of wonton wrappers which I had brushed with egg wash. I then folded the wrappers in half to make semi-circular ravioli.

For the sauce, I cooked an onion and some garlic in butter and olive oil. To this I added 1 peeled and chopped (homegrown) tomato. I simply cooked this together until the tomato had broken down, adding a little water along the way to loosen the sauce.

After cooking the ravioli in boiling water for probably a couple of minutes (until just done) I tossed it in the sauce and served with a sprinkle of parmesan on the top. DELICIOUS!!!!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

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!

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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.

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

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

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

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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

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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!

Pepper Lounge on Urbanspoon

Cooking Class - Dessert - Chocolate Ravioli with Honey Marscapone

Chocolate Pasta Dough

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

Chocolate Ravioli

Chocolate Ravioli

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!!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

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

ROlling the dough

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!!



Fettucine

Fettucine

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
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Fettucine

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

Friday, September 10, 2010

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.

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

Pumpkin & Persian Feta Ravioli with Sage & Butter
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!

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

Pumpkin & Persian Feta Ravioli with Sage & 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!

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

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......

Dominoes Meatasaurus Pizza
A Meatasaurus for Janet

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

Monday, August 30, 2010

Malteaser Birthday Cake

Here is a birthday cake I made some time in the not tooooo distant past... its a basic chocolate sponge, with chocolate icing and Malteasers! Quite tasty it was too.

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Monday, August 09, 2010

Big Weekend!! - how to buy and sell some houses!

Its been a while between updates, and I have photos on my camera of several meals that I havent gotten around to uploading yet. ooops! However, things are about to get a little busy very soon! We had a HUGE Saturday -

10am - looked at a house. we LOVED it.
11am - looked at another house - didnt like it
12pm - signed up to put our house on the market
1pm - Lunch at foodcourt :-)
1.05pm - Real Estate agent calls to say he has a couple to bring through house at 3pm
1.10 pm - quickly grabbed the shopping we needed
1.30pm - home to tidy up house and pull special rose out of garden and into pot
1.45 pm - Hands bleeding thanks to rose bush extraction.  Real Estate calls again - another agent will bring people through at 2.30, and 2 other agents will come to have a look at 2
2-3.30pm - people coming and going.
3.30 - take puppy for walk to get out of house
4.00pm - Real estate calls - have an offer and will bring contract round (yay!!)
5.00pm - we accept offer. contract signed with 28 day settlement (panic!!).
5.15 - off to look at first house again
5.30 - make offer on house
5.45 - off to a 40th birthday party!!
8pm - Call from agent - our offer is accepted!

Crazy Crazy day!!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Melbourne!!! Day 4 - home time

Our last day in Melbourne was a bit of a rush, since we were being picked up to go to the airport at 11am!

So we started the day with a delicious breakfast at Edelweiss Cafe
Edelweiss Cafe

Edelweiss Cafe
Janet had bacon and eggs, with lovely thick toast

Edelweiss Cafe
and I had the Vegetarian Breakfast - which had mushrooms, hash brown, baked beans, tomato and toast!

Then we went for a walk around town - We stopped to take some photos of all of the grafitti in Union Lane -
Union Lane

Union Lane

Union Lane

And then we headed back to the hotel to wait for the shuttle bus.  and headed for the airport.  We had to wait in a long line to check in, and then we had to wait for a long time at the gate - we used up some time by removing some of the 27 layers of clothes we had been wearing so that our carry on luggage was correct weight :-) Since we knew there would be no food to buy on the plane (except pringles) we grabbed some lunch from the airport.
Airport Food
this vegie pizza was the only vegetarian thing I could find. Even the sandwiches all contained meat.

Airport Food
and Janet had a chicken sandwich.

on the way home
and then it was up up and away, back home!!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Melbourne!!! Day 3 - Great Ocean Road Tour

Breakfast
breakfast was a couple of croissants from "Pie Face" which we had purchased the night before.  I tried to heat them up by snuggling them close to the boiling kettle in our hotel room. fail. Still, yummy enough croissants! We were being picked up by Wild Life Tours Australia for a one day tour of the Great Ocean Road!

Great Ocean Road Tour
first stop was the famous Bells Beach

Great Ocean Road Tour

Great Ocean Road Tour

Great Ocean Road Tour
I saw my first ever "wild" Koala. In that we saw Koalas that were in trees, not in zoos!



Great Ocean Road Tour

We had lunch (included in the tour) at Apollo Bay. Hanet had the Roast Chicken, Chips and I ate her salad :-)


Great Ocean Road Tour

I had a Vegie Burger.

Great Ocean Road Tour
We had about half an hour after lunch to have a wander around. We found ourselves at this ice cream shop :-)


Great Ocean Road Tour

Great Ocean Road Tour

It was delicious icecream! Janet had honeycomb, I had Dulce de Leche Gelato. mmmmmmmmm


Great Ocean Road Tour
We ate our ice cream whilst walking out to see the view of Apollo Bay.Then it was back onto our little bus.



Great Ocean Road Tour
next stop was Maits Rest Rainforest Walk

Great Ocean Road Tour
Then on to the twelve apostles.....

Great Ocean Road Tour
......Loch Ard Gorge

Great Ocean Road Tour
........London Bridge. All amazing sights to see (and a million more of my photos can be found here!!




on the way back to the city, we stopped at the Noodle Canteen at Colac for dinner
Dinner - Noodle Canteen, Colac
lemongrass & chilli vegie noodles


Dinner - Noodle Canteen, Colac
sweet chilli chicken noodles