Dinner at home - Fettucine x 2

I decided to make some fresh pasta for dinner - I really should do this more often, because, its fun, easy, and tastes fantastic!





I made the pasta dough using 100g flour, 1 egg and a pinch of salt. I whizzed this in the little food processor, and then kneaded it, before resting it for about half an hour. I then rolled it out with my pasta machine, cut it into fettucine, and hung it up on this make-shift pasta rack (a wooden spoon balanced on two coffee mugs, balanced on tinned tomatoes for extra height!)





We ate the last of the Brewbakers bread topped with garlic and olive oil and grilled until toasty - delicious!!

After cooking in boiling water for only a minute or two, I tossed the fettucine into two different sauces...

for me, A simple sauce of sauted onion, garlic zuccinni and grape tomatoes

For Janet, a carbonara sauce - with bacon and zuccinni.



Dinner at Home - Feta & Pumpkin Ravioli

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. 

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

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!!!!

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!

Melbourne!!! Day 1 - Dinner

We went for a quick trip to Melbourne - we flew down with Tiger Airways, which had bargain priced tickets - it just meant waiting around at the airport for a rather long time after checking in.  Our plane left a bit later that scheduled, which meant we arrived in Melbourne a little late for the bus we had booked to take us to the hotel.  So as soon as we walked across the tarmac and out onto the footpath (yes, we never actually set foot inside the Melbourne Airport), the bus company was on the phone asking us where we were. We did make it onto the bus, so all was good! (We weren't the last ones on either!) 

After we checked into the hotel, we popped back out to find some dinner.  It was almost 10pm, on a Thursday night. We ended up finding this place situated quite nearby, opposite a Hungry Jacks and a Nandos (which was about to hit closing time).  We asked the lady inside when they closed and she said midnight, so in we went to Cafe Tono

We were the only customers, and they were in the process of mopping the floor. We ordered our food, and watched as it was created behind the counter.  The pasta sauce was freshly made for my spaghetti napolitana - the chef was whizzing up tomatoes and things with a stick blender right in the frying pan.  We watched the pizza being created, and as it cooked, the pizza chef was busy prepping more dough for future pizzas - he was making perfectly portioned balls of dough.

I was presented with a humungous plate of spaghetti.  Spaghetti Napolitana is one of my most favourite meals, and I am often disapointed, because the sauce doesn't live up to my expectaions (basically, I want something better than I can make myself!).  This time there was no disapointment - it was delicious! I only wish I had been able to eat the whole plate - but the large serve defeated me about 2 thirds of the way through.

Janet's meat lovers pizza was also a hit - the base tasted deliciously fresh, and it had a good amount of meat and sauce.  I was half wishing I had ordered a pizza, until I tasted my pasta!

Then it was back to our hotel for some sleep in readiness for the next day. (thats not our hotel in the picture - its just some pretty lights we saw on our wander)

Dinner at home - Lasagne x 2

A couple of lasagne's that I made - one meaty, and one vegie (of course!).  I felt like making some fresh pasta, so I rolled it out and cut it into sheets to fit these tins. The result was quite delicious!

The vegie version had a pumpkin layer (I just microwaved and mashed it), a grated zucchinni and cottage cheese layer, and some tomato sauce layers (onion garlic and tinned tomatoes cooked down into a delicious sauce)

The meaty version contained a 3 - meat sauce - it had mince, chopped veal and bacon, cooked up with tomatoes onions and garlic. This one also had layers of a cheesy white sauce.

 

Out for Dinner - Focus by James, Springwood

For our fifth "not-wedding" anniversary, we went out for dinner to Focus by James at Springwood.  This restaurant is located upstairs in a centre on the Pacific Highway service road, so whilst we were sat by the window, the views were of the highway and car yards. It was a Saturday night and the restaurant was seemed to be nice and full.

For entree, Janet had the Sweet Pork Belly....this was a special, so not on the online menu, the specials were read to us by our waitress from a srumpled piece of paper, and I am not sure of what else was in this dish - we think it was served with sweet potato mash.  Whatever the ingredients etc, Janet loved this dish. It was tender and melt in the mouth.

I went for the Bruschetta Trio caprese, mushroom ragout, peperonata. The toppings were very flavoursome, but the bread was a little soggy for my liking.

We then had a rather long wait for our main course. We think something might have gone astray in the kitchen - as there was some concerned chatting amongst wait staff whilst looking in our direction.

For my main, I ordered a second entree - this dish jumped out at me  - Smoked Beetroot, Cashew & Goats Cheese Ravioli w/ red wine & tarragon butter The filling in the ravioli was absolutely delicious - smooth, sweet and smokey with a hint of crunch from the cashews.  I think that the actual "pasta" was wonton wrappers, rather than fresh pasta, as it was very shiny and a bit sticky. I did love the filling!!

Janet chose the Free Range Chicken Breast w/ prosciutto, provolone cheese & warm lemon potato salad. I tried a little of the potato and it was nice and creamy.  Janet thought the chicken was great - nice and tender.

Then it was onto dessert -

Janet had Frozen Profiteroles filled with peanut butter ice cream in a sugar cage . I of course tasted this one too. The profiteroles were the best I have ecver tasted - I don't know if this is because I always have had duds, or if these were extra good :-).  They were filled with peanut butter icecream, which was like eating extra creamy peanut butter - divine!

I chose the Sour Apple Creme Brulee with Green Apple Sorbet My favourite part of this was the fantastic green apple sorbet YUM!! THe creme brulee was good also - a hard shell of caramalised sugar covered a soft creamy custard, with just a hint of sourness. Quite a different taste!

So overall a great dinner - I'm sure we'll be back again!

dinner at home - pasta 2 ways

I'm on 2 weeks holiday at the moment, so not really spending a great deal of time on the computer. But heres something I prepared earlier :-)

For Janet - because she loves bbq meat lovers pizza, I made bbq meat lovers pasta! This was mince, pepperoni and bacon, cooked up with some bbq sauce and tossed through wholemeal pasta, with grated mozzarella on the top. Big thumbs up from Janet for this one!

for me - I cooked up red capsicum, onion, grape tomatoes, baby spinach and fresh basil which I tossed through the wholemeal pasta with some parmesan cheese on the top. Yum - I could just about eat tomatoes for every meal and be very happy :-)

Dinner at home - Pasta 2 ways

Both of these dishes started off in the same way - in a frying pan, I heated a little olive oil, and added a chopped onion, some chopped pumpkin and some chopped sweet potato, and fried until tender.  I was planning on tossing this through pasta for both of us, but as I cooked this mix of vegies, it put the idea of making a pumpkin and chick pea curry.

Since Janet doesnt like curry, I took half of the vegie mix out of the pan and popped it into a seperate pan with some bacon.

I then tossed this through the wholemeal pasta I had already cooked and bingo - bacon & pumpkin pasta

With the remaining vegies in the original pan, I added some kofta curry paste and a small tin of chick peas....

and there you have it, pumpkin & chick pea curry with wholemeal pasta!

Delicious!!

Out for Lunch - Luigi's, Sunnybank Hills

We went here for a Sunday lunch - it was the day after Janet's Party and we were very sleepy!

We started with some buttery garlic bread. Which was delicious, but unnecessary, since it filled me up way too much.

Janet tried the Meat Lovers Pizza (just for something different??? :-)  ).  It had a nice crisp thin base and a decent amount of toppings, without going overboard.

I had the spaghetti Napolitana, which had mushrooms through the sauce - chopped up mushrooms that I was able to eat with no dramas.  It was a nice thick, chunky tomato sauce, just what I felt like!!

Luigi's is in the Pinelands shopping centre on Mains Road. I'd go back to try the vegie pizza :-)

Easy Vegie Lasagne

This is my easy, cheats way of making a vegie lasagne - and it tastes great!  Instead of cooking up anything and assembling the lasagne in the traditional way, I use a jar of bottled pasta sauce, grated raw vegies (usually zuccini, pumpkin & sweet potato), a couple of beaten eggs and a little cheese (all of these factors depend on what food happens to be in the house at the time)

You begin with a little of the bought sauce on the bottom of an oven proof dish, followed by dried, instant lasagne sheets. Next a layer of grated zuccini, over which I pour some of the beaten egg and sprinkle a little cheese (this can be cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan, fetta, or ricotta, whatever takes your fancy). Next, another layer of pasta, then a layer of grated pumpkin and some more pasta sauce. Continue like this until the dish is full.  I finish with a layer of pasta, covered with sauce and a spirinkle of mozzarella on the very top.  I then (depending on how "wet" the bottled sauce is) pur a bout 1/4 cup of water into the dish and bake the whole lot in a 180 oven for about 45 minutes, or until the pasta and vegies are nice and tender.

the pictures aren't exactly great, but you get the idea!!