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!!!!

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.

 

Dinner at Home - Sausages x 2

for me - a couple of vegie delight Rosemary sausages, served with onion and tomato "gravy" (just onions and tomatoes cooked down into a chunky sauce), with mashed potatoes and green peas!

for Janet - sausage "balls" in gravy with mashed potato and peas. TO make the sausage balls I just took the skins off the sausages, broke them into pieces and rolled them into balls.  I fried them in the pan, before removing them and making the gravy (it was just a bit of gravy powder, water and some bbq sauce).  I popped the sausage balls back into the gravy pan to simmer for a little while.

The mashed potato was made with a dollop of the new Philadelphia Cream. Made them deliciously creamy!!

Dinner at Home - Tomato Soup & Cheesy Garlic Toast

mmmm tomato soup would be one of my favourites. I made this for a weekend dinner - a simple soup made by frying up some onions, garlic and fresh herbs, along with some red capsicum, before adding in a tin of tomatoes and whizzing up until smoothish. Add vegie stock or water to thin down if needed, and stir in some fresh basil before serving!

to dip in the soup - cheesy garlic toast - spread a little garlic onto a piece of bread, sprinkle with grated cheese and pop uder the griller until brown!