Pasta with salami, ricotta and vegetables

I've never bought ricotta before, and at the supermarket today whilst having a good peruse of the cheese section found a nice little pottle at a reduced price of only $3.  I do love my bargains, and the ricotta had a good six days to go till its use by date.  I happily popped it in my trolly along with some bocconcini and grana padano.

Once home and being peckish I decided to whip up a bit of an early dinner consisting of the following.  Use as much of the following ingredients as you need for the amount of people you have.  i.e I made enough for two servings.

Salami, cut into chunks and fry till crispy. Drain off the oil once it's almost done and add the tomato. Cook for a min or two longer then turn off the heat and stir through red capsicum, chopped basil, spinach and rocket, a tablespoon of ricotta (per serving).  Stir everything together
At the same time boil a pot of water and add (preferably home made) pasta, recipe here.
Once you're done, add a tablespoon or so of the pasta water to the mixture in the frypan.  Serve with a drizzle of lemon juice and some toasted nuts (I forgot these unfortunately on mine)

Make your chocolate treat - and eat it

Chocolate treat which contains no sugar and no butter? Impossible you may think, or if possible must certainly taste like cardboard.
Well I've found a recipe which not only contains no naughty ingredients but also tastes the exact opposite of woody pulp.
Plus it's also vegan and has a surprise ingredient in the icing.This slice is so many things.
I found it through fellow blogger Laura at Hungry and Frozen, and she found on another blog here.

Literal goodness.

1 cup walnuts (or any nuts or mixture of nuts you have)
1 cup dates, pitted
2/3 cup cocoa powder 
1 avocado
40ml honey, maple syrup or whatever syrupy deliciousness you have
2 tsp vanilla extract
dash salt
dash cinnamon

In a food processor grind up the nuts, dates and 1/2 the quantity of cocoa powder.  Will look a bit like soil, quite crumbly.  Press into a tin, and pack down tightly.


Clean the food processor. Pop in your avocado, rest of cocoa powder, salt, syrup, vanilla, cinnamon (I actually left this out - but could be delicious so do it). Mix it all up and spread over your base.


Freeze for at least an hour. Slice up, and leave to defrost for maybe 10mins before eating.

This is really good, and I will use this icing on other treats as well.  The base does crumble more as it thaws, so I may research what I can use here to better hold together, perhaps more dates.

Yet another chocolate cake posting

You can never have too many chocolate cake recipes. Like shoes, you need them for every occasion.  This chocolate cake is rather like my pair of Nike sneakers - fast and popular.

This recipe makes one layer. Either make two separate layers and sandwich together, or make a double mixture like I did this time and cut in half to sandwich with cream.

50gms butter
1T golden syrup (do not leave this out - gives the cake a super delish factor)
1 egg
100gms sugar
1c flour
1t baking soda
1t baking powder
3/4 c milk
1 T cocoa

Preheat oven to 180c, grease an 18cm round pan.

Melt butter and golden syrup in a large pan, as this will be your mixing bowl.

Take off heat and measure out other ingredients while cooling. Then stir beaten egg and sugar into the butter mixture. Beat well. Sift in flour, baking powder and cocoa. Add warm milk with baking soda stirred in.

Batter should be quite runny. Bake aprox 30 mins.

I'll let the picture speak for itself.

I will never buy packet pasta again

The real, rich, soft, lightness of home made pasta cannot be compared to the dried factory product.  I can hardly believe the two share a name.  Even the supposed 'fresh' pasta product from the refrigerated section in the supermarket is real pastas uglier second cousin.

The fifties have got a lot to answer for when it decided that convenience was the way to go and proceeded to pre-make and package as many foods as possible.

My first batch of pasta probably took maybe an hour tops to make.  And the recipe I used gave enough for 3-4 good servings. I used a smaller recipe to start incase I made a big mess and wasted the ingredients.

Most recipes used lots o eggs, including one using seven eggs by my beloved Jamie.  I found one from online blog smitten kitchen, which I then halved. It uses just two and a cup and half or so of flour. I used high grade from the super market.  Plus I used my food processor.

Fresh Pasta from Smitten Kitchen and adapted from Gourmet Magazine

3 cups all-purpose flour
 

4 large eggs
 

1 teaspoon salt
 

4 tablespoons water 

To make pasta dough in a food processor: 

Blend flour, eggs, salt, and water in processor until mixture just begins to form a ball, adding more water, drop by drop, if dough is too dry (dough should be firm and not sticky). Process dough for 15 seconds more to knead it. Transfer to a floured surface and let stand, covered with an inverted bowl, 1 hour to let the gluten relax and make rolling easier.

 















Also being the first time I had used my food processor to make dough.  The result was fast easy and fabulous.  After letting the dough sit for an hour I divided it into 3 and started using my new fav piece of equipment, my pasta machine, rolling the dough through each of the nine settings.  The key through out the whole process to keep everything well dusted with flour.  I then dried mine over night on clothes hangers.    
I ate with the following sauce.

Zucchini and prosciutto sauce (it has meat I know but it was an end of the fridge thing...)

Chop up roughly some prosciutto, or bacon or parma ham.

Fry in a saucepan with some onion

Add some halved cherry tomatoes and a knob of butter

Grate two zucchini and toss in the pan

Stir around a bit and glug in some olive oil.

Toss through somr of you fresh pasta which has been cooked in boiling water for a couple of minutes

Delicious  : )

The cupcakes are being made

Basic vanilla cupcake recipe

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsaltedbutter, room temperature

2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

Zest of 1 large lemon(optional)

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoonsbaking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

I also added 1/2 cup toasted coconut

 













Preheat oven to 180 and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean.

Meringue Icing (this is easier than it looks!, plus I made a half mixture to start and this was enough for my 12 cup cakes)

4 large egg whites

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Pinch cream of tartar

Pinch fine salt

Drop of red food colouring (I might use beetroot juice next time)

Bring a few cm's of water to a boil in a saucepan that can hold a mixing bowl above the water. (I used a glass bowl) Whisk the egg whites, sugar, lemon juice and zest, cream of tarter and salt in the bowl by hand. Set the bowl above the boiling water and continue whisking until the mixture is hot to the touch and the sugar dissolves, about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and beat at medium-high speed until meringue is cool and holds a soft peak, about 5 minutes. Add a few drops of desired food coloring and continue beating until it holds stiff peaks.

To decorate: Using a spoon, offset spatula or piping bag, dollop, spread or pipe meringue on top of each cupcake. Use the back of a spoon to create peaks and valleys in the cupcake as desired.

Makes yummy marshmellow style topping.  I'm gonna try chocolate next time.

Giving in to cupcakes

Yeah so cupcakes are the ultimate cool thing and everybody loves them and they are so creative etc etc. New York is brimming with kitschy cup cake shops on every corner, and people are having cup cake cakes for their weddings (why?) Nestle Hottest Home Baker had a whole episode about decorating them, and I'm finally giving in. 

I found this picture (on the foodnetwork.com site), its simple architectural meringue quiff so avant garde juxtaposed with the delicate girly pink colour (i'll make, green and blue, maybe swirls and others too) has inspired me. I want to eat - NOW!



Gorge



Plus loving this secret strawberry one. With lime icing.

Ummm. Yup well I'll report back with my own pics, once I have baked : )

Teriyaki tofu

Yum teriyaki.  I love japanese food so much.  Tofu prepared in Japanese ways is the best, and I always order tofu when I'm eating Japanese out.

Here's my recipe for Teriyaki tofu

1 package medium tofu

Teriyaki sauce (I used store bought stuff, but to make your own is also really simple)

panko crumbs

egg

cornflour

Grapeseed oil for frying

Cha noodles (green tea noodles)

Avocado 

Garnishes

Chop your tofu up and marinate for a couple of hours in the teriyaki sauce.

Boil water for the noodles and chop your avocado (dress with lemon juice)

When you're ready to go heat your oil in a pan.  You need enough oil so that when you lie your tofu in, it will come halfway up.  A good test for the heat of the oil is to pop the end of a wooden chopstick in, if bubbles appear around it quickly, you know the oil is hot enough.

Start cooking your noodles

Remove your tofu from the marinade, dust in cornflour, then egg, then panko crumbs and fry quickly.  You will need to do this in two batches.

Drain noodles, place in bowls, add avocado, then tofu on top.

Garnish, I used red capsicum and toasted sesame seeds.
The textures in this dish complement each other well, creamy tofu, crunchy crumbs, silken tofu.  

Yumz.