Knock out some Gnocchi!

Inspired by two greedy Italians I made some gnocchi, but in a cheesy way. Instead of potatoes i used ricotta. Making this delicious dumpling all the more decedent. 

"Y i cooking soooo good!" 

 Recipe:

The sauce:
3 cloves of garlic
Half a bulb of fennel
one rasher of bacon
two tins of tomatoes.
Olive oil
Thyme

Get the pot hot add a decent amount of olive oil, submerge the garlic and fennel into it and let it cook until slightly golden. Then add the bacon cook a little more. Then  the canned tomatoes some water and let it come to the boil and simmer. Leave for the amount of time it takes to make your gnocchi, then blend and serve with parmesan.

The gnocchi:
200g flour
225 grams of ricotta
3 egg yolks
salt
black pepper
nutmeg

Mix it all together in a bowl to form a dough then knock it out onto a floured surface and knead it for 5 minutes. Then roll it out into long cylinders like so:

Cut the cylinders into bite size pieces.

Then roll them on the back of a fork, to make a nice shape. 

Cook in a pot of boiling water until they rise to the top. Scoop them out and dose with olive oil. 

Serve with the blended sauce. Delicimo!

MOF MOF

I bet you're wondering what MOF MOF stands for..  Its a culinary term less used today but i think the most important when approaching day to day cooking. Take it on, and it will change your world.

Minimum Of Fuss
Maximum Of Flavour. 

Its all about letting ingredients speak for themselves. Using simple methods of cookery to exaggerate their unique tastes.
Here are some of my MOF MOF food ways:

Best way to eat fish: Seared with lemon.
Best way to eat tomato: Smothered in olive oil and a pinch of salt on a thick slice of bread.
Best way to eat bread: With butter.
Best way to eat a pear: Poached in sugar syrup with cardamon.
Best way to eat raspberries: Fresh on their own, or on a sweet tart with Creme patissier custard.
Best way to eat eggs: Scrambled. Whipped with a touch of cream and cooked on a stove.
Best way to eat cheese: On its own with crackers, or melted into a puffy soufflé.
Best way to eat potato: cooked in water and mashed with cream butter and salt.

And last but not least.. Lemons!!!!

My favourite way to give a lemon so that it has maximum flavour with minimum fuss is my Nanna's Lemon pudding.
It captures everything about the lemon, it's sour zang, its pure taste, yellow colour and zestational deliciousness. This isn't too rich and is a perfect way to finish of a light meal. Its simple, no fuss cooking.

And here is the orginal recipe passed down from generation to generation. My present to you reader!

MOF MOF.
*and yes i know this recipe ridiculously calls for MARGARINE! i would most definitely go with butter!

FULLY RAGU'Y

An Italian Beef Ragu with a casereccie gemelli shaped pasta topped with dollops of ricotta and a freshly zested lemon with finely chopped parsley. This is the dish you spend all day salivating for. This is the dish that makes you want to go for more and more and more. This is one of my favourite foods. Absolutely Delcimo! SO rich and hearty, perfect for winter and for big groups of people to feast on.  

    

This shape of pasta is perfect for the sauce, it grabs the perfectly tendor beef in its clasps and doesn't let go. Fusilli is another substitution. You can find it at good delis, and takes a little longer to cook. Actually 18 minutes.

Recipe for Beef Ragu with pasta. 

500 g Chuck beef Steak
1 brown onion
2 cloves of garlic
200g of speck or bacon.
2 carrots
1 tbsTomato paste
2 cans of chopped tomatoes in tomato juice
splash of red wine
Packet of casereccie gemelli pasta, or Fusilli.
Parley
1 lemon
smooth ricotta


Get a crock pot on the stove. Cook off the speck, then put aside.
Caramelise the beef and put aside
Cook the onion in some olive oil until they sweat.
Add the carrots and cook a little more.
Add the garlic and other ingredients that were put aside as well as the tomato paste.
Cook off for 2 mins and add a splash of wine
Then the tomatoes. cover and let it simmer for 1 hour or until the meat is tender.

Cook the pasta and drop it into the thick sauce. Season with salt and serve with the zest of a lemon, chopped parsley and big dollops of ricotta.

Wowweee this is yummy.

Caesar Pleasar!

Fill your hunger pains with a salad like no other! Caesar salad for dinner is a crowd pleaser! The crunchy croutons, that hide under tender and crisp cos lettuce leaves, give this salad it's texture touch! Not to mention the gooey egg and bacon pieces that tuck in and behind all crevices of the salad. But its the dressing that makes a statement. A lemon-tangy mayo with an anchovy spin that leaves u wanting more! It's quick and easy. So thank Mr. Caesar tonight and whip it up! Add chicken if u want some extra protein and you've got yourself a balanced healthy meal. If you serve this people will go at it with hammers and tongs.

It's a Caesar Pleasar!!!

Recipe for a Caesar Pleasar:


4 eggs
1 cos lettuce
Bacon
Good mayonnaise
Sourdough
Olive oil
Lemon
Anchovy fillets
parsley


 To boil the eggs, put the eggs in a pot of cold water bring to the boil turn the heat off and cover with a lid for 6 minutes. Then rinse rapidly under cold water or leave in iced water to cool.


Slice bacon to small prices and cook in pan until crispy
Remove bacon and add sourdough pieces and some olive oil. Cook to golden brown.


For dressing take a big spoon of mayo, finely dice the anchovy and parsley and add with a squeeze of Lemon juice. Taste and adjust accordingly


Peel eggs and assemble the salad!

Plates should look like this after salad has been consumed. 

Duck. Duck. Duck.... Juice!!!...... Cherry Juice.

The marriage of duck to sweetness is undeniable, they were made for each other! Duck a'la'orange being a well known classic! For it is ducks' yummy juicy fat, that lines its breasts and legs, that longs for sweetness. A contrast that is needed by its deliciously pink flesh which cannot be matched by much else. Here we have a breast coated in a sweet cherry sauce and fanned out onto a lip-licking salad of rocket, thinly sliced fennel and segments of flavour-squirting-mandarin. To soak up all the delicious juices i chucked in some duck fat roasted croutons, and some confit tomatoes that were cooked in the rendered duck fat. 

 Life has many simple pleasures. Duck was one of them tonight.

Cherry Duck with fennel salad:

Duck breast

Rocket

Mandarin

Fennel

Cherry-vine tomatoes

Sourdough

A nice Cherry Jam, or Some frozen sour cherries that can be cooked with sugar, water and orange peel to make your own sauce. 

Preheat oven to 180 Degrees.

Start with a cold pan. Score your duck and massage with salt and pepper

Place in a pan and turn it on to medium heat

Leave for 3 or so minutes untill the skin is golden brown and then turn it over

Cook for 1-2 mins then remove from rendered fat and place on oiled tray

Quickly chuck in your tomatoes to the fat and spoon over the oils for 2 minutes then place on the tray with the duck

Grab your sourdough and also get it in the pan to let it soak up the duck fat.

Also put it on the tray with the duck.

Put into a 180 degree oven for 10 or so minutes.

While its cooking thinly slice your fennel, and toss with the rocket and segments of mandarin. 

Dress with a teaspoon of balsamic and a good slosh of olive oil. 

Pull your duck out and let it rest for 5 minutes 

Cut up your roasted bread into croutons and plate-up with your salad.

Heat your jam in the microwave or on the stove

Slice your duck and fan it out onto the salad. Then spoon the liquid cherry goodness over the juicy meat. Chuck the tomatoes on the side. 

Grab your knife & fork and Love Your Duck. 

I Gave Into Cupcakes...but did them my way.

Cupcakes have trended in the sweet food world. As the predecessor to the macaron they are well known and loved by the common foodie. And why wouldn't they be?  They tick all the right boxes! They're colourful, decorative, small and fun. All the qualities needed for a toothsome scrummy fashionable food.

So i was asked to cook some cakes for a charity day at my softball club. Walking round the supermarket i'd grabbed some carrots thinking i'd make a nice carrot cake. But as i made my way down the cake isle i noticed these cute patty cake papers, that i just couldn't ignore. Give the people what they want i thought to myself. So i ditched the carrots, and grabbed some food colouring and the patty cake papers instead. 

I'd like to think i'm against food fads, i still haven't endorsed the Macaron as the be-all of sweet goods, but something about the cupcake kept me interested. I mean its just a small cake. But it is precisely its  small, functional, no mess nature that makes it so popular. I'd been putting off having a good go at them for too long, it was time i took on the Cupcake. Sam style- that is without the gigantic overcompensating frosting and instead a smooth decent, but not over-the-top layer of buttery sweetness. 

These are my KISS Cupcakes. (Keeping It Simple Sam)

I used freeze dried rasberries for the pink cupcakes, a small mint leaf for the green, and some lavander candy for the purple.  

KISS Cupcake Recipe:

200g Butter Softened
370g Castor Sugar
The seeds of 2 Vanilla Beans
4 eggs 
405g Self raising Flour
250ml milk

Line muffin trays with patty cake papers, and set oven at 180 degrees.
Cream the butter sugar and vanilla together, until white. Then beat the eggs in one by one. When all eggs are added check that the grain of the sugar is lost and the mix has a smooth texture. 
Add half the flour and milk and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula. 
Add the rest of the milk and flour and mix to smooth batter. 
Spoon into patty cake papers.
Cook in oven for 15-20 minutes. 

Frosting:

While the cakes cool make your frosting.

140g butter. Softened

280g icing sugar

1-2 tbsp milk

Food colouring--- only a few drops 

Beat the butter with half the icing sugar until smooth, then add the remaining sugar with 1 tbsp of milk.

Add more milk accordingly.

Divide the mix into separate containers to make different colours, and add a small amount (1 drop then mix at a time) of food colouring. 

Use a bread knife to frost your cupcakes and decorate accordingly.

                                 

These cupcakes are simple and no fuss. 

Have a go.

Have a cupcake 

An apple a day keeps the doctor away...

Sometimes it's worth waking up that little bit earlier so u can have fresh apple and cinnamon muffins straight out of the oven for breakfast!

Apple and cinnamon muffins:

3 cups of self raising flour
1 1/2 cups of castor sugar
3/4 cup of veg oil
4 eggs
1 BIG spoon of natural yoghurt
1 tsp of baking powder
---- this is a basic muffin recipe u can add whatever u wish


In this case I added:
4 apples
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp of ground cloves
1/2 tsp of cardamom


Mix all your muffin ingredients together to form a base batter.
Peel apples and toss with spices, add a tablespoon of sugar and a bit of butter cover and microwave for 3 mins then add to batter.


Spoon into prepared muffin tins.
And cook in a moderate oven (180) for 20-30 mins or until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean
Dust with icing sugar and serves Warm! :)))
Sooooo scrummy!