Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I love risotto. Naturally we have it a lot more often in winter but this was another one of those menu that was born out of cupboard staples and had a distinctively summer feel to it. I am a big fan of tomatoes for breakfast, so we always have at least 3-4 tomatoes hanging around in the fruit bowl.

This recipe was inspired by Jamie Oliver’s tomato, basil and ricotta risotto but naturally I lost it half way and started doing my own thing. Hey, like I said, it hasn’t turned out badly yet.

Risotto for two people who are in lurrve

1. 1 cup of arborio rice
2. 1 onion, finely chopped
3. 1/2 bulb of baby fennel, finely chopped*
4. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
5. 3 very ripe, sweet tomatoes, chopped into large chunks.
6. 3 large chunks of marinated goat’s cheese (about 80 g.) **
7. 3 tbsp of standard dressing (i.e. one part olive oil, one part balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper)
8. a sprinkling of dried chilli flakes
9. 4 large leaves of fresh oregano, thinly slices ***
10. 1 handful of fresh basil leaves
11. 1 litre of vegetable stock, simmered (I use 1 tbsp Vegeta Gourmet Stock powder + 1/2 cube of Massel veggie stock)

Dress the tomatoes with the standard dressing and set aside. Sprinkle the goat’s cheese with the chilli flakes and organo and grill for ten minutes or until golden.

Heat a glug of olive oil in a sauce pan and fry off the onion and fennel gently for ten minutes on low heat. Add garlic and cook for another minute. Turn the heat up, add the rice and fry until hot to touch. Ladle in some hot stock. Keep stirring and add the stock one ladle at a time. Add 2/3 of the tomatoes half way through. Cook, stirring and keep adding stock until the rice is soft and creamy but firm to bite in the middle.

Stir in the rest of the tomatoes, grilled goat’s cheese and the basil leaves. Rest for one minute and then serve immediately, drizzled with a good grassy olive oil. Yum.

On hindsight, really, I should have pretended that this was my Cookbook Challenge Week 7 but it’s too late. I’m going to hit post now.

* I had the fennel left over from something else, you can use celery instead.
** As mentioned previously, marinated goat’s cheese (soft and creamy) is our fridge staple (having a cheese maker for a brother-in-law does have its advantages). You can use ricotta or other soft goat’s cheese instead. Drizzle a bit of oil on it before roasting.
*** A few pinches of dried oregano is fine but hey it’s summer and I have a pot of oregano.

This is an appreciation bit for my oven

I love my oven. I don’t care if it’s a second hand bought rental oven. It’s old. In fact, it may even be called retro. But It rocks. I have had brand new oven. I have used my parent’s whiz bang oven. I have used other friends’ whiz bang ovens. But mine rocks the most. You know why?

It’s a gas oven. Get gas. Seriously. Having an electric oven is like having electric hotplates.

Two background stories: #1 We love our good bread and our bakery of choice is Purebread Bakery in Surrey Hills. They do the best bread in my humble opinion. Our top favourites are the corn sourdough and the cheese & onion sourdough. And yes, I have tried many of the famous Melbourne bakeries. Hope Farm is a close second but they only sell their bread at farmers’ market. Anyway, digressing. #2 One of my favourite Spring/Summer breakfast is a bruschetta made from the above mention sourdough bread with diced ripe tomato and fresh basil with a little bit of standard balsamic dressing.

So one Sunday afternoon I came home from shopping to find that Josh had made us lunch, which was a surprise in itself (he cooks but rarely without my prompting) but what was even more special was that he invented a whole new salad with the ingredients that were lying around the house that needed to be used up! And guess what? It was absolutely delicious. He said he was inspired by my breakfast bruschetta and he wanted to try to recreate a salad version from it. And not only those, he took photos! Have I mentioned I love this man and that he is a perfect food blogger’s spouse?

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Book: Jamie’s Italy by Jamie Oliver Theme: citrus Recipe: Insalata di Strada

This post kicks off my participation in the week 1 of the Cookbook Challenge in this hot (and eventually rainy) week. First of all, allow me to ramble before I get to the crux of this recipe. I found it really hard to be doing citrus (such a winter theme) in one of the hottest Spring week in Melbourne history. And guess what? I have no one to blame but myself because it was I, who pulled the theme out of the envelope. D’oh.

So here I was, totally stuck with this theme. I’m definitely not giving in and bake orange and poppy seed cake (although I have wanted to do that, the sticking point would be I have no cookbook that has orange and poppy seed cake – actually maybe Stephanie’s Cook Companion, but I digress) because that would be too easy.

This recipe in itself was no picnic. It is, in essence, a winter salad. Its main ingredients proved difficult: Cedro lemon? Non-existent here. Fennel? Winter vegetable. Blood orange? Well, I’d be lucky to find them. But guess what? The market provided! I went through all the stalls in the market to find decent fennel (believe me when I keep saying it’s not fennel season), some new potatoes, a head of radicchio and some blood oranges. Read the rest of this entry »

I make this dish when the vegetables are really nice and fresh. I guess it’s my version of pasta primavera. Last week, we ended up with some really good asparagus from the farmers’ market. I also made it with broccoli and asparagus since. It’s superb. I know it doesn’t look all that interesting to many carnivores out there but when made wit fresh asparagus and broccoli, the vegetables are beautifully sweet.

For two:

1. 6 thick asparagus
2. 1/2 head of broccoli, cut into small florets
3. 3 shallots, sliced
4. 1 tbsp of pine nuts
5. 1 small lemon
6. 250g of spaghetti
7. 3 tbsp of spinach and almond pesto*
8. 80 g. of butter
9. 1 tbsp of olive oil
10. 1/2 tsp of salt

Use a peeler and peel back the tough bit of the asparagus stems. Bring a large pot of  salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook for about 5 minutes. Before blanching the whole asparagus stems and broccoli florets in the boiling water for 1 minute. Remove the vegetables, set aside.

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I bought half of a really nice cauliflower from the farmers’ market the other day and decided that I wanted to make something simple with it. I was inspired by a recipe from Matt Moran’s new book When I Come Home which featured in this month’s Delicious magazine. It was originally made with orecchiette and I didn’t have any. Read the rest of this entry »