asparagus and savignon blanc

We ate the tarts before I had a chance to take the photos – they were sooo delicious. The wine was delicious too – a nice kiwi savignon blanc. This one from Braided River in Marlborough, New Zealand has more citrus notes than the usual gooseberry flavours from the region. It’s crisp and refreshing and perfect for a light meal in spring. We are just starting to get the weather to enjoy the long evenings outside.

The wine matched well with a fresh asparagus and feta tart with toasted pinenuts. It’s very quick and easy, and looks impressive. I might bring this one out as an entree for barbeques later in the summer. I think one of the juicey moscato styles on the market now would be equally yummy to start a lazy sunday afternoon of eating.

Tart Ingredients

1 pre-rolled pastry sheet
1 egg beaten
1 bunch asparagus
200 grams danish feta (the creamier the better, rather than the harder greek style fetas)
100g pine nuts
1 tsp butter

Cut the pastry sheet in half and fold up the edges all around until you have a 1cm border. Press down the edges with a fork and prick the centre. Bake at 200 celcius for 15 minutes until lightly browned.

Meanwhile break off the tough bottoms of the asparagus (bend them slightly and they’ll snap at the right point), then slice the stalks on the diagonal. Steam for 2 mins until they turn bright green. Melt the butter in a saucepan and toast the pine nuts on a low heat – be careful, they burn really quickly so keep a constant watch on them.

When the pastry has finished, layer the asparagus and feta and put them back in the oven for 10 minutes until the feta melts a little. Sprinkle over the toasted pinenuts and serve with a green salad and a fruity savignon.

lazy ricotta gnocchi

To justify the arrival of Donna Hay magazine, and all the others that lie in piles around our home, I decided to actually cook from it this week. It was suprisingly easy to find four recipes that could feed us and the baby and survive the double sitting system we have going on here. The baby eats at 5.30pm and we eat at 7.30pm after he’s gone to bed, which means if we are to eat the same things either we have a warmed up version of his meal, or he has our left overs from the night before. This recipe was a winner – I cooked off some gnocchi for the baby at 5.30 then put the unrolled remains in the fridge until we were ready to eat at 7.30pm – and they were even more delicious than the first batch.

I remember making gnocchi with mashed potatoes and flour once a long time ago and being disappointed with the pasty, gluggy results. These little numbers however, were just delicious. Light, flavoursome, and with some  blitzed tomato sauce over the top they were just heaven for baby and for us.

Ingreditents

500g fresh ricotta
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup plain flour, sifted
Finely grated rind of a lemon
1 tbsp chopped mint leaves
250g steamed, chopped spinach – squeeze as much water out as you can before choppiing
1 cup semolina (for rolling)

2 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
leaves off a large sprig of basil
salt and pepper to taste

Mix the ricotta, parmesan, eggs, flour, lemon rind, mint leaves and spinach in a bowl and mix to combine.  If you have time, cover the mix and put it in the fridge for the flavours to combine.

Turn the mixture out onto a surface sprinkled with semolina and roll into 4 x 30 cm long ropes. Cut your rope into 2cm lengths and cook them in batches in a saucepan of salted boiling water for 2-3 minutes or until they float to the surface. You’ll know they’re ready when they suddenly start bobbing to the top all at once.

Remove with a slotted spoon and keep warm while you cook the rest.

The tomato sauce is a great trick I saw on TV and is one of the yummiest pasta sauces ever. Just blitz the tomotoes, garlic, basil and salt and pepper in your blender (or use a stick blender into a jug), then strain out the pips and skin over a small pot. Warm it gently (don’t boil it or you loose the fresh flavour) then pour over your gnocchi. It’s also fabulous with plain spaghetti.

More parmesan on top to serve.

Matched with a citrisy Pinot Grigio from McGuigan Wines- they have a great city vineyard in town at the moment with vines planted and a cellar door. Very cool concept.

organic wholemeal blueberry muffins

I found some amazing organic wholemeal flour. It comes in a cotton sack, which is what caught my eye in the first place. I’d like to be the sort of person that seeks out the organic  and always cooks with wholemeal flour, but thanks to Nigella and my DNA, I’m not.

But, when I find a fine product like the Organic Stoneground Wholemeal Plain Flour from Kialla In Queensland, I’ll gladly wave the organic flag.

I used it in a tried and tested blueberry muffin recipe. I’ve been making muffins for my son (now 14 months). He looks so cute with a fist full of muffin, which he always likes to shove whole into his mouth. He uses his hand to stop the food falling out when he puts too much in. We’ll work on table manners next year.

Ingredients

2 medium eggs (at room temperature)
250 ml of milk
6 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
finely grated rind of 1 lemon

280 g organic wholemeal flour (or plain flour will do)
1 tbsp baking powder
pinch salt
115 g soft brown sugar

150 g frozen blueberries

Most muffin recipes ask you to sift dry ingredients, make a well and pour the mixed wet ingredients in and combine without overmixing. To save dirty dishes I simply sift the dry ingredients over the well mixed wet ingredients and combine without overmixing. It works for me.

It’s important you don’t overmix, it makes the muffins tough and the texture compact like old bread. The flour mix should be just moist, lumpy is okay, and with a few traces of flour that will disappear in the heat of the oven.

Spoon into well greased muffin tins and bake in a 200 celcius oven for 20 minutes.

the garden is in …

It’s spring in Melbourne. Glorious Spring.

The first warm afternoon we got busy outside and I dug over the garden. The compost bin in the corner of the backyard has been filling up with lawn clippings and vege scraps for two years and when I pulled it to pieces we had some amazing, beautiful organic goodness to dig into the garden bed. It took me two days to dig it and some cow and chicken manure into our 6 metre strip of garden, and Billy was a great help.

A great help until I started planting the cos lettuce and silverbeet (chard) seedlings and running rows of seeds. Despite him pulling the lettuce out twice, they’ve survived and two weeks after our planting everything is thriving.

We have cos lettuce, silverbeet (chard), carrots, celery, basil, spinach, two tomatoe plants and a row of sunflowers. More to go in this weekend.