pasta – helenthura.com

September 15, 2008

Pasta with Broccoli and Silverbeet

A few weekends ago I went to a Pasta Master class as part of the Taste of the Gold Coast Festival at Beaudesert with Desley and Pietro Agnoletto.

Whilst I didn’t learn anything in the making of pasta section, I have a reasonable understanding of that (though I would like to learn a lot more in terms of hand shaped pasta), I did pick up a few tasty and fast pasta dishes and this one is based on that.

Pasta with Broccoli and Silverbeet
Ingredients
Pasta
Broccoli (cut into fingertip size pieces)
Silverbeet (sliced into thin ribbons)
(this should be enough of each to serve the number of mouths you are feeding)
a few cloves sliced garlic
Olive Oil (a very generous amount – this is essentially an oil sauce)
a green herb to finish with eg. Parsley or Basil
Parmesan

Bring the pasta water to the boil, add pasta and broccoli. After a few minutes heat the oil in a pan and gently fry the garlic, then remove from the heat. Add the silverbeet to the pasta and continue to cook for a few more minutes till the pasta, broccoli and silverbeet are cooked. Drain, reserving a little bit of the water and pour in the garlic and oil mix.

Serve topped with some of the green herbs, parmesan and a little bit of salt sprinkled over the top.

So so so quick to make and damm so tasty, especially as broccoli is everywhere at the shops right now

That’s it. A few ingredients, a meal that takes as long to make as it does to cook the pasta and it is finger licking good!

March 9, 2008

Fun in the kitchen

I have been playing in the kitchen this weekend and having a ball. It has also meant that Mum has been able to spend a fair bit of time on the computer organising a talk she is giving on her trip out west last year.

Saturday I made sugar biscuits to have play with icing.

Saturday night I listened to the Womadelaide 2008 live broadcast (and loved every single minute of it) whilst decorating those biscuits. I have wanted to go to Womad since 2001 or 2002 when I first saw brochures for it at the library, listening to it this year has just made me want to go 100 times more than I did before. There was just so many artists I enjoyed listening to. At the end of the night I had no regrets not going to see Tiger Army/Zombie Ghost Train with Matthew and his friends (which according to Matthew was an awesome show).

I learnt that so much of it is about getting the consistency of the royal icing just right. As I practice more though I know I will get the consistency better on the first time instead of adding more sugar because it is too runny and then adding more liquid because I made it too solid.

Saturday I also went to the shops and if I go to Chermside I normally tend to poke my head into the kitchenware sections of Myer and David Jones because you never know what might be on sale. Well when I went into Myer I saw a sign which said 30% off all accessories and in the little note below it said it included pasta machines. Well when I saw that they had Atlas machines on the shelf, I knew what I was buying! Ever since I returned the below par pasta machine I bought 16mths ago I have been keeping my eye out, for an Atlas on sale, you know to make the price a whole lot more appealing. So so happy to have a pasta machine again. It also just runs so smooth.

Today I made Ralphs chocolate cake to take to work for a birthday tomorrow and of course I made Pasta! and Mum took some photos.

Pasta is all about the rolling, that blob of pasta would probably go through the machine about 25 times before it is cut, it makes it this most beautiful sheet of pasta.

I decided to be silly and make very very very long noodles. The first three runs I made as spaghetti and the final run I made as fettuccine. Typically of course you would cut the long pasta strip into 12-20″ strips before cutting it but hey why not?

The final stage, dusting the the fresh pasta with flour before packing it up to pop in the freezer.

Now it is time for bed and the start of another work week.

February 24, 2008February 25, 2008

days.

It has been a very busy last few days at work. One of the girls has been off this past week extremely sick and then the other girl has been off after having her wisdom teeth out. Which has left myself, the other new girl, our boss and our part timer trying to catch up. It has been keeping us very busy. Thursday though I had to get out of the office and have lunch in the square which is where a few of these photos are from. Friday though I finished at 4pm, ever growing stack of files could wait till Monday. I caught the bus into The Valley and went to the Thai grocery/DVD store to get a few things I was after from the cooking class with Leanne the other week. Friday night Mum had a slideshow with the three other ladies that she went walking in NZ with. That was quite nice. So many nice places in the the Fiordland area.

Saturday, yesterday, I didn’t do much, it was a stinker of a day. We turned the air con and I watched some more Alias before making some pasta for lunch. Then I watched some more Alias. Then I went to Taste in the Valley for a Moghul cooking demo with Gaynor Long. Then I watched some more Alias, cooked tea (Harissa grilled steak with cous cous and a pea/capsicum/sundried tomato mixture. I then crashed to the sounds of classics on 4MBS.

I woke up at 6 this morning. I couldn’t sleep. I had breakfast, made some not so melting moments (the still taste ok but just not like melting moments) and then went back to sleep for a little while longer. Just taking it easy, I’m going to go out later for some music and assorted fun. As I type this now though, I am listening to a piano CD I have from ABC Classics, the current “song” is Adagio from Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata. I have my desk cleaned off and actually creating for the first time in ages, I had forgotten how it feels to write with a pen on cardstock. To look at photos, thumb through papers.

December 30, 2007

in the kitchen

Today I spent the day off and on in the kitchen, just having fun. Mixing and matching flavours. Listening to the radio, watching the wind outside blow and swoop all over the yard. The wind that we have at the moment is something alright. Last night I made a batch of Tomato/Capsicum Pesto. So so so so so yummy. Today I made pasta for uno. Yep 90g flour, 10g semolina, 1 egg = pasta for one. Mainly it was pasta for one because I rolled it out with a rolling pin and well I enjoy making pasta but hand rolling pasta is a whole lot more intensive than with a pasta maker. I had planned on having it for tea tonight with some anchovies, mascarpone, bit of basil and a bit of sun dried tomatoes. That can wait for tea another night. Instead for tea. I had a brothy soup of sorts. As we do every year we have a smoked leg of sheep (it is meant to be a leg of mutton but in reality it ends up a leg of lamb), every year it gets hacked to pieces till it gets left in the fridge with just a bit of meat left on the bones. Today I decided that I would make a broth. I grabbed my shiny new Le Creuset and set to work, sweated down an onion, a few cloves of garlic and then in went some carrots and beans. After they had softened a bit, the bones went in, covered it with water, put a few bay leaves and peppercorns in and left it. It simmered away for a good hour or two, then I threw in some chopped up chorizo to add to the smokey flavour of the sheep. A good while later the rest of the meat had fallen off the bones and I now had a very fragrant, wholesome brothy soup. Toasted a few slices of bread and mmm dinner was nice 😀 especially soaking up the liquid with the bread 😀

Of course I finished off the last of my pesto the other day so I made a new lot which was a blend of Lemon Basil, Greek Basil and Sweet Basil. I love pesto. Just so darn tasty. There is nothing quite like the smell of basil.