Truffle Oil Fettucine

Again, with the pasta. I don't think it's a coincidence that I'm in a major pasta love affair. Mama Mia and Sorella Mezza Mia have been in Montepulciano for the past month, doing a fabulously immersive language course, and I suppose I've been enjoying a little italiano immersion all of my own. 

Today, I made a spelt fettucine, subtly flavoured with truffle oil. Every time I make pasta from scratch, I vow to never buy it dried again (though I always have a good quality pack in the pantry for quick dinners). 

These quantities are enough for four smallish portions. I made dinner for two kids, have equal quantities leftover for tomorrow and I experimented with drying some for another night, too. 

Ingredients: 

1 cup plain flour (I used spelt)

1 free range egg

1/3 cup truffle oil 

A little filtered water and flour extra to adjust the texture. 

In a large bowl, combine the first three ingredients. 

Mix with a wooden spoon until a loose dough forms and then upend onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead and knead again, adding water or flour as required. The dough will pull together and be springy when complete. 

Leave to rest, covered, for around a half hour. 

Section the dough into quarters. Take one quarter and form a log, then roll flat with a pin. I mean really flat - about 1 - 2 mm and translucent. Then, gently roll the flat sheet up so that you can slice it in 1cm portions (which, unfurled, make the fettucine). 

Repeat with each quadrant of dough. To cook, get a pot of water boiling and add a dash of oil and a dash of salt. Add the fresh pasta. You only need cook it for a couple of minutes. Drain through a colander, and add an extra splash of truffle oil whilst you prepare a sauce. 

The joy of this delicious pasta is that you can get away with a liberal drizzle of truffle oil and a shave of parmesan and voila, dinner in a flash. I just LOVE la bella italia! However, for my little people, I made a simple white sauce and added a crispy skinned (cooked) salmon with a good handful of vintage cheddar and half an avocado, cubed. 

Now,  if you want to dry them for later use, get the oven hot (about 200'c) then switch off, and place the fettucine strands on an oven tray and into the heat, leaving for around 15 minutes or so. Store in an airtight container or snaplock bag. 

Kipfler Ravioli

Made from scratch, pasta is deceptively simple, even without a pasta maker. You just need patience and grit to roll it super flat- luckily, my three year old brings all the muscle I need. 

I boiled four small kipfler potatoes (skin on) until they were soft, added a third cup of cream and a pinch of salt then mashed until completely combined. Leave to cool. 

Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine two cups of spelt flour with one whisked egg and around 2/3 cup of water until a soft dough forms. Turn out onto a flat surface and knead with a little extra flour until it's a little elastic. 

Now comes the tough part. Roll it until it is so flat that you can almost see through it. 

Scoop a teaspoon full of the room temperature mash onto the pasta, spacing evenly, and then fold the other half of pasta over the top. I could only do three ravioli at a time on my chopping board, reserving leftover pasta as I went. 

Press down the seams using fingers or a fork and use a sharp knife to separate the ravioli. A sidebar. I have a ravioli press - a bit like an ice tray but for ravioli - and next time I would always prefer to use that. Only because these were a little too big for the kids (for grown ups, they're a perfect size). 

For the sauce, I sauteed half an onion (diced) in about 50g butter until translucent, then added 2/3 cup cream and 1/2 cup grated parmesan with a few shallots. I simmered until thickened. 

To cook the ravioli, boil a big pot of water with a dash of extra virgin olive oil and, once at boiling, add the ravioli and cook for a few minutes. Fish out gently, strain, then top with sauce and a few sprigs of rosemary. 

Fancy pants toasties

This is such a cheat's dinner- goats cheese, Parmesan and cheddar cheeses with caramelised onion.... Eaten while we were watching a movie with the kids. Yum and yum.

Faking your Baking - WRONG.

One of the blogs I follow regularly, and generally love the content of, posted a blog this morning that made me spit my muesli back into the bowl in abject frustration and disbelief. 

A photograph of some delicious looking little biscuits was published along with the promotion: Best biscuits you'll ever make - only three ingredients!

Wow. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it is. Those three ingredients? 

Packet cake mix (specifically, the cheapest you can find...)

Canola Oil 

Egg

Flavouring of your choice (Lots of people have added their two cents worth here with what they generally add - anything from jam to nutella to goodness knows what else.)

Look. I hate to nitpick here, but that is not three ingredients. It's a gazillion. Here's what's in your average packet cake mix: 

Wheat flour, sugar, vegetable fats and oils, emulsifiers (soy lecithin, 471, 477f), antioxidant (320), raising agents (500, 450), dextrose, starch, emulsifiers (471, 475), salt, flavour, vegetable gum, colour. 

So this 'fabulous' and 'easy' cookie recipe has a host of numbers and swagger of undoubtedly hydrogenated vegetable oils (designed to extend the shelf life in commercially produced cookies they are carcinogenic and have untold detrimental health impacts, and have no place in home baking)... Which makes me think the best thing about the recipe at all is, in fact, the egg. 

 

Here's what I particularly loathe about articles along these lines. It's all a conspiracy. A big fat lie designed to make you think that simple baking is impossible to do without 'short cuts' like this. Or that something like this will taste better than a more traditional recipe. What a crock! 

Do you know what I put in my cookies?  (Spelt) Flour, (Rapadura) sugar and a good quality butter - plus a little water or milk to bring the dough together. I might add some vanilla pods, or some chocolate chips, but essentially that's it. Four natural ingredients and yep, they taste bloody good. Anything that comes in a PACKET and markets itself as an 'easy' alternative to the homestyle original is bound to include a shedload of nasties that your body is better not to know about. Especially when it comes to baking for kids. 

Banana Smoothies - Liquid Lunch

My brother-in-law makes his boys a banana smoothie every morning as part of a rounded breakfast for growing kids, and therefore my Smalls got hooked on this liquid gold when we recently visited. I get asked for Smooseys pretty much every day. I will never make them every day though for the simple reason that I hate cleaning the blender. I mean it. I loathe it. It's a serious disincentive to making anything blended is that I will then have to clean it. However, it's a stinking hot day here and a liquid lunch like this was too good to refuse. And so - two bananas, manuka honey, white chia seeds, LSA and full fat organic milk, blitzed together until smooth. This is a winner for everyone in my household, but if your little ones don't like bananas, substitute berries, mangos, kiwi fruit... even just greek yoghurt and honey will give a beautiful creamy depth. 

Mushroom Gnocchi GF, Vego

This is a pretty quick and easy way to make a gnocchi for dinner. And who doesn't love those soft little nuggets of delicious savoury-ness?

Ingredients: 

Two potatoes

Approx 1 cup Spelt Flour plus a little extra for kneading

1 egg, lightly whisked, 

1/3 cup milk

For the sauce

6 button mushrooms

150g butter

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1/3 cup verjuice

Peel and cube the potatoes and boil until soft. Drain in a colander and run cold water over them until they are cool to the touch. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add the flour and milk, then egg, and whisk vigorously with a wooden spoon, bashing out lumps. It should be smooth and pale.

 Gradually incorporate the flour so that a loose dough forms. Turn it out onto a flat, clean surface and add a little more flour. 

Knead until it's a pliable consistency. Section it into quarters and form long snake like lines. Chop into bite size pieces and transfer to a separate plate lightly sprinkled with flour. 

Get a pot of salted water boiling meanwhile, then add all the gnocchi at once. When Gnocchi is ready, it will float to the surface. It will take a max of five minutes to cook once the water is boiling. 

To make the sauce, put butter in a large frying pan and heat until golden and frothing. Add the mushrooms and cook until browned, then deglaze with verjuice. 

Reduce the temperature to leave to simmer. Use a large slotted spoon on sieve to lift the gnocchi from the water and incorporate straight into the buttery mushies. Top with grated cheese and a little extra butter if you'd like. 

Serve topped with additional cheese. A hit in our house (though we add a good grind of salt and pepper and fresh basil leaves, and accompany it with a dry riesling, for the grown ups!). 

Satay Cous Cous with Baked Eggs

This is an easy and quick fix dinner. I made cous cous pretty much as normal, except I heated coconut cream on the stove top then stirred a whole wheat cous cous through and let it soften and swell (heat off, lid on, per normal on cous cous). Add a heap of frozen vegetables and a scoop of peanut or cashew butter, and then place in a baking dish. Dig some little holes in, crack some eggs and cover in foil. Bake at around 200'c for fifteen minutes until eggs are cooked. Serve once cooled enough for small fries to eat.