Tomato and pasta salad sprinkled with herbal oil

We had this yesterday at big party in our garden - it was a hit! Sounds like one you may have made before but sometimes its good to refresh your recipes....

Serves 10 in a buffet

500-750 grams of cherry/cocktail tomatoes

500 grams of short pasta (penne ideal)

1 clove of garlic

2 lemons

8-10 sprigs of basil

5-6 sprigs of parsley or chervil

1 ½ - 2 dl of olive oil

5 spring onions

150 grams of baby spinach or lamb’s lettuce

1 ½ dl toasted pine nuts or sunflower seeds

salt and black pepper

Boil the pasta ‘al dente’ and leave to cool.

2. Peel the garlic. Grate the lemon peel. Mix garlic, basil, parsley/chervil, grated lemon peel, the juice from one lemon and the olive oil until it becomes a green, smoothe herbal oil. Season with 1 ½ tsp of salt and 1/3 tsp of black pepper. Mix the herbal oil with the pasta.

3. Slice the tomatoes and the spring onions. Put in a dish pasta, tomatoes, spring onions and toasted pine nuts/sunflower seeds in layers, starting with the spinach/lamb’s lettuce.

Chocolate Choc Chip Cookies

Found on another food blog but cannot remember which one,so apologies to the blogger for stealing & reproducing with a couple of tweeks of my own.They really are delicious & fudgy & I dare you not to eat more than one !!

125g butter
250g brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
180g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarb of soda
35g cocoa
320g mixed dark & milk choc chips

Beat butter,sugar,vanilla & egg until smooth & combined.Sift in flours,bicarb,baking powder & cocoa. Then add choc chips. See how easy it is ?
Roll into balls on baking tray,lined with greaseproof/baking paper & flatten slightly.Bake in 180C oven for 10 mins for soft fudgy texture or 2 minutes longer if you want them more crunchier.Remove from oven & leave to rest for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Swiss Chard

Looky look !
Lovely rainbow swiss chard from my garden. I am so in love with this vegetable & its earthy flavours & only wish my family were too.....
...all I do is fry it with a little butter & garlic until slightly wilted then squeeze some lemon juice over it before serving.Yum !

David's fish & braised potatoes with peas

This is the recipe David was cooking whilst I was talking to you on Skype at the weekend. Its actually a Bill Granger one from his book Bills Food
Here goes
75g breadcrumbs, 45g finely grated parmesan, sea salt & black pepper, 2 eggs, 125g plain flour, 4 firm white fish fillets ( here we use blue-eye cod),1 tbsp olive oil & 25g butter.
Mix breadcrumbs parmesan salt & pepper together. Beat eggs together in a seperate bowl, then place the flour & some of the salt & pepper in another bowl. Dip fish in flour, then egg & finally the breadcrumbs, leave to set in fridge for upto 2 hrs.
In the meantime you need
8 new potatoes (again we use kipfler) peeled & steamed until tender, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 white onion sliced into thin rings, 155g green peas( what other colour peas are there ?), 250ml chicken stock, 15g butter, salt & pepper.
Slice potatoes into discs. Heat olive oil in pan & fry onion until soft but not brown, add green(!)peas, chicken stock & bring to the boil & simmer for 5 mins. Add potatoes & cook for another 2 mins, remove from heat add butter, salt & pepper.
Back to the fish. Heat olive oil & butter in large frying pan, add fish & gently cook for 2 mins on each side, until light brown. Divide potatoes & peas amongst bowls & place fish on top,sprinkle with some mint leaves & dah dah.............dinner.

Note that fillets of fish are sometimes too big for the kids,mine would never eat fish until we introduced this with small bite sizes pretending it was chicken........Now they eat a good size piece & know it is fish - we still call it blue- eye chicken !!!

stuffed mussels

Hmmm...

Cantuccini

Great biscotti! Literally 'twice cooked'.

60gr soft butter

250gr sugar

2 eggs

grated rind of an orange

400gr flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

small pinch of salt

150gr whole almonds

3 tbs vino santo/milk/liquid of some description

Preheat oven. Mix butter and sugar, add eggs and mix in the rest of the ingredients.

Line a baking sheet and shape dough into 3 long salami shapes.

Bake for about 20 mins at 180 degrees.

Remove from oven and while still hot slice at an angle with a quick chopping action.

Handle carefully and lay down the slices.

Return to the hot oven for a further 5 to 10 mins to lightly toast.

Cool and store in a airtight container.

Serve with vino santo or just dunk in your coffee or tea for that matter...

Yum yum!

mango chutney

Get yourself or grow yourself a load of big, under-ripe mangos and peel and cut up the flesh. For each kg of flesh:

500gr sugar

750ml of vinegar

liquidize a large chunk of ginger, half a head of garlic and some red chillis, 2 tbs salt and 1 tbs mustard seeds.

(all proportional to the number of kilos flesh)

Boil up for about an hour or until it starts bubbling and throwing bits out of the pan. Pot hot. Keep for a week at least before eating.