“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.”

Sophia Loren is a lady after my own heart. Gwyneth Paltrow and her anti pasta views can get stuffed!


Ok so I love pasta.... us brits are use to eating stogy pasta with lots of tomato sauce. This recipe is clean and fresh and although it look really simple it packs an almighty punch.

What you will need for two.

200g of spaghetti or fetuccine
150ml white wine
500g grams of clams
2 garlic cloves
Handful of flat leaf parsley
Olive oil
1-2 dried chillies
salt and pepper

Firstly get some water on to boil for your pasta. Give your clams a good clean and throw out any that stay open after you give them a sharp tap.

This is a really fast dish so have everything prepped and ready to go. Get your pasta on to boil. About 5 minutes before your pasta is ready. Pour a couple of glugs of olive oil in a hot pan, add your garlic and chillies, stir around until your garlic starts to colour. Now add in your wine and tip in your clams. Pop a lid on your pan and give a good shake. The clams will open in about 3 - 4 minutes.

Drain your pasta and add it to our pan with your clams, toss in your parsley and give a good stir so the pasta can soak up som of the yummy sauce.

Serve immediately with lemon and bread to soak up the juices. Buon Appetito!

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Olives

It is Anzac day in Melbourne and it is starting to feel Autumnal, although we have had gorgeous sunshine today.

We have two lovely olive trees in our garden, and I decided that I really should try and do something with the olives.

So using my day off, I decided to dabble in curing my own olives. I have no idea how it is going to turn out but I am going to give it a go.

After looking at lots of different curing methods, I settled on something that looked the simplest.


I love black olives, so I picked the olives on the trees that were starting to ripen. Olives can be stored in any jar that you would use for preserves.

I sterilised a couple of jars by boiling them.

Whilst the jars were sterilising, I cut a slit each side of each olive down to the stone.

Once all the olives were ready I added them to the jar and then covered in a mixture of rock salt and tap water. About 50g of salt to 500ml of water. I then weighted down the olives to ensure they stay under the brine using a plastic bag filled with a little water.


The salt helps remove the bitterness from the olives and darkens them. I have read that I now need to replace the liquid around the olives every week to 10 days for four weeks. Following this you can create a nice marinade for them using olive oil, pepper corns, lemons and bay leaves.

They look pretty next to my preserved limes, which are going down a treat in our curries and with couscous.

I will keep you posted on the olives.


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Oooh I love cake

In the words of Marjorie Dawes oooooooh I love cake!!!

You may have noticed my blog has been a little quiet recently, I have been rather tied up with work.

To cheer me up we went down to Acland street in St Kilda to get some cake.

The street has an array of amazing European bakeries open till late. Great when you need a sugar fix.

There is only one problem... Which cake shall I have?!

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Weekend in the Cool Country

So we spent our lovely long weekend at Harts Lane Studio in Daylesford, I like trying to book unique places to stay and this studio was a treasure trove of cool pieces of art and furniture.

Daylesford lived up to its name of the cool country so we explored our home for the next few nights and got cozy by the log burner.

We even found this sweet little fella outside - I had to resist stealing him.

We spent the weekend on lots of adventures including horse riding, the mineral springs bath house, the local vintage markets, exploring local vineyards and villages.

One of the highlights for me was the Red Beard Bakery in Trentham, they have been using the same scotch oven since the 1892 when the bakery supplied prospectors during the gold rush. The bread was beautiful and the hot cross buns delicious!

Sad to be heading home on Monday we drove past the mysterious Hanging Rock - if you haven't seen it I would highly recommend watching Picnic at Hanging Rock - A little bit creepy.

We finished our trip driving over Mount Macedon stopping in the settlement for lunch. I currently work at Australia Post and have a real love for the post shop's here, they are the heart of most settlements, especially those in the outback, This post shop was amazing, it encompassed a cute coffee shop, general store and the post shop itself and had a lovely community feel.

All in all a lovely weekend, I wonder where our next adventure will take us.







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I Want To Be A Cowboy

Happy belated Easter. I hope you had a lovely weekend and ate lots of chocolate.

We booked a weekend out of Melbourne to enjoy some country air. We went to Daylesford in the cool country a couple of hours outside of Melbourne. Daylesford is an old mining town and is know for its natural mineral springs - more of this in my next blog.

Keen to get the most of the outdoors I booked a two hour ride at Hepburn Lagoon Trail Rides for Joe and I. Joe has never ridden before but was keen to give it a try, after looking a little nervous to begin with - he soon relaxed with his lovely steed Winston.

I rode the lovely Boo Hoo using a couple of leading reins - bit sore on the hands!

We had a couple of great hours riding in the bush, seeings Koalas. Joe loved it and even had a go at a canter.

I wanted to take home Boo Hoo home!

The riding school was on a homestead farm. The farmer's lovely wife Sue bought us piles of cheese on toast to eat after the ride, before we headed back to our cottage... for just a little nap.

More of our adventures to come tomorrow :)

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