“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!

Tweet Pin It Now!

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.


Tweet Pin It Now!

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?!

Tweet Pin It Now!