Spring Minestrone with Pesto

This weeks soup is Jamie Oliver’s Spring Minestrone from Jamie’s Kitchen – I’m sure he would forgive me for making this in Autumn! The pesto on top is a nice touch which boosts the flavour wonderfully. As you can see from the photo it is not the most photogenic of soups but it is packed full of fresh healthy veggies & I think I can safely say I have now filled my fiber content for the week!

Spring Minestrone

6 heaped tablespoons fresh pesto (see recipe below)
1.5 litres chicken, ham or vegetable stock
1 bulb fennel
100g fine asparagus
2 Romanesco or 1 large cauliflower
6 baby courgettes
6 plum tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 bunch of spring onions, finely chopped
100g green beans, finely sliced
100g yellow beans, finely sliced
100g peas, podded
100g broad beans, podded
100g spaghetti, broken up (or other small soup pasta)
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 small handful of green or purple basil
1 small handful chives

Bring a pot of stock to the boil. Then prepare all of the vegetables & put to the side. The fennel has to be halved, sliced & finely chopped, the asparagus needs to have the woody ends removed, the stalks finely sliced & the tips left whole, the cauliflowers need to be divided into small florets, the courgettes need to be quartered lengthways & finely chopped & finely the tomatoes need to be blanched. Cut them in half, remove the pips & finely slice.

In a casserole type pan (quite wide but not very deep) put 5 tablespoons of olive oil & heat the pan on medium heat. Add the garlic, spring onions & fennel & gently fry without coloring at all for about 15 minutes. Then add the rest of your prepared vegetables, the pasta & your boiling stock. Bring to the boil, simmer for about 10 minutes, season & serve in big bowls with a dollop of fresh pesto in the middle & a sprinkling of chopped basil & chives & a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Pesto

¼ clove of garlic, chopped
3 good handfuls of fresh basil, leaves picked & chopped
1 handful of pinenuts, very lightly toasted
1 good handful of grated parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
optional: small squeeze of lemon juice

Pound the garlic with a little pinch of salt & the basil leaves in a pestle & mortar: or pulse in a food processor. Add a bit more garlic if you like. Add the pinenuts to them mixture & pound again. Turn out into a bowl & add half the parmesan. Stir gently & add olive oil – you need just enough to bind the sauce to get it to an oozy consistency.

Season to taste, then add the rest of the cheese. Pour in some more oil & taste again. Keep adding a bit more cheese or oil until you are happy with the taste & consistency. It may need a squeeze of lemon juice at the end but it’s not essential.

Woodstock, North Fitzroy

The other night the family were off to the movies & we needed a simple & quick bite to eat beforehand. My suggestion was Woodstock which is a family run little Italian place on Nicholson street. The menu consists entirely of pizza’s – Italian style, thin crust with lovely toppings, such as prosciutto & porcini, and it’s all in Italian too which the staff are happy to translae for you. There is always a specials board that has a couple of home made pasta’s of the day plus some fish & maybe some meat dishes. Last night for example there was roast goat, crumbed veal, calamari, garfish, a pesto filled agnoletti & a linguine marinara to name a couple of the specials. There is a limited wine list & byo is $10 corkage a bottle.

The few times I have been there, there are always crumbed, stuffed olives on the specials too & being a huge fan of these delectable morsels I always order some to start with. The rest of the family were a bit dubious but were soon won over & loved them as much as I do. I chose the marinara as I wasn’t in a pizza mood, the serve was huge, lots of pasta with a couple of mussles, a few prawns, some scallops & squid thrown into a tomato based sauce, very tasty though a bit on the salty side so beware if you're not a salt fan. There was also so much that Michael got half of mine, he ordered the agnoletti which was fantastic but in contrast to mine the serving was really quite small & definitely not enough to fill a grown man. We didn’t go for dessert as we were in a hurry so not sure what was on offer though there was a gelati bar at the counter so at the least one could expect a bowl of ice cream to finish off. All in all a great Italian place for a quick & simple feed though the prices are a bit on the highish side for such simple fair, ie pizza’s about $20 each & you do need one per person so if you can live with that give it a go.

Woodstock
612 Nicholson street
North Fitzroy
Ph: 9481 8122

I Carusi Pizza

Well this little Pizza place that you would not even notice unless looking really hard for has to be Melbourne’s best kept secret. The place is always jam packed full of people so don’t even think about turning up without a booking. The menu consists purely of pizza (apart from a couple of salads & some olives). It’s lovely & warm inside, some nice music playing in the background & dimly lit so quite atmospheric. Michael & I were seated opposite the pizza production line last night which was fascinating. I swear these guys could win a world record they crank them out so fast. We had a small pizza each, they come in either 10 or 13 inch, we really should have had the large as they are very thin based so not over filling especially for a man & someone eating for 2. Michael had the Genovese, tomato, goats cheese, pesto, roasted peppers & prosciutto. I had the Greg Oregano, tomato, prosciutto, rocket & Parmeggiano. Sorry about the crappy photos, not sure what was going on with the camera last night so you will have to trust me that these were divine & there are so many fantastic sounding combinations that you just want to order every single one. They have dessert pizzas too which sadly we didn’t have time for last night as we had to rush home to watch The Pies have a mighty win over Port Adelaide, maybe next time. Do yourself a favour & get down here fast.

I Carusi Pizza
46a Holmes Street
Brunswick East
9386 5522
BYO & Cash only

Small Block, East Brunswick - Brekky

Sunday morning breakfast at Small Block in Brunswick. Once again we felt like a morning walk & what better way to do it than with a brekky stop in the middle. I’ve been here many times before & never disappointed. The place is always packed & usually a wait on the stairs is the way to go before scoring a table. Today we were lucky & there was a table available outside & the sun was shining so it was actually nice, even for a winters day. The only problem today was that a few customers were letting their dogs run riot off their leashes & they all seemed to want to jump on me or slap me with their tails, not the cafes fault but really wish dog owners would keep their pets under control especially if they are bugging the other customers.

Today I had the baked eggs with tomato, chorizo & saffron ragout, this was served with some toast & was delicious, have never tried this dish before, the eggs on top were delicious & even though baked still nice & gooey. Underneath was a lovely mix of tomatoes, chorizo, onions, saffron & olives, great combination. Michael had the scrambled eggs with pesto & fetta, I’ve had this before & it’s a great full of flavour egg scramble. To drink as well as coffees I had a Phoenix Organic apple & pear juice from New Zealand, these are great juices so try one if you ever come across them. Anyway all in all I love Small block & have never had a bad feed here, I think its all excellent quality & the choices are a bit different from the usual which gets another thumbs up for the place too. Friendly staff & quick service complete the picture.

Small Block
130 Lygon Street
Brunswick East
9381 2244

Sizzled Haloumi with sundried tomatoes & home made pesto

Today my good friend Elise came over for lunch. She is studying Bowen therapy at the moment so the deal was she got to practice & ‘do my husband’ while I cooked up some yummy lunch for us all. Michael was very relaxed after the therapy & I’m looking forward to my turn next though I don’t know if we can leave the lunch to Michael, better prepare something in advance I think! For dessert I was finally making a tarte tatin (see next post) so I wanted lunch to be nice & light so I threw together this salad inspired by a recipe in a mag some time back, cant remember which one. I used some fantastic King Island Haloumi that I picked up from the Vic market & served it with a wonderful St Andrews seed & sprout wood fired oven loaf which I bought from the baker himself over at Ceres this morning. I also made my own pesto for the recipe following Jamie Oliver’s advice in Jamie’s Dinners & served the whole lot on a bed of rocket. It was all great though the rocket & olives probably weren’t necessary, I ate most of my cheese on torn chunks of bread with the pesto sauce, god I love Haloumi. The leftover pesto will make a very quick meal tonight too stirred through some pasta, might even leave that one to the hubby.

Sizzled Haloumi with sundried tomatoes & home made pesto

12 vine ripened cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus ½ tablespoon to coat tomatoes
Leaves form 4 thyme sprigs
4 sundried tomatoes, finely sliced
250g haloumi, rinsed, cut into slices
Handful of kalamata olives
Basil leaves to serve

Pesto Sauce
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon pesto
1 tablespoon baby capers, rinsed

Heat the oven to 180c. Coat the cherry tomatoes with 1 teaspoon olive oil, scatter with thyme leaves & sea salt & black pepper to taste, then bake for 15 minutes or so until soft but still retaining their shape.

To make the pesto sauce, mix the oil, capers & pesto together in a bowl.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a non stick grill pan over high heat. When very hot, sizzle the cheese slices until browned on each side.

Arrange ingredients over rocket on a plate & serve drizzled with pesto sauce.

Pesto

½ a clove of garlic
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 good handfuls of basil, leaves picked & chopped
a handful of pine nuts, very lightly toasted
a good handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil
a squeeze of lemon juice

Pond the garlic with a pinch of salt & the basil leaves in a pestle & mortar, or pulse in a food processor (I used the processor). Add the pine nuts & pound again. Turn into a bowl & add half the parmesan. Stir gently and add sone olive oil – you need just enough to bind the sauce & get it too an oozy consistency. Season to taste, then add most of the remaining cheese, pour in more oil & taste again, keep adding until you are happy with the taste & consistency. Add the lemon juice at the end to give it a bit of a twang, this last step is optional – I go for it as love the extra zesty flavour it gives.

Tobie Puttock - QV Market Cooking School

Tuesday night Michael & I went along to the Queen Vic Market Cooking School to see Tobi Puttock whip up some pasta magic. Michael bought me some gift vouchers to this for xmas so he was dragged along to try it out too. Tobi was fantastic, making preparing your own pasta look like the easiest thing in the world which I beleive it is not from my prior disastrous attempts.

Anyway in the 2 -3 hours we were there he managed to make up Fresh Tagliatelle with a quick sausage ragu (pictured), was sensational, Rotolo di spinach, (also pic), very yum, Trofie with Pesto, green beans & potato, so easy I think this is the first dish I will attempy myself & equally delicious to the rest, potato gnocchi with an asparagus, lemon butter sauce, (pic) & also delicious, Super light ricotta gnocchi, yum, & zucchini raviolo with a zucchini flower sauce, this was really very good & looked sensational too. Can you believe how much he whipped up, cant believe how quick it all was & how tasty, I will definitely be trying these out myself in the coming weeks & showing you the results. For some reason, pasta is one of the things I am a bit intimated by & shy away from trying after a couple of very bad attempts, will ahve to be my new resoluton to master the art!


Michael enjoyed himself too though was still very hungry by the time we got home, forgot to mention that you only get tasting portions & not a whole meal!

Lunch at Ceres

Well, just walked down & had lunch at Ceres the community & environment park in Brunswick. The cafe is open air with mosaic tables scattered under the trees & shade & the food is 80% organic. As well as the cafe I also had a look around the Saturday market & bought some olive bread from the new organic bakery there, cant wait to try it out, the breads all looked fantastic & lots of variety. There is also an organic fruit & veg section as well as other produce & second hand clothes, jewellry stalls etc, quite an interesting place & great to see its all environmentally conscious.

For lunch I had the sour dough toast with pesto, grilled haloumi, rocket & asparagus, sensational & cant wait to go back & try everything else on the menu, esp brekky which sounded yummy & by the looks of other peoples orders swinging by, will be! Just a word of warning, go early or prepare to wait a bit for a free table.

Weekend away on the Mornington Peninsula Prt 1

Friday 28th October 2005

Drove down to Blairgowrie after work with the boys from the office for our annual 'love-in'
We cooked up a barbie for dinner, big juicy porterhouse steaks, spicy snags, some salad & olive bread.
This was washed down with loads of champas (me) & beers (the boys) with some red wine & scotch thrown in for good measure
All followed by various attempts at sportsmanship including trampolining (amazing how one believes they can back flip after a few drinks) table tennis & some singstar thrown in for good measure

Saturday 29th October 2005 - Morning

After last nights excess we started the
day with a great bbq brekky to clear
the head, bacon, eggs, tomatos,
olive & pesto bread all grilled
nicely with some mushies on
the side In my opinion nothing
can beat this combo for a
hangover & this one worked
a treat (for most of us anyway)
Was even nicer for me as the guys
cooked & I was able to sit back in the sun & relax awaiting my feast