Roast Pumpkin & Pine Nut Pasta

Hannah cooked up this delicious pasta last night. After roasting pumpkin that had been tossed with garlic, parsley, salt and pepper, she simply tossed it through some spelt pasta, with heaps of basil, grape tomatoes, olive and topped with pine-nuts and extra basil! So simple, healthy yet hearty!

Best Sausage Sanger!

O.K, this is really in here cause I love the photo, but this was delicious. Made on a great rustic barbie on Yonderfield (Hannah's family farm) these were good ol Italian pork and fennel sausages from A.C Butcher in Haberfield (yes I got them especially, the farm isn't in Haberfield, I just take sausage seriously). With grilled onions, fountain tomato sauce and rocket on a crusty baguette, I think it was the best sausage on a roll I'd ever had!

Breakfast Pasta

This is a take on a classic cabonara pasta - and we've started calling it a 'breakfast pasta' as its central ingredients are bacon and egg. It's very un-italian to go savoury for breakfast but this really is the best of both worlds I say! We had this on our last morning at a great farm house in the Hunter Valley. I don't know why you don't see this more often on breakfast menus, as it really is simply bacon and eggs, but mixed through pasta instead of on toast! I lightly fried some lean bacon, just when the pasta was nearly cooked. Then once I drained the pasta, I added the beaten egg and bacon and stirred through til the hot pasta cooked the egg and was nice and creamy. Drizzled with olive oil, heaps of cracked pepper and I mixed through rocket and some chunks of roma tomatoes just before serving, to add some freshness. Who says you can't have pasta for breakfast!

Apple Berry Crumble

Hannah has been whipping up some great crumbles lately, going easy on the sugar and butter so not to make them too dangerous, and they are still just as delicious. Adding extra oats in the crumble mix hits the spot, but we couldn't resist scooping some vanilla ice-cream on top of this one! With a pot of mixed berry tea...a perfect winter dessert.

Curry Baked Snapper

Now we are in the middle of winter, we are craving warm, comfort food but trying to stay healthy at the same time - so satisfying those cravings can be tricky. But this dish tonight was delicious, comfort food, perfect for a chilly night. It came together in no time. I seared the snapper in a big wok, seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin and tumeric, then took it out of the wok and chucked it in a roasting tin. Then in the wok, I quickly whipped up a light tomato based curry sauce. Lightly fried, onions, garlic, ginger, red pepper, coriander stalks, chilli, tumeric, cumin, garam masala, a few cardarman pods and because this wasn't going to stew for ages, I chucked in some fish sauce, oyster sauce a cup of vegie stock to help it along. Then once that was all simmering nicely, I poured it over the fish and chucked it in the oven to stew for bout an hour. We had this with brown rice and a great refreshing, cucumber and mint salad Hannah whipped up with a great asian dressing and dry fried sesame and sunflower seeds! This was a memorable winters meal!

Sunday Spaghetti Marinara

Keeping with our Sunday pasta tradition, we were craving a rich tomatoey seafood pasta. We quickly chucked on a simple tomato sauce, with a mix of peeled and pasata. Just a heap of onions, garlic, parsley stems, diced carrot and thin slices of red pepper and a sprinkling of chilli flakes. As this simmered we jumped into the car and headed to nearby fish market in Marrickville off Sydenham Rd. We got a few handfuls of green prawns, baby calamari and a big fillet of gem fish. Stopping to pick up some fresh basil and some white wine on the way back. By the time the water boiled, the seafood, white wine and basil had flavoured the sauce beautifully! We had it with our new favourite spelt pasta and it was one of the best pastas we had eaten in ages!