First Foccacia!

I've always wanted to get better at baking bread, after being a bit disappointed with my first attempts.

So armed with a new electric mixer with a dough hook, Jamie's basic bread recipe and The Bourke St Bakery cook book - I was inspired. Very easy and hardly took any time at all...except you just have to be patient with the proving!

Started simple - a foccacia - as this required minimal proving etc...and the result was a crunchy flat loaf, soft and airy in the middle! Before chucking it in the oven, drizzled loads of olive oil, salt, pepper, dried chilli and oregano. Sampled it hot with some more olive oil and balsamic. Amazing!

Brilliant! can't wait to try some more!

Penne with Brocolli, Pine Nuts and Lemon

This is one of our favourite quick pastas and after spending 3 weeks in Malaysia - sampling some amazing asian flavours, lets just say we were craving pasta!

This pasta is so simple and quick. All ingredients ready while the pasta cooks.

Threw the pasta and will it was cooking, fried off some pine nuts in olive oil, then took them out as they can burn quickly. In the pine nutty oil fried off some chilli, a wee bit of anchovy and grated lemon zest. Let this rest.

When the pasta was few minutes off, threw in some brocolli to the boiling pasta. You have to time this right, so you don't overcook your pasta and brocolli, aiming for both to be just right at the same time...always a bit of gamble...so if you aren't confident boil or steam your greens separately.

When the pasta and brocolli were ready, drained but no too much to get a bit of moisture in the pot. Threw in a bit more olive oil in with the pasta and threw in the lemony, garlicy, anchovy mix and the pine nuts (saving some to top with the cheese). Had some proscuito, so tore some in aswell! (If you do this go light on the anchovy). And squeezed in the juice of the lemon and a wee bit more extra virgin. Dished up with parmesen and a glass of pilsener!

Such a simple pasta and so delicious! Try it with any good boiling veg, like asparagus, spinach, long green beans! Mmm next time.

Pasta di Federico

A cousin from Italy was staying over and he wanted to cook one of his regular pastas that he whips up after a day at uni for him and his housemates. It reminded me of quick pastas my mum makes!

A dead simple pasta, but what makes this pasta so good is the little details in the cooking. Basically, take your time...and fry things off seperately. I don't like using too many pots for a quick pasta, but it is really worth it.

Federico, diced onions and then fried off very slowly on low heat with a lot of oil. This was the key...and decent amount of olive oil with the onions in a stone cold pan that he then brought to slow sizzle for about 15 minutes will he preped the rest.

Diced and sliced zucchini and red peppers...and some diced speck...or thick slice or proscuito or bacon. While the onions were cooking, again very lightly and slowly fried off the veg in a seperate pan...with a healthy lug of olive oil. You don't want the veg to sizzle as they hit the pan...let them soften the build to a sizzle...he even put a lid on to steam/sizzle.

When the onions were ready, he added a tin of tomatoes and threw the pasta...once the sauce began to boil, he added the veg and fried off the proscuito, again seperately. Then added the proscuito to the sauce.

Once the pasta was cooked, added it the the sauce in the pan and tossed it around. A very lightly sauced pasta and not too dense with vegetables. But the extra flavour created by the oil was delicious.

The key to this pasta is taking your time...and keeping things to a low heat. It still will only take about 20 to 25 minutes to make. So well worth it! Delicious.