Last week I picked up a new delicious. magazine; September 2010′s issue.  There was a recipe inside for spaghetti puttanesca, which is a dish I’ve been wanting to make for the past few months.  Since the recipe was now in one of my favorite magazines, I wrote down the ingredients list and immediately went out and stocked my pantry with semi-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives and anchovy fillets.  These ingredients aren’t something I’d normally keep in the pantry, but the rest of the ingredient list is normal for our pantry/refrigerator.

What took longest in making this dish was the preparation.  The cooking was simply a breeze, couldn’t have been easier.  The house smelled amazing while the sauce was cooking in the frying pan; I’m sure you could have smelled it from the street had you been standing outside.  I’ve never, ever eaten anchovies (to my knowledge), so I was looking forward to trying this and wondering how they would taste.

And so was my 1-year-old son!  He wouldn’t keep his hands out of the dish as I was trying to photograph it!

The textures and flavors are many in this dish.  The flavor is tangy and salty and it’ll definitely wake up your mouth.  The olives and semi-dried tomatoes add a variation of flavor and texture with each bite, and thyme-flavored ciabatta breadcrumbs add a subtle crunch.  I know I haven’t been out much, but I can honestly tell you that this is one of the most flavorful dishes I’ve eaten in a very long time.

I would definitely recommend this if you love Italian food!

You’ll have 3/4′s of a loaf of ciabatta bread when you’re done making this dish.  Ciabatta makes an excellent garlic bread, so why not use it to make your own to accompany your spaghetti puttanesca?

Spaghetti Puttanesca
Adapted from delicious. magazine, September 2010
Serves 4 hungry people

Ingredients
1/4 olive or plain ciabatta loaf
100ml olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped thyme leaves, plus thyme sprigs to serve
1 large tomato
2 red onions, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Pinch of chilli flakes
12 anchovy fillets in oil, drained, roughly chopped
200g semi-dried tomatoes, halved
200g pitted kalamata olives
400g spaghetti

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with foil.

Place the ciabatta in a food processor and whiz to form coarse crumbs. Spread the breadcrumbs onto the lined baking tray, drizzle with 1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil, scatter with chopped thyme leaves and season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 10 minutes or until the breadcrumbs are golden and crisp, then set aside.

Meanwhile, cut a small cross in the base of the tomato. Plunge the tomato into boiling water for 30 seconds, then refresh immediately in iced water. Peel and halve the tomato, then scoop out and discard the seeds. Finely chop and set aside.

Place the remaning 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes until softened but not colored. Add the chopped tomato, garlic, chilli and anchovies and cook, stirring for 3-4 minutes until the anchovies dissolve and the tomato has broken down. Add the semi-dried tomatoes and olives and stir for 1-2 minutes to warm through.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in a large saucepan of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions. Drain, then add the pasta to the sauce and toss well to combine.

Divide the spaghetti and sauce among bowls, scatter with the breadcrumbs and thyme sprigs, then serve.

I’m a Woolies girl myself, and I’m not a fan of Curtis Stone, but this recipe looked easy, cheap and tasty, so I visited Coles, grabbed the Curtis Stone recipe booklet at the front door and bought the ingredients.  Well, it wasn’t under $10 because I bought a bigger package of ground beef (the leftovers I would freeze for later use).  I wasn’t very interested in the cost, however, as I was more interested in how easy it would be, and whether my kids would like it or not!

I started cooking when I got home from the shops and I found the preparation was quite easy and relatively quick, just what I was after.  The sauce cooks up nice, thick and fragrant.  I love the chunky mushrooms and carrots.

The taste was so-so.  Oh, it was good, definitely, but it just seemed to be lacking a little bit of flavor, like it could have used more seasoning (which would have been my fault for not using more) or more basil.  I don’t know, I’m not a cook – I’m a baker!

My kids didn’t like it very well.  They ate about half of their serve and left it.  My 2-year-old son hated the carrots and mushrooms, and my 4-year-old daughter would only eat the mushrooms if I told her they were actually little bits of fish (what??).  Well, she has an aversion to mushrooms, as one morning during a playgroup outing to the playground she picked a wild mushroom out of the ground and ate a piece of it.  I was horrified and worried she would get really sick (or worse), but she was just fine.  We must have worried her too much by telling her to never eat mushrooms that she sees on the ground, because now she won’t any mushrooms at all!

Anyway, I would definitely recommend this meal, and I probably will make it again, chunks of fish and all!  If you read the comments on the recipe page from Coles you’ll find some tips on how to make this pasta dish a little bit better, including adding an extra can of tomatoes or even a couple tablespoons of tomato paste.

Fettuccine Bolognese
Adapted from Curtis Stone
Serves 4 generously

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
250g Portobello mushrooms, sliced
500g  beef mince
400g whole peeled Italian tomatoes
350g fettuccine pasta
1 cup fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese, finely grated, to serve

Method
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large frying pan. Add the beef mince, season with salt and pepper and stir to break up the lumps. Cook for 5-7 mins over high heat until browned. Add the onion and cook for 2 mins then add the garlic, carrots and mushrooms, cook for 2 mins until just softened. Add the tomatoes and simmer for 30 mins.

Cook the fettuccine according to packet directions.

Toss fettuccine with sauce in fettuccine cooking pan. Mix in basil. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese to serve.

I try to feed my kids healthy foods, but there are those evenings when there’s only time for a frozen pizza, or French fries, or chicken nuggets.  And of course, if I’ve made cupcakes we’ll have those for dessert.  I always feel guilty about it, but if I look over the course of a week or so I realize that they’ve gotten plenty of other healthy lunches and dinners and I don’t feel so bad.  Besides, I’m a firm believer in having a treat every so often!

When it comes to fruits and vegetables, my kids prefer them raw.  If I’ve taken the time to cook any vegetables, they’ll usually always think it’s disgusting.  So you’ll find a lot of chopped cucumber, celery, carrots, apples, etc. in the refrigerator along with various dips such as hummus, or avocado.  Most of the time I remind myself to not waste time cooking the vegetables, but sometimes I’ll find a recipe that just looks too interesting to pass up.

If you live here in Sydney, you may have seen an ad on the TV recently sponsored by Woolworth’s.  In the ad, Annette cooks a special, quick and healthy dish for children called Orange Pasta.  Annette juliennes some carrots and cooks them with diced tomatoes and some onions and serves plates of this Orange Pasta with shredded cheese and parsley.  Apparently, her children don’t realize that the “pasta” is actually julienned carrots.

I thought it would probably be easy for my kids to distinguish between regular pasta and carrots and that they wouldn’t eat this Orange Pasta, but I thought it looked interesting and that I’d give it a try.

The preparation was quick and easy and the cooking time was next to nothing.  The hardest part is chopping the carrots into matchstick pieces, but it’s easy if you’ve got the proper tools, such as a julienne peeler.

Here are my notes from the recipe:  I found that I needed to cook the carrots a bit longer than 1 minute to cook them properly and to soften them just a bit; I used half of a red onion instead of a whole one; I used extra virgin coconut oil instead of olive oil; I used Parmesan cheese instead of cheddar cheese.

My conclusion is that this is an excellent vegetable dish.  I’d like to use it as a side dish sometime, but it would make a great main dish for a child who actually liked it.  My 4-year-old daughter took a couple of bites but decided she didn’t like it at all.  And I just didn’t even bother trying with my 2-year-old son!

Orange Pasta
Adapted from Woolworth’s
Serves 2

Ingredients
3 medium carrots
3 tbs olive oil
1/2 red onion, diced
200g can diced Italian tomatoes
1 small clove garlic, chopped
salt and pepper, optional
fresh parsley, chopped to serve
shredded Parmesan cheese to serve

Method
Wash the carrots well, then peel them into long thin strips.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan on medium-high. Add onion and garlic and allow to soften.

Add carrot strips and toss them continually for a minute or until just cooked. Stir in chopped tomatoes and season if desired.

Remove the pan from the heat and serve with a sprinkling of tasty cheese and chopped parsley.

I did have to make a substitution to this, however.  My store must have been out of Italian sausage, one of the main ingredients to this recipe.  So I used regular ground beef and while cooking it I added an Italian spice blend.  I’m sure I’ll be making this again sometime, and I will try to find Italian sausage next time!

My entire family loved this, even my 2-year-old son.  It makes a great family dinner when served with a nice fresh salad.  We had a salad of lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and green olives.

The sauce this recipe makes tastes great, and would be nice to use as a regular spaghetti sauce.  I might try this sometime!

The original recipe in the magazine made two full 13×9-inch baking dishes of this casserole, but I divided everything in half (or close to half) when I made this for just one baking dish, and I have posted the recipe for just one baking dish below.

Penne & Sausage Casserole
Adapted from Taste of Home magazine, June & July 2009

Ingredients
3/4 pound uncooked penne pasta
1/2 pound Italian sausage
1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
3/4 cup dry red wine or beef broth, divided
1 can (14.5 ounces) stewed tomatoes, chopped
1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
1/2 cup beef broth
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded fontina cheese
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
Minced fresh parsley

Method
Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, cook sausage over medium heat until no longer pink; drain and set aside.

In the same pan, saute mushrooms and onion in oil until tender. Add garlic and oregano; cook 1 minute longer. Stir in 1/2 cup wine (or beef broth). Bring to a boil; cook until liquid is reduced by half. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato sauce, broth, sausage and remaining wine (or beef broth). Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Drain pasta. Spread about 1/4 cup sauce in a greased 13×9-inch baking dish. Spread half of the pasta on top of the sauce. Top with about 1 1/4 cups sauce and 1/2 cup of each cheese. Repeat the layers once more.

Cover and bake at 350F for 25 minutes. Uncover; bake 5-10 minutes longer or until bubbly and cheese is melted. Sprinkle with parsley if desired.

One of the stand-out recipes for me in that book was a stir fry recipe with snow peas and tofu flavored with ginger and chili sauce.  One of the other ingredients, I believe, was peanuts but I always left them out.  I really loved this particular stir fry and made it a handful of times.

I’ve had a craving for it lately but can’t remember how to make it, though!  I remember the main ingredients but I can’t remember the amounts of each.  I’ve tried to recreate it as best as I could from memory and this is what I came up with.

It’s good, but not flavorful enough.  The tofu really soaked up the flavor, but it was just lacking something.  If anyone reading this has the Great Vegetarian Food cookbook, I would be so thankful if you could type up the recipe and email it to me!

For now though, this is the recipe I came up with.  Just remember that if you make this, it needs work, so don’t expect perfection unless you want to tinker with ingredients and amounts yourself.

Snow Pea And Tofu Stir Fry
Adapted from Great Vegetarian Food by Australian’s Women Weekly
Serves 3-4

Ingredients
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
450g pound fresh snow peas, trimmed
350g extra firm tofu, cubed
1 tablespoon fresh red chilies, chopped finely
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup sweet chili sauce

Method
Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a medium frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add cubed tofu and lightly brown.  Remove tofu from pan and set aside.

Heat remaining 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in same frying pan.  Cook chilies, ginger and garlic until fragrant.  Add snow peas and stir to evenly coat with spices.  Cook for about 3 minutes.

Return tofu to pan.  Pour sweet chili sauce over the snow peas and tofu in the pan and stir to evently coat.  Heat through and serve with rice.

The recipe is really easy and is one of those that you can’t really screw up.  You can add all the ingredients based on your own tastes.  I’ll post a basic recipe, but note that I can’t give you the exact amounts because I never measure them!

The flavor of the mushrooms really stand out in this dish; it is the most prevalent taste, followed by the garlic and herbs.  A sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese finishes off the taste really well.

Spaghetti With Mushrooms And Garlic
Serves 2-ish

Ingredients
2 servings uncooked spaghetti (maybe a little more?)
2-4 tablespoons olive oil
1-1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
1-1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 ounces baby portobello mushrooms, or button, finely chopped 
Grated Parmesan cheese 

Method
In a medium saucepan or skillet, add olive oil, herbs, garlic and mushrooms.  Cook, uncovered, over low-medium heat until it begins to simmer; remove from heat.

Meanwhile, cook spaghetti according to package directions.  Drain.  Toss with mushroom mixture until thoroughly coated.  Serve with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese.

If I have leftover olive oil after plating, I usually just toss it out after making sure there are no more chunks of garlic and mushrooms.

If you try this, let me know.  It’s been my favorite for years!

I used a store-bought refrigerated pizza dough as the base for this pizza, and a simple tomato sauce.  I sprinkled two minced cloves of garlic on top of the sauce and a sprinkling of dried thyme.  Then, I added a good layer of shredded mozzarella cheese, chopped fresh baby spinach and sliced cremini mushrooms.  On top of that I added a sprinkling of dried oregano and a little bit more cheese.  I baked the pizza for 12 minutes at 400F.

I don’t have exact measurements of each ingredient that I used, like I said, that’s the great thing about making pizzas – you don’t really need a recipe.  My pizza was a little too herby because I went a little crazy with the oregano, but it’s a nice change from frozen store-bought pizzas.  :)

It was quite quick and simple to prepare and tasted very nice.  I used ground ginger instead of fresh ginger and did not notice much of a ginger taste; next time I’ll use fresh ginger.  Also, I thought the two pounds of asparagus was a little excessive, so I just used one pound.

As far as stir-fry dishes go, this was an average one, but definitely well worth preparing.

Gingered Beef Stir-Fry
Adapted from April/May 2009 Taste of Home magazine
Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients
3 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce, divided
1 tablespoon sherry
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh gingerroot or dash ground ginger
1/2 pound beef flank steak, cut into thin strips
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 cup beef broth
1 1/2 teaspoons hoisin sauce
1/8 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
2 pounds fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 garlic clove, minced
3 cups hot cooked rice

Method
In a large resealable plastic bag, combine 2 tablespoons soy sauce, sherry and ginger; add the beef. Seal bag and turn to coat; refrigerate for 30 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch, broth, hoisin sauce, sugar and remaining soy sauce until smooth; set aside.

In a large skillet or wok, stir-fry beef in 1 tablespoon oil until no longer pink. Remove and set aside. Stir-fry asparagus in remaining oil until crisp-tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer.

Stir cornstarch mixture and add to the pan. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Return beef to the pan; heat through. Serve with rice.

But first, last night’s dinner.  My mom has turned to a diet of organic and healthy foods, so she decided to cook up some samples of what she’s been eating for me.

We had organic sweet potato soup (swirled with cinnamon and dotted with mini marshmallows), steamed broccoli and cauliflower and a lightly seasoned salmon fillet.  It was really yummy!

And now the morel mushrooms.  As everyone knows, it’s morel season now and my dad found quite a few good-sized morels in the woods behind my parents’ house in the country.

The one lying in the very front is approximately six inches long!  While my mom has been here with me, my dad has been at home feasting on these morels!

I haven’t made this recipe for a while, but when I saw the picture I took of it way back when in my Flickr photo set I was reminded of how much I enjoyed this particular spaghetti.

This is chili spaghetti and the recipe comes from a Jamie Oliver cookbook.  I no longer have the book (it’s stored away with my other possessions in Sydney for now), but I think it was the book titled Jamie’s Kitchen.

Chili Spaghetti
Adapted from Jamie Oliver 

Ingredients
1 pound dried spaghetti
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
olive oil
1-2 fresh red chilies, seeded and finely chopped
1 good handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped (I toss in the leaves whole, for that rustic appearance)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation
While cooking the spaghetti in salted boiling water until al dente, fry the garlic in a couple of good glugs of olive oil until softened. Add the chilies, drained pasta and parsley. Toss to coat, season and serve.

Just a reminder on the chilies – try to wear rubber gloves if possible while chopping chilies, and if not possible, then wash your hands thoroughly immediately after chopping (i.e., do not touch your eyes or other parts of your skin).  Also, if you’re looking for more mild chilies, choose larger ones; if you want a hotter chili, choose smaller ones.