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Archive for the ‘Food & Friends’ Category

Dinner at La Casa

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , on September 22, 2010| 40 Comments »

This is Tony.  We love him.  He was the maître d’ at our favourite Italian restaurant until a couple of years ago.  Over the time that we’ve known him, he’s watched our boys grow up from little kids to young adults, and marveled with us at their voracious appetites for pizza and pasta.

Completely by chance, I discovered a few days ago that he and his sister Carm have just opened their own place in the nearby suburb of Russell Lea.  We couldn’t resist heading out last night for a meal at their new La Casa Ristorante.

The restaurant has a wonderful, welcoming ambience – gently lit, adorned with photos of Italy, with comfortable seating and earthy, rough-hewn tables.  It’s a very elegant yet easy room to settle into.

My main meal, which I had no chance of eating on my own, was a full rack of sticky pork ribs, oven roasted for eight hours and served with a side of chunky fries.   Big Boy and I agreed that these were, without doubt, the best ribs we’d ever eaten; they were unbelievably tender – literally falling off the bone – and perfectly accentuated by the sweet, sticky sauce. There were plenty of grill options available – half or full racks of pork or beef ribs, and a variety of different cuts and weights of steak.

Small Man demolished a bowl of fries and an entire pizza – this one had a thin, crispy base, and was topped with all of his favourite ingredients – olives, anchovies, tomato, cheese and oregano.  I told him Tony had created that pizza just for him…

Pete’s main was a simple pasta of eggplant and olives, topped with fresh ricotta.  The flavours were fresh and sweet…

Big Boy had the handmade pappardelle with pancetta and mushrooms in a white wine and cream sauce, before eating half of my ribs…

The boys and I chose gelato and sorbet for dessert, while Pete opted for the ricotta cannoli (of course!)…

We had a wonderful night – the boys in particular enjoyed themselves enormously, and were really happy to see Tony again. We’ll definitely be back there again soon!

. . . . .

La Casa Ristorante
271 Lyons Road
Russell Lea  NSW
Open Tuesday – Sunday, from 5pm
Tel 9712 3882
www.lacasaristorante.com.au

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Getting to know you…

Posted in Food & Friends on September 14, 2010| 92 Comments »

Getting to know you…
Getting to know all about you…
Getting to like you..
Getting to hope you like me…

Rodgers and Hammerstein
“The King and I”, 1951

Pete commented recently about the wonderful friends and fellow bloggers that we’ve met since starting Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.  He remarked about the cosy sense of community that we feel when reading your comments and interacting with all of you.

We’d like to get to know you all a bit better – whether you’re a regular commenter (and by the way, we adore you, thank you for always taking the time to write!) – or one of the hundreds of people who stop by to visit every day.

I know you’re all interesting people, and I’d like to invite you to tell us one fun fact about yourself.   It needn’t be anything too personal (although it could be) and it can certainly be more than one thing, if you’re so inclined to share.

Are you an artist like my friends Gill and Maz, or incredibly erudite like the beautiful Joanna? Do you crochet like Christine, or create amazing bread shapes like Heidi?  Do you have big feet, or frizzy red hair? Do you collect stamps, or thimbles, or paperclips?  Do you have a big family, are you allergic to fish, can you tap dance?

Let me kick off by telling you one thing about myself that I don’t think I’ve mentioned before.  I’m hooked on trivia!  I blame Pete V, who bought me my first trivia book a few years ago, but since then I’ve built a collection of half a dozen or so.   I try to read just a page or two a day, slowly, so that it all sinks in.  It’s fascinating stuff, and I’m sure it’s a good anti-dementia practice!

So now I’m turning the microphone over to you…and I can’t wait to hear from you!

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Roasted Potato Focaccia and Upper-Crust Apples

Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on August 29, 2010| 20 Comments »

Over the weekend, I baked a couple of Dan Lepard’s irresistible treats, including this most recent recipe from his Guardian column.

It’s made with baby potatoes, a mix of green and black olives, and bakers’ flour – and baked in a large parchment-lined roasting tray.  The perfect accompaniment to an all vegetarian dinner party!

. . . . .

It’s not apple season here at the moment, and most of the available fruit is coming out of cold storage.  It’s not the best for eating raw, but wonderful for cooking.

We turned five large Pink Lady apples into Dan’s upper-crust apple pie – the fruit was tossed in a hot butter caramel, then topped with a delicious pastry laced with Calvados.  Small Man, our apple pie aficianado, declared it to be most fine…

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Garden Photos

Posted in Food & Friends, Frugal Living, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 23, 2010| 47 Comments »

Joanna’s beautiful garden photos inspired me to take some of my own.  Here’s a glimpse of our winter garden…

The dwarf nectarine and peach trees are flowering…

The first vegetable bed is growing well. We’ve planted kale, spinach, cabbage, beetroot, celery, parsley, lettuce, broccoli, and broadbeans.

Broccoli…

Lettuces…

The second bed has just been planted out.  In addition to more of the above, it also includes peas, carrots and shallots…

The peas are thriving!

The garlic are growing steadily in their laundry tub home – in total we have about forty plants…

The three rhubarb crowns are thoroughly enjoying their semi-shady spot…

The asparagus are still in pots, but growing well.  Spice Girl gave us a single pot, which we divided into seven smaller plants.  We still need to find a permanent home for them…

Our incredibly robust chilli bush has continued to fruit all winter, albeit sparsely…

Bed three is now ready for planting – tomato and capsicum seedlings are ready to go, along with the chitted seed potatoes…

Edit: Our large prunus tree has never fruited, so we have no idea what type it is, but it flowers prolifically every year.  Here are a couple of photos for Heidi..

What’s growing in your garden at the moment?

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Wholemeal Spelt

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , , , , , on August 20, 2010| 32 Comments »

Spelt is one of the so called “ancient grains”, grown in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. It’s related to modern day wheat, but with a noticeably different flavour and some purported health benefits.  These include a broader nutritional profile, and a more easily digestible protein structure, which makes spelt accessible to some people with wheat intolerances.  However, it does contain gluten, which means it’s not suitable for coeliacs.

Spelt flour is very expensive – a kilo costs six times as much as regular bakers’ flour, and twice as much as organic bakers’ flour.  Having said that, it makes little difference when you compare the cost of using it at home to the price of purchasing ready made – an organic spelt loaf might cost $2.50 in raw materials, but a loaf of sourdough (made with regular bakers flour) from a reputable bakery could set you back $8 or more.

As we were delighted with the results of our 100% white spelt loaves, I thought it might be fun to experiment with organic wholemeal spelt.

The 100% spelt sourdough loaves I made were slow to prove, and despite a surprising amount of oven spring, the wholemeal crumb didn’t display the huge holes of the white spelt.  That didn’t detract from the bread though, which was deliciously nutty and, as Pete put it, wholesome.  The rising dough and  baking loaves exuded the most gorgeous aromas and our sons, who don’t usually like anything other than white bread, ate an entire loaf between them for lunch, smothered in peanut butter and jam.  The spelt baguettes formed the backbone of a vegetarian dinner we had on the weekend, and went perfectly with Pete’s beetroot dip and guacamole.

Emboldened by this success, I tried using the wholemeal spelt in Dan Lepard’s Guardian cookie recipe.  I substituted cranberries for the dried blueberries (which are prohibitively expensive here) and omitted the almond essence.  Dan’s recipe was written for regular wholemeal flour, and the essence was included in part to mask any bitterness in the flour.  As the spelt has a nutty, sweet flavour, I didn’t think it was necessary here.

The end result were these chewy, moreish treats, reminiscent of old-fashioned oatmeal cookies. I’ve already eaten two this morning!

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