Robust Tomato Spaghetti

Sometimes all a girl needs is a nice glass of red wine (it’s ok, I read in ‘Foods that Fight Cancer’ that all them antioxidants are good for me! Yay!), some trashy tellie and a heaping bowl of the richest, heartiest spaghetti to make her night complete.



Serves 4
Ingredients:

2 Tbls olive oil
½ brown onion, diced
3-4 garlic cloves, crushed
45gm tin anchovies, roughly chopped
1 tsp. Paprika
Fresh or dried chilli to taste (For dried, about ½ tsp)
1 carrot, grated
¼ capsicum, diced
½ cup red wine
1 x 425gm tin chopped tomatoes
½ cup fresh basil, roughly torn
Salt to taste (anchovies are naturally quite salty so make sure you taste, taste, taste as you go, so you don’t go overboard!).
400gm dried spaghetti
100gm parmesan, grated

How to:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, deep pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for several minutes until opaque and becomes soft. Add the garlic and anchovies and cook to dissolve the anchovies, about 1 minute. Add the chilli and paprika and toast until fragrant, another minute. Add half the red wine and stir.
2. Add the grated carrot and capsicum and cook to soften. Add the tomatoes and the rest of the red wine and allow to simmer for 10 minutes or until sauce reaches desired consistency. If the sauce becomes too thick or dry, simply add some water. Add the fresh basil after 5 minutes and continue simmering.
3. Meanwhile bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Prepare spaghetti following packet instructions. Drain.

To serve:

Divide the spaghetti between four bowls and do the same with the sauce. Top with parmesan and a few extra sprigs of fresh basil to garnish. Pour yourself a lovely glass of red, curl up on the couch and watch Gordon Ramsey yell at some folk. Enjoy!

Fresh Pasta and a Smoke Bomb of Flour

I love my girlfriends. I love the way they keep my smiling, I love cocktail nights and I love being surrounded by opera singers and breaking out into song at any given moment. But for all of their wonderful traits, my gorgeous girls are hopeless cooks, (sorry girls)! I recall Amy and Emma dropping by for dinner, turned cooking lessons and Amy struggling to peel a parsnip... I knew I was in for a long night!

Lately I have been experimenting with my new pasta maker and absolutely loving the results so when our next girly movie night came around I eagerly suggested we have a play with it. Within minutes of me briefly showing the girls how to work the machine the kitchen had been hit with a smoke bomb of flour, plenty of laughter and much excitement as to what deliciousness was coming.

I whipped together a pesto sauce, Emma sautéed mushrooms (even commenting that she was pretty sure she could manage it on her own one day!) and Amy ran around taking photos, because of course we must document this momentous occasion!

It was a fabulous night finished with a feast of fruity sorbets, piles or Oreo biscuits and a Disney classic to boot.Here is the delicious recipe we enjoyed that night so you and your friends can have a just as much fun as we did.


Serves 4

Fresh Pasta: of course you can use dried or buy fresh pasta if you don’t have a pasta maker.

Fresh pasta dough is as simple as can be. I always follow the 100g flour (‘OO’ if you can get it) to 1 egg per/person rule. So if you are serving four people it would be 400gs flour to 4 eggs. Simple!

Whisk the eggs lightly in a small bowl. In a large bowl add the flour and make a well. Pour in the eggs and stir with your fingers to combine. You’re going to get dirty here so enjoy it! Once the dough begins to come together remove from the bowl and kneed on a lightly floured bench until smooth. If it is too sticky add more flour, if too dry and crumbly add another egg.

Feed through the machine in batches that you can handle and take it too your desired thickness, I like level 7, not too thin, not too thick. Then it’s up to you how you want to slice up those gorgeous pasta sheets! You can use one of the pre set cuts or roll it up and slice how you want. We used tagliatelle for this batch.

Pesto:

1 bunch basil (reserve about 10 leaves for decoration)
40g pine nuts, toasted
2 cloves garlic, crushed
¼ cup olive oil
Good squeeze of ½ lemon
¼ cup grated parmesan
Decent pinch sea salt and pepper to taste

Pesto is all about taste. If you’re like me and you‘re a salt lover you can add more. If garlic or lemon is your thing, go wild! Here is my basic recipe, now have a play and make it your own.
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and whiz it up until herbs are roughly chopped and everything is well combined. If it seems too thick add more oil or water to thin it out. Taste, taste, taste!

To serve:

Boil a large pot of water, add salt. You may have to prepare the pasta in a couple of batches as to not over crowd the pot. Add the pasta and cook for 1- 1 and a half minutes. Seriously, this is all it will need. Remove and drain.

Add to a large serving bowl and toss with pesto to coat. Top with shaved parmesan and a few springs of fresh basil.

Options: You can always all extras to something as simple as a basic pesto topping.
Try any combination of the following:

Fresh cherry tomatoes, halved
Pitted kalamata olives
Marinated mushrooms or sautéed mushrooms
Prosciutto
Sun dried tomatoes
Fresh rocket