Broccoli Pasta

I love pasta. I could eat it every day of the week. I eat it plain, with butter, with melted cheese, with store-bought/homemade red sauce, with creamy sauce and as you can see, with broccoli. I like to do broccoli because I feel like I am getting a bit more nutrition out of it. Plus it is delicious! Even my husband loves it and he has trouble with vegetables! It is super easy to make too which means it is often my go-to meal when I don't know what else to have. Lunch is a meal that I have a bit of difficulty coming up with so if I am home and there is broccoli in the fridge, this is it! Sometimes I add mushrooms too but this is just the basic recipe.

Broccoli Pasta
Serves 2

Ingredients:
Dry pasta
1 head broccoli
2-3 cloves garlic
4 tablespoons chicken stock (I freeze chicken stock in an ice cube tray and use a few at a time)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Parmesan cheese, to serve, if desired

Method:
1. Cook pasta. I put the pasta on to cook and then do the rest while it is cooking. They usually end up being ready at about the same time.
2. Cut broccoli into bite sized pieces. The larger they are the longer it will take for them to cook. Mince garlic.
3. Heat oil in a small frypan. Add garlic and stir until fragrant. Add broccoli to pan. Stir fry the broccoli for a few minutes.
4. Add chicken stock. Stir occasionally. Put a lid on the pan and turn the heat down. This allows the broccoli to steam and get a bit softer. I try to turn the heat off when it is still a bright green colour. This is when the nutrients are at their best!
5. Drain pasta and serve topped with broccoli. Eat! Yum!

Blueberry Oat Pancakes

I am a sucker for pancakes. Even more, I am a sucker for pancakes covered in maple syrup. Not the imitation stuff - real Canadian maple syrup. Yes, it costs about three times as much as maple flavoured syrup. Yes, it's worth it. And not only in the taste department. The only ingredient in Canadian maple syrup is Canadian maple syrup. No added sugar, flavours, or colours. No added anything for that matter. In my opinion, its the best natural sweetener around. Having said that, I still feel a bit guilty drowning my pancakes in it. Natural as it may be, it still has a high sugar content. Which is why these pancakes are perfect! There is no sugar in them so you don't have to feel bad about soaking them in maple syrup. Or honey or jam or whatever you like to put on your pancakes.

I am just going to come right out and say it: these pancakes are amazing. Even without maple syrup. The recipe came from an old recipe card my Mum gave me. She has fructose malabsorption so she used to make them and replace the wheat flour with oat flour. They were still amazing.

So here it is. The recipe you've been waiting for:

Blueberry Oat Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 cup quick oats (I didn't have quick oats so I just blitzed some normal ones to make them smaller)
3/4 cup plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons oil (I used coconut oil which gave them a wonderful coconut-y flavour)
3/4 to 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Method:
Combine the dry ingredients. Combine the wet ingredients, but do not beat. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Add blueberries. Bake on a hot, greased griddle. Serve with more blueberries and topping of your choice. Or just plain!

Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove

Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove vegetable garden (view from our table)

We went on a day trip to the Mornington Peninsula today. Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove was recommended to us by a friend so we started in Red Hill to check it out. We had such a nice time I had to share.

It is a beautiful vineyard and they have an enviable veggie garden. I was madly taking photos. We had a perfect day. It was sunny and warm - we were expecting to be freezing so were rugged up and had to deposit our coats and scarves in the car before walking around the estate.





We ate in the piazza - apparently the restaurant is a bit pricey and we were just after a casual lunch. They serve amazing pizzas in the piazza and you get to look out at the garden and vineyard. Hubby ordered the duck pizza with Montalto Pinot Noir and I had the buffalo mozzarella pizza with the Montalto riesling. We savoured every mouthful.

Duck pizza (above) and buffalo mozzarella pizza (below)

After we ate we walked around the estate. There are a few trails to follow that we were able to walk along.

The piazza

Vineyards

Massive zucchini growing in their garden!

The piazza is a beautiful, family friendly area. We were actually thinking it might be a nice venue for a nice low-key birthday lunch. We will definitely be back!

xx

Sneaky Bolognese Sauce

My husband is somewhat like a child. He doesn't like vegetables very much. I have to be sneaky. So when I made fettuccine (he doesn't like spaghetti either...) bolognese the other night I added some veg in. He didn't even notice and when I told him what was in it he thought I was so sneaky! He really enjoyed the meal and even added his steamed broccoli to the sauce so he didn't have to eat it by itself! I added zucchini this time but used carrot last time simply because it was all I had in the fridge. Next time I think I will use both! The trick is to grate it up really small so that they can't tell it is in there.


Bolognese Sauce

Ingredients:

1-2 tablespoons oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian dried herbs
One 500g(ish) packet of beef mince - I have also made this with beef and pork mince
3-4 mushrooms
One jar of your favourite pasta sauce
Half a zucchini, grated finely
One small carrot, grated finely
Parmesan and basil leaves, to serve
Your choice of pasta


Method:

Heat oil in a large fry pan. Add minced garlic and dried herbs. Cook until fragrant, stirring constantly so they don't burn. Add mince and cook until just browned.
Add mushrooms to the pan, stirring until soft.
Add pasta sauce and simmer. Add zucchini, carrot and any other veggies you want to throw in.
Simmer, stirring occasionally for around 10 minutes, or until ready to serve.
Cook pasta to packet instructions.
To serve, put the sauce over the pasta and sprinkle Parmesan cheese and place basil leaves on top.

I find this is a good one to have left overs of as you can just cook some pasta and heat up the sauce and it is ready! Delish!

Enjoy!
xx

My Bird Bath

My garden is only small, but I am working hard to make it look pretty! I was trawling Pinterest and found a bird bath which I just had to make!

It was super easy. I just bought one 8" (for the bottom) and four 6" terracotta pots and spray painted them white. I used a Dulux one which was completely dry in one hour.

I pounded some reinforcing bar into the ground and threaded the pots on through the hole in the bottom and put the flowers in. I did the flowers after threading the pots on so I wasn't trying to push the re-bar through the root system. Then I found a cute bowl to stick on top!

I can't wait to see birds using it!

xx

Composting!

As you may know, I have a new hobby: gardening. I am so proud of my little garden. Anyway, the soil that is in the backyard is very light and not rich and full of nutrients like we would like. I have been mixing in potting mix when planting around where I am putting plants in but wanted to give it a boost so decided to start composting! It will be a while until I can start using it but in the meantime I don't have to send all my organic scraps to landfill!

I did some research on Pinterest to find out how to make my own compost bin. I bought a 60L lidded bin, two bricks and a bungee cord (ocy(?) strap) and borrowed my Dad's cordless drill.


I drilled holes all around the bin, including the lid and bottom of the bin. This is to allow it to drain and aerate. According to my Dad it is best to make small, guiding holes before making the big ones (for rookies like myself!). This worked a charm!

I then put in some strips of newspaper, potting mix and some leaves that were around the garden, as well as some egg carton and the mushroom bag I had been keeping all my scraps in. I read that it is best to layer all of these. The food scraps went in and I shook it all up!

You can put the lid on to shake it all up, or even roll it around on the ground which gives it a good mix. Put the bungee cord over the top - I attached mine to the handles of the bin itself but you could drill some extra holes if you wanted. It sits on top of the bricks so that it can drain out of the bottom.

All it needs now is some worms which I believe you can get from a nursery or a fishing shop - I haven't gotten that far yet!

This project probably only took about half an hour. It was really quick and easy, and much cheaper than any of the rotating/mixing compost bins that you can buy in the hardware store!

Meg
xx

Just for Laughs

I saw this on Facebook and thought it was funny :)

Had to share!

Chocolate Salted Caramel Tart

My husband and I had our first 'dinner party' (really it was only his brother and his fiance - we can't fit any more than four at our dinner table!) last weekend. As soon as it was confirmed that they were coming over I scoured Pinterest and the Internet for recipes. I have to share this one. Chocolate Salted Caramel Tart.

Wow! It was amazing. Everyone thought so. Although next time I would make sure I use a candy thermometer to measure how hot the caramel is. I would go for soft ball temperature which is about 115 degrees C. The recipe I used didn't mention one so I didn't use one and the caramel was just about tooth cracking hard. It took some oven and microwave time to be able eat which made very interesting dinner entertainment!

This is the blog the recipe came from that I pinned from Pinterest. It was so much fun to make - just make sure you make it in advance so that it can chill in the fridge!

Chocolate Salted Caramel Tart

Ingredients:

Crust:
2 3/4 cups plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
125g unsalted butter, diced, chilled
2 eggs
pinch of salt

Caramel:
3 tablespoons glucose syrup
1 1/5 cups caster sugar
2/3 cup double cream
1 teaspoon rock salt or coarse sea salt (I would actually use more like 1 1/2 teaspoons next time as it didn't taste like salted caramel at all. It was more like normal caramel.)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced

Ganache:
1 1/2 cups double cream
4 tablespoons honey
300g 70% cocoa chocolate, chopped
125g unsalted butter

Method:

Crust:
Sift plain flour, icing sugar and salt together. Add butter. Using a food processor, process into a dough, adding the eggs at the end.
On a lightly floured surface, make the dough into a ball. Roll the dough out into a circle big enough to fit a 29cm tart pan with a removable bottom (I used a 25cm pan and put the rest of the dough into two more mini tart pans to give away).
Once the dough is in the pan chill it for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Blind bake the crust (line the crust with baking paper and bake with baking beans - I just used rice) for 15-20 minutes. Remove the beans (or rice) and paper, leaving the crust in the oven to bake for another 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Caramel:
Pour the glucose syrup into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the sugar gradually, stirring until the sugar has started to caramelise and turns a golden colour (this is when you will want to add a thermometer to your pan).
As you are doing this, bring the cream and salt to a boil in another saucepan.
Remove the caramel from the heat once the cream and salt have melted together. Add the cream and salt mixture to the caramel very slowly as it can rise very quickly!
Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon over low heat until smooth.
Remove from heat, add the diced butter, and continue to stir until it is smooth again.
Pour into the cooled crust and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Ganache:
Bring the cream and honey just to the boil. Pour over the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for a minute or two then stir until it is completely smooth. You may try it at this point and add a bit more honey if it is too bitter (I didn't do this but mine turned out to be delicious anyway!).
Let the mixture cool a little and then add the diced butter. Stir gently until it is nice and smooth.
Pour the ganache over the top of the cooled caramel. Return to the fridge to chill for 4-6 hours.

I may have licked the bowl after finishing with the ganache. Actually it was more like me using my rubber spatula to get it all out and stuffing it into my mouth. Elegant.

I would also take this out of the fridge a little before you are going to serve it.

Enjoy!
xx

Welcome!

Hello!

Welcome to my new blog! As the title suggests you will be able to read about meals I have cooked, but you will also be able to see my gardening progress (I am just learning how to be a gardener - I figured that since I am a wife now I should be able to garden too!).

I hope you enjoy looking at my blog!

Meg xx