24-May-20: Well things continue to go ok with Covid, as we start to enjoy a little bit of freedom but the weather is turning, with the iminent winter starting to flex its muscle with a chilly weekend… so we haven’t gone too far this weekend and are wrapping it up with a special Sunday dinner…
The prosciutto was purchased from Woolies deli and was sliced super thin – they can do a good job if you get someone who knows how to handle meat properly.
It was laid out slice by slice as it was cut and not all scrunched up 👍👍👍
This one is an easy one – take great produce and show it up nicely on a plate! The green olives were also drizzled with a lemon olive oil. Starters done and approved by the Oversight Committee – Alice and Gracie 😍
You can guage from the photo the rough quantities – about 4-5 slices each and your own discretion as to the olives.
Onto something a little more complex… my “charry” bruschetta. It’s a little similar to the one from the other week in the Saturday night feast in but using ricotta instead of goat’s cheese and a few other subtle tweaks. You prepare and cook it at the one time, so still a little warm when you eat it.
You need good quality sour dough bread, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and olive oil and/or some lemon infused olive oil.
Charred Bread & Ricotta Mix
- Using a really good sour dough – ciabiatta, baguette or batard all work well – slice thinly. I allowed for about 5 slices each so can adjust to suit your appetite.
- Heat up the griddle pan – make sure it’s nice and hot, lightly oil with spray olive oil and toast bread in batches.
- When it’s ready to turn over, lightly oil the uncooked side and flip
- Mix up some lemon rind into the Ricotta cheese, with a little salt and pepper
- Allow to cool a little and then spread Ricotta cheese mix over the top
- Put to one side.
Charred Zucchini
- Slice a zucchini using a mandolin or a cheese slicer into thin slices
- Cook in batches on a lightly oiled griddle pan until just tender – I use spray olive oil for this and when ready to turn over, lightly spray the uncooked side. Keep an eye on it, as it does not take long to cook at all.
- Allow to cool a little and then arrange zucchini on top of the ricotta bread (You could prepare this early and marinate it and then drain and put it on when ready to serve as an alterantive)
Charred Tomatoes and serving up…
- Re-oil the pan and throw in the cherry toms and just toss around so they get nice little char marks on them
- Spread the warmed, charred cherry tomatoes over the top of each slice
- If you like, you can season with a little sea salt, pepper and drizzle of good quality EVOO or lemon unfused EVOO – I used the latter this time
- Serve up 😋
The main course comprised of “home-made” pasta, purchased from our local farm gate. It’s made by an out of work chef and looks fabulous, can’t wait to taste – it was big wide ribbon style pasta (parpadelle). With this dish, making the most of the last of autumn flavours with a mushroom “ragu” style sauce to go with the pasta.
Mushrooms included big king mushrooms, swiss brown mushrooms and enoki mushrooms to fiinsh off. You can often buy packets of “wild” mushrooms from the supermarket, so if you get one of those you can use whatever is in that, alongside the swiss browns.
Have a large pot of boiling salted water simmering on the stove ready to cook the pasta.
Using 3-4 large king mushrooms, cut into quarters and set to one side.
Thinly slice up the swiss brown mushrooms.
Crush up a clove of garlic, thinly dice a shallot and saute with the swiss brown muchrooms in a pan with about 1 tbs olive oil and 1 tbs butter.
Add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup or dry white wine (I just splosh it in based on look!) and about 1/2 cup of chicken chicken stock and simmer until sauce reduced by half.
Whilst simmering down, in another small fry pan, heat up similar quantities of oil and butter and cook the king mushrooms until golden. Add them into the main sauce.
Add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of cream and also let simmer gently.
In aonther small fry pan heat up enough vegetable oil to shallow fry the enoki.
Whilst that is heating, bring the pasta water up to the boil and add the pasta in, cooking to the instructions provided (i.e. according to packet or what you are told if fresh – with the latter it’s usually only a few minutes)
In the hot oil, place about 1 large handful of enoki into the oil to fry. When golden, drain on absorbant paper ready to serve.
Drain the cooked pasta, mix through the sauce to coat and then serve up, finishing with black pepper, parmesan and the fried enoki on top – Happy Sunday Soul Food…
Lastly, a bit of a make up for dessert. I had left over Baker’s Delight cinnamon, apple roll which we had not finished. I was inspired by some recpies I saw post Easter, where they used left over hot cross buns to make bread and butter pudding and so I adapted. I’m not a huge fan of custardy things but with the addition of some choclate and being a cold night, I thought it might work.
BEWARE – this is purely made up, so you might need to google the hot cross buns bread and butter pudding recipes for more accurate giudance – I think I saw them in Delicious !
I sliced up the left over roll and placed the slices in the the greased baking tin.
I also included chocloate drops in between the layers. This was based on a tip from a friend of mine from when we went to their place for dinner one night. They served up “normal” bread and butter pudding but swapped out the rasins for choclate drops – it was yumm.
I then mixed up 3 eggs, about 1 cup of milk and a decent splosh of cream into a batter, poured it over and threw it in the oven. Not sure how long it would take to cook, so watched it closely and checked on it after about 30 minutes and seemed done.
Served it up with Vanilla ice cream and Desert wine – what a way to end a wonderful Happy Soul Food evening – it worked sensationally !
