What are we going to have for dinner??? This question pops into my head at some stage on most days. I am rarely a cook who has dinner all planned out with ingredients waiting happily at home in their rightful place. Unlike my mum, who has always maintained her household like a tight ship, with a weekly shop providing all the food necessary for every dinner. “Don’t touch that, it’s for dinner tomorrow night..........Have a piece of fruit”, Mum had constant battles with her 5 fridge-raiding kids over the years. Perhaps it is because I do not have these 5 kids, that I don’t yet have to go to these measures. I’m not so sure though.
One thing I have learned though is that there are some people that need a recipe and those that never follow a recipe. And I guess I fall into the latter category, because even when I do have a recipe I will change it slightly, or substitute it until it barely looks like the picture. I look at recipes as providing the backbones for the different techniques of cooking and inspiration for different flavour combinations. And when you look at food in this manner, the options are endless and your kitchen becomes your own private restaurant.
So it is most probably this way that I look at food that has caused me to be such the disorganised home cook. Thus, I have become very good at quickly scanning in my brain the fresh ingredients on hand, with which to match together and conjure something tasty, something satisfying. It is all about developing the skills to cook, the knowledge of what will work together and the energy to try something new. I think it is a lifelong process.
And so, tonight’s dinner came about in this manner, so I thought to share it. It is home-made pumpkin ravioli with sage brown butter. I started with the feta that had been opened last week and needed to be used and the pumpkin that I had been craving for a few days now. Combine these with the parmesan, pine nuts, fresh eggs and flour that I always have in my kitchen and the sage in the garden and there you have dinner in a flash.
Home-made pasta
I could write and write about my passion for home-made pasta. All I am going to say now is that it is so simple and quick to whip up in minutes and is one of my life’s most simple pleasures. It did take persistence to get to this point though, with many failed attempts and finally a quick lesson from my sister who had been taught by an Italian friend.
I won’t go into detail about making or rolling the dough in this blog but I will mention my recipe for the dough. With so many recipes out there it is so confusing. Out of all, I have found this dough, from the Italian friend, to be the easiest, the most reliable, the tastiest.
Per person
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
Make the dough and roll out to the thinnest setting
Pumpkin and feta filling
I combined the following:
About 2 cups steamed pumpkin, mashed and cooled
A handful of pine nuts, roughly chopped
200g crumbly feta, (not the soft Persian)
A matchbox sized piece of parmesan, finely grated
1 tablespoon sage finely chopped.
Cracked black pepper and salt to taste
I made fairly large ravioli. This quantity only made about 25 for me.
While you are poaching the ravioli, place a small frying pan over high heat. Add a generous knob of normal salty butter per person. Cook until starting to brown. Add a handful of sage leaves per person and continue to cook until butter is nut-brown and sage is crisp. You can add a drop of olive oil to the pan if it gets to the right colour but the sage isn’t crisped yet. This prevents further cooking from burning the butter completely.
Serve ravioli with the sage butter, grated parmesan and pepper cracked pepper
One thing I have learned though is that there are some people that need a recipe and those that never follow a recipe. And I guess I fall into the latter category, because even when I do have a recipe I will change it slightly, or substitute it until it barely looks like the picture. I look at recipes as providing the backbones for the different techniques of cooking and inspiration for different flavour combinations. And when you look at food in this manner, the options are endless and your kitchen becomes your own private restaurant.
So it is most probably this way that I look at food that has caused me to be such the disorganised home cook. Thus, I have become very good at quickly scanning in my brain the fresh ingredients on hand, with which to match together and conjure something tasty, something satisfying. It is all about developing the skills to cook, the knowledge of what will work together and the energy to try something new. I think it is a lifelong process.
And so, tonight’s dinner came about in this manner, so I thought to share it. It is home-made pumpkin ravioli with sage brown butter. I started with the feta that had been opened last week and needed to be used and the pumpkin that I had been craving for a few days now. Combine these with the parmesan, pine nuts, fresh eggs and flour that I always have in my kitchen and the sage in the garden and there you have dinner in a flash.
Home-made pasta
I could write and write about my passion for home-made pasta. All I am going to say now is that it is so simple and quick to whip up in minutes and is one of my life’s most simple pleasures. It did take persistence to get to this point though, with many failed attempts and finally a quick lesson from my sister who had been taught by an Italian friend.
I won’t go into detail about making or rolling the dough in this blog but I will mention my recipe for the dough. With so many recipes out there it is so confusing. Out of all, I have found this dough, from the Italian friend, to be the easiest, the most reliable, the tastiest.
Per person
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
Make the dough and roll out to the thinnest setting
Pumpkin and feta filling
I combined the following:
About 2 cups steamed pumpkin, mashed and cooled
A handful of pine nuts, roughly chopped
200g crumbly feta, (not the soft Persian)
A matchbox sized piece of parmesan, finely grated
1 tablespoon sage finely chopped.
Cracked black pepper and salt to taste
I made fairly large ravioli. This quantity only made about 25 for me.
While you are poaching the ravioli, place a small frying pan over high heat. Add a generous knob of normal salty butter per person. Cook until starting to brown. Add a handful of sage leaves per person and continue to cook until butter is nut-brown and sage is crisp. You can add a drop of olive oil to the pan if it gets to the right colour but the sage isn’t crisped yet. This prevents further cooking from burning the butter completely.
Serve ravioli with the sage butter, grated parmesan and pepper cracked pepper
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