Is there anything better than split pea soup with ham or bacon bones on a cold winter’s day?  I don’t think so.  Pair it up with a slice or two of crusty bread and I’m in heaven.

I mentioned my pea soup in a previous post and I had several people ask me to post it.  I didn’t do it then because I thought everyone probably has a favorite family recipe for pea soup.  I was wrong.

This is a very easy soup to make.  The only bit that takes time is getting the meat off the bones and that’s not necessary if all you want is the flavor of the ham or bacon.  I like the bits of ham in the soup and I don’t blitz the soup because I like to taste the teensy bits of ham and carrots and onion.  That’s just my preference.  Lots of people either blitz with a wand or put the soup in the blender to make it really smooth.

 

I’ve always been someone who spends hours making a tomato based pasta sauce.  It’s how our mothers taught us to make sauce back in the olden days.  The sauce was rich and thick and oozing with flavor.  I still like that sauce but I found one I like even more.  It’s made with tomatoes but it only takes about 20 minutes to prepare.  Dinner in less than 30 minutes is a big winner for me and for every other working woman with a family.

Once you soften some chopped onion and garlic in a skillet, break open the sausage condom.  (I know, I can’t help it – that’s what it looks like, you know it too.) Break up the sausage in the skillet.  I used a potato masher to get the meat fine enough for sauce.

Cook til the meat is well browned and then toss in a tin of crushed tomatoes and the brandy or cognac and cook for about 10 minutes.  While the sauce is cooking, heat a big pot of boiling salted water for the pasta and cook til al dente.  I used zitoni – long artisan tubular noodles that really suck up the sauce.  Any pasta with nooks and crannies to soak up the sauce would be good.  This is a sauce you *don’t* want to leave in the bowl or on your plate.  It’s delicious.

Once the pasta is cooked (but not overcooked) drain it and save about a cup of pasta water.  Now you’re ready to finish the sauce.

If the sauce seems a bit dry, add some of the pasta water and then toss in the cream and stir around til the cream is heated through.  Toss over the pasta, add some chopped parsley and dig in!  The whole house smelled fantastic from the Italian sausage.

Here’s the recipe for the sauce.

 

It IS winter here and these lamb shanks were fit for a king. We ate them instead. I cooked them with tinned tomatoes and other things I had on hand and they turned out quite delectable.

Sorry it’s been too many days since I posted but I’ve been suffering with nasty vertigo. One minute I’m fine and then the next I’m holding my head in my hands to stop the world from spinning. The doctor asked if I’d had it before and what was the outcome and I said it was benign positional vertigo and she said, “well, Maureen, you’ve got it again, take it easy, it will pass.” That was 10 days ago. I’m past my patience limit.

Enough about me and back to these delicious lamb shanks.

The lamb does a lot of walking on those shanks so it’s definitely slow cooking and nothing better than the crock pot. Remove the sinew from the shanks because it gets all twisted up and looks dumb or get your butcher to do it for you. Most will do it with a smile. (some will do it but not smile but you’ll have the same result)

Slice an onion or use some baby pickling onions like I did and toss them in the pot. They’ll ooze their oniony goodness into the tomato sauce and be yummy. Then place the lamb shanks on top of the onions along with a few pieces of green pepper (capsicum), big pieces of carrot, several cloves of garlic (unpeeled), a bay leaf, tomato paste and two cans of chopped up roma tomatoes. Add a slosh of red wine, salt and a good grind of fresh black pepper and that’s it. Leave that baby alone for 6 to 8 hours on low.

Just before serving spoon off the fat so you’ll have a nice sauce and serve over garlic mashed potatoes.

To roast garlic, slice the top off the garlic so you expose the garlic cloves, brush with olive oil and sprinking with sea salt and then wrap in oiled tinfoil and bake for about 45 minutes until the cloves are caramel colored and pop out easily.

Your whole house will smell fantastic when you cook this dish.

 

To make the potatoes I cooked them in salted water and then drained and put them through the potato ricer, added butter and the mashed roasted garlic, salt, pepper and hot cream. I didn’t have any parsley but usually I’d add chopped parsley as well.

  These potatoes go so well with the lamb shanks and the entire meal is remarkably little effort.

Here’s the recipe:

 

My friend Iris just got back from a month in Tuscany where she attended a cooking class and came back to share all her newfound talent in pasta making to the ladies at the Friday morning cooking demonstration.  After my success with the rotolo I was ready for the challenge of rolling out my own pasta dough.  In class Iris used a fold-over dumpling maker but I thought I’d try it with the little Italian ravioli cutters I bought recently but have never used. (I think we all have great intentions but the toys sit on the shelf far too long.)  The fold over dumpling maker makes a bigger ravioli and I think I’d use that next time.  These were cute though.

Today we watched Iris make pumpkin (or butternut squash) and pine nut ravioli topped with a burnt sage butter sauce.  I love burnt sage butter.  I wouldn’t but I *could* eat a bowl of it with a spoon.  When I got home from class I made my own ravioli.

The ingredients for this pasta are all things I have on hand most of the time so for me, this is going to be something I’ll make again and again.

I started by making the filling. I chopped and steamed the pumpkin til tender (I used butternut squash but in class she used real pumpkin0 and then I sautéed the shallots, garlic and pine nuts.  I roughly chopped the pine nuts (I would chop them finer next time) and mixed in the parsley and parmesan.  Filling done!

Then I made the dough.  Pasta dough is always 00 flour (found in every grocery store) and you use one egg for every 100 grams of flour.  For just the two of us I only used 100 grams of flour and one jumbo egg.  It was just enough with no leftovers.  However I have heaps of filling left.

Getting the dough rolled thin enough is the trick.  This time I rested my dough for about 30 minutes after kneading it til it was smooth and silky.  Then I rolled it out until I could see through it.  Notice in the photo you can see the counter top through the dough?  That was the bit I missed last time – I didn’t roll my first pasta thin enough and I think I had too much flour for the egg and it was tough to roll thin enough.  I’m getting better!

I started cutting out the ravioli and putting the filling on the bottom layer.  There are two sizes of cutters with the top larger than the bottom so all the filling gets covered.

I put just a half teaspoon of filling on each ravioli and then wet the edges and popped the top on and sealed the top to the bottom.

Okay, I know it’s not perfect.  I have a teensy pleat in it but it didn’t affect the taste one bit!  It was yummy!

Once I had all the ravioli made I put them in a big pot of boiling salted water for three or four minutes.  While the pasta was cooking I melted the butter, clarified it and then tossed in the sage leaves.  I used sage leaves I had outside in a pot but they weren’t as good as the big sage leaves I bought last time.  I think it’s time to replant.  I love fresh sage.

In just a few minutes the pasta was cooked and the sauce was done and it was time to plate up.  I called Mr. Orgasmic to have a taste.  He is NOT a pasta lover so for him to say it was good and to finish all the pasta was a sign that this was a keeper recipe.

If you have been like me and hestitate to make your own pasta – don’t.  It’s really quite simple.  You’ll get strong forearms too.  Iris said she asked “Mama”, the instructor in her cooking class, if she ever used a machine to roll out her pasta she said Mama just looked at her as if she had come from another planet.  “Roll by hand.”  I have a fondness for my pasta machine and I’ll continue to use it but it was fun to try rolling it out by hand.

Here’s the recipe:

 

 

 

There are times that we all need a light meal and this one is my go-to dish if we’ve overindulged the day before.  There are only so many cheesecakes, pavlovas, and big dinners that we can hold without exploding.  I did some celebrating for the 4th of July and felt we needed something light.  I made chilli prawns one night and the following night I made split pea with ham soup and crusty rolls.

While this dish isn’t the healthiest I make (it’s got butter in it) it’s wonderful to eat.  Mr. Orgasmic and I shopped together and we bought prawns (shrimp) without tails. I think this dish looks better with tails.  Never mind, it tasted great “tail-less”.

Once the rice is cooked (and yes, I do use a rice cooker) the meal takes less than 10 minutes to go from fridge to table.  I probably shouldn’t have posted this because it’s so easy but it IS orgasmic.

Melt the butter in a skillet and add the garlic. We like a LOT of garlic but if you’re not best friends with garlic, leave it out.  To me, eating is all about experiencing the joy of eating and anyone who holds their breath while they swallow something is off their rocker.

Cook the garlic on low heat for only a minute or two because frankly there’s nothing worse than burnt garlic in anything.  Just my opinion.  Toss in the prawns (shrimp) and stir fry in the butter til they turn pink and then pour in the sweet chilli sauce that has had a couple of drops of sesame oil and a dash of soy sauce mixed into it.

For my American friends this sweet chilli sauce is not the tomato based chili sauce you get in every grocery store.  Sweet chilli sauce is used in Asian cooking and you should be able to buy it in the Asian section or Asian grocery stores.

If you have it on hand you could put spring onions (shallots) or chillies in this dish too.

Here’s what you need: