Category Archives: Recipes – All About – Tried and Tested

Cooking for Family and Friends

Peperoni Soffritti con le Uove (Sweet Peppers)

2014-02-26 - Peperoni

This is peperoni preserve time and I have been asked what to do with “Peperoni Sott’Olio” other than serve it as anti pasto – here is but one recipe. It could also be used in any recipe that calls for capsicum, or you can make a fresh panini with your preserved capsicum, fresh tomato and strong cheese or salami and a fresh bread roll just out of the oven.

Fry your preserved peperoni in some of the oil used to preserve it in for a few minutes until soft. Ad  some chopped peeled and deseeded fresh tomato. When the tomato and peperoni are both soft pour on two slightly beaten eggs (eight eggs if you use quail eggs), add salt and pepper, and cook very briefly until just set. Sprinkle with a bit of grated Parmigiano Cheese. Serve immediately with that bread that just came out of the oven – Breakfast fit for a King (and Queen).

The only problem is that the peperoni in the photo is not from my garden and I am still trying to grow it successfully in Dunedin – maybe next year!

Raw Milk Ricotta Cheese

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My raw milk ricotta has turned out very well.  I don’t even want to talk about the vile supermarket stuff,  but the raw milk effort is vastly different in taste and texture to the batch I made with supermarket milk. The high cream content, and the absence of added water makes a very rich, creamy, soft cheese. Here is a link to my ricotta cheese recipe, good enough but if you can, do it with raw milk.

I made bruschetta for lunch

Toast bread, rub with a clove of garlic drizzle olive oil over . Sopon ricotta cheese thickly on to the bread, add a few dabs of carrot top pesto, salt, pepper and another drizzle of olive oil. Eat it immediately befor the bread cools. Delicious. Link for carrot top pesto

PEPERONI SOTT’OLIO

2014-02-24 - Peperoni

One part water and one part vinegar (good quality) add salt and pepper to taste plus a few bay leaves. Bring to the boil. Cut peperoni in 3 mm strips and throw into the water/ vinegar. When the water boil again, drain the peperoni. While still hot put into the jars and cover with good olive oil – ad two fresh bay leaves and a few garlic to the jar and seal immediately. Keeps in the pantry for ever. Beautiful!

New Zealand Green Lipped Mussels

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Late lunch/dinner out on the deck was fresh baked bread and live  Green Lipped Mussels, unique to New Zealand. Back in Australia we did not like to buy them because they were frozen, and were not juicy and soft like they are when sold fresh.  Mussels are not expensive in Dunedin and we buy them regularly. From the many ways they can be prepared we enjoy the simple unadorned recipes the most. I was lucky to get a picture of the half empty dish!

 

NZ Green Lipped Mussels 

1 kg live mussels, bearded and scrubbed, all sand rinsed away

6 tablespoons of olive oil

4 cloves of garlic

1 pinch of dried chili flakes

3/4 cup of white wine

Salt and pepper

Put the olive oil, garlic and chili in a pot big enough to hold all the mussels. Gently soften the garlic, add the wine and the mussels. Cover the pot and turn up the heat. When the mussels have opened and released their juices, remove them from the pan, and reduce the sauce until there is only an inch or so left in the pot, add salt and pepper to taste. Add the mussels and the sauce that may have been released while standing, toss, warm through and serve with fresh bread and plenty of Pinot Grigio (here we have to settle for something completely different, namely Pinot Gris, which is heavier, darker and duller).

The secret here is not to lose any of the wine and liquid released by the mussels and to reduce and reduce the sauce until when finished, it will just cover each mussel in a film of sauce when tossed, with a little left in the pot to sop up after serving.

This recipe has been used with great success as a pasta sauce, too.

 

Raw Milk from the Loveliest Dairy Farm

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We got up bright and early to be in time for the morning milking. The beauty of the scenery around Dunedin is astounding, driving high up the hill behind Port Chalmers through dense trees and shrubs (that seemed to be natural bush to us ) overlooking the blue harbour is  thrilling. The intimate scale of the landscape , the green of the hills   accross the blue harbour and the pretty town below us made us feel lucky to live in New Zealand. We turned off on to a narrow gravel road, so narrow and winding through dense growth,   that we are still wondering what would have happened should we have met an oncoming car. We passed a delightful, shingled, ‘gingerbread ‘ house with a spectacular view of the harbour and parked beside the milking parlour, with, of course, a spectacular view of the harbour!

Milking was over and placid Jersey cows stood or lay in the stalls relaxing to soft classical music. The parlour has vines with ripening grapes trailing along the rafters over the heads of the cows.  There is a magnificent wild looking veg garden close by with roses and  what a friend calls  English Garden Flowers on all sides of the parlour.  As an unexpected bonus we were given some artichokes since the owners were not eating them anymore ( getting sick of artichokes  –  unimaginable) !

We fell in love  with the place and the kids fell in love with the cows. The cows were willing to be petted and ate hay from gingerly offered little hands. The magic ended when the smallest child was given a long lick through the face by a doe eyed but raspy tongued cow.  The resulting hysterical wailing and crying shattered the peace and we beat a hasty retreat so as not to disturb the tranquil mood.

Back in Port Chalmers we had the best French Toast ever. A huge cruise ship was docked, dwarfing the town, and the streets were filled with  uniformly dressed passengers enjoying a shore visit in glorious Dunedin summer weather (do the ships distribute shore leave uniforms to passengers, we wondered).

Once we got home, I immediately started making ricotta, mainly because I had no room in the fridge for 20 L of milk.