An anniversary lasagne

Yesterday we celebrated our first year of marriage by making a lasagne and watching Flight of the Conchords while Jasmine slept. A good test for any relationship is how long you can last in a small hot kitchen together and I think after living together for a few years we may have finally mastered it, sort of.

I haven't attempted a lasagne since I dropped the one Adam and I made about a year ago, so this time I was VERY careful when taking it out of the oven.

Anniversary lasagne

What you need
1 jar of good quality tomato pasta sauce
1 eggplant, sliced 5mm thin
2 red capsicums
2 courgettes, sliced 5mm thin
1 bunch chopped, cooked and drained spinach
1 bunch asparagus
Adam's homemade pasta dough (we used 500g of '00' flour and 5 medium eggs)
1 mozzarella ball
mature cheddar cheese
handful of pine nuts

The do
Heat up a griddle pan until super hot, and grill the veg - if you don't have a griddle pan a fry pan will also do the trick. Set aside.
Roll out the pasta into sheets with the pasta machine until you get to the number 4 setting. Cut the sheets to size and cook two at a time for a few minutes in a big pot of salted boiling water. Fish out with tongs and throw into a big bowl of cold water.
In a 30cmx20cm baking dish, pressing each layer down firmly as you go:
- spread a thin layer of the tomato sauce
- then a layer of pasta
- courgette and half of the spinach
- layer of pasta
- tomato sauce
- eggplant
- layer of pasta
- capsicum and the rest of the spinach
- layer of pasta
- asparagus
then cover with grated mature cheddar cheese and mozzarella. Sprinkle pine nuts on top. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Dollop on some of the tomato sauce.
Bake in oven for about 45 minutes or until heated through and brown on top. Serve with rocket leaves dressed with a little balsamic and olive oil.

Getting clucky

In the spirit of the recession and all, I only tend to cook things these days which also make a tasty lunch the next day. One of my favourite leftover lunches is Spanish tortilla, which really is just as good cold as it is freshly cooked - and better reason to whip one up than being given a box of freshly laid eggs by my workmate Mike, who has a collection of chickens in his yard which he is extremely fond of – the leader of the pack is called Jasmine.

The eggs were from a variety of different types of chicken and as a result were really unique shapes and colours – some had two pointy ends and others were almost round – and they all had amazing bright yellow yolks. You really can tell the difference between a home-laid egg from a pampered chicken and a free range supermarket one…

I’ve made this tortilla based on a bbc good food recipe – but as per usual, couldn’t resist making a few little tweaks here and there.



SPANISH TORTILLA

The do

You’ll need about 6 eggs, broken into a bowl and mixed together with a fork

Cook the potatoes – I par boiled mine, pre-sliced, because I’m impatient. Excellent tip: when cooking potatoes in cubes or slices, add a drop or two of vinegar to the water and the potatoes won’t crumble or break once their cooked, they’ll go firm on the outside and keep their shape perfectly.

Grill the red peppers – I grilled them whole for a few minutes until the skin had gone black. Once they’ve cooled down you can peel the skin off really easily and chopped them into strips.

Throw the peppers and potatoes and some parsley in a frying pan along with a fistful of chopped parsley and pour over the eggs. I like putting some halved cherry tomatoes on the top as well.

Cook for 5-10 minutes on the hob, then crumble some feta on the top and place the whole pan under the grill. Grill for 5-10 minutes or until the top is golden and the middle is no longer wobbly.

Serve with a pile of rocket, and look forward to a couple of delicious slices for lunch the next day…

D&D day

I have to say that I've always found my bloke's secret Dungeons and Dragons life rather intriguing. Every so often they congregate for a game which lasts an entire day - so I, wanting to see want it was all about, offered to cook for them. Unfortunately, I'm still no closer to understanding what it is they actually do with those crazy 20-sided dice, but this is what i made...




What you need
1 cucumber, halved length ways, seeds removed and sliced thinly
2 red capsicum, sliced thinly
1 cup of frozen peas, cooked
noodles, cooked until just soft, rinsed under cold water and drained - I used Chinese quick cooking noodles (Japanese somen or soba noodles would also work a treat. OR thin spaghetti snapped in half before cooking would might also work well)
Japanese mayonnaise
sesame seeds
sesame oil




The do
In a big bowl, add the drained noodles and vegetables. Drizzle with sesame oil and add mayonnaise to taste (because I'm obsessed with Japanese mayonnaise, I added a lot, but some people like less). Using your hands mix everything together thoroughly. Set aside.
In a frying pan on medium flame, heat a few tablespoons of sesame seeds until golden and pour evenly over the top of the salad.



I served these with my corn cakes