Roast Pumpkin Soup

This meal is all about economy, and rides on the back of the Roast Chicken Amazing Multiple Meal Deal. Since the oven's already going, there's no point wasting all that good energy on just one meal. This recipe tends to make two big lunch servings, which I usually take to work with a bit of toast bread. I also reserve the breasts for a second meal, which makes a chicken go an awfully long way. It also makes an extra half-litre of stock that you can put aside for something else in the future, instead of resorting to powdered ingredients.

Since I stuck with a regular cordon bleu treatment for the chook (salt and pepper on the outside, one skewered lemon and 4 peeled garlic cloves stuffed in the cavity), I could spend some time seasoning the veges nicely. I went with freshly ground salt & pepper, lemon zest, paprika, finely chopped rosemary and grated garlic. This adds something special to both the roast and the soup.

Roast Pumpkin Soup

Chop up and roast a whole pumpkin as part of a roast dinner. I know that I will only need to serve about a quarter of it for dinner, which leaves the rest for soup. Boil up a stock from the chicken back and neck after it has roasted, along with all the scraps from prepping the veges, plus an extra onion and maybe a potato. Generally there's enough in the way of peelings and stuff to make about a litre of stock.

Simmer this away on the back of the stove while watching Sunday night TV, then strain it into a bowl and pop it in the fridge for 1/2 an hour to allow some of the fat to separate off the liquid.

Scrape the pumpkin off its skin and chop up whatever leftover veges you have - usually some potato, kumera, and onion, and place them all in another bowl. Add about 400ml of stock and puree up with a hand blender, until it reaches a thick and smooth consistency with some chunky bits.


Today I was home on "looking-after-the-sick-family-sick-leave", and had some for lunch, with a big dollop of sour cream. Delicious, and just what I felt like on a cold and rainy day.

Tonight I'll be Making the Most of the Roast again, using the breasts from last night's chook to make a coconut and banana curry. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Buffalo Meatballs with Orange Pasta Sauce

I learned a few things from my initial attempt to make Pizza Sauce. Firstly, it pays to have some idea of what you're doing before you waste a lot of time, food and power converting good ingredients into mush. So this time, I did my research. Tomatoes were relatively cheap at the market today, so I got a bag and found a recipe for pasta sauce. Then I modified the recipe to match what I had on hand, and as a result, I ended up with a rather unique Orange Pasta Sauce. There are things I would change about it next time, but it worked for what it was. Because this was a trial run, I halved all the ingredients from the base recipe (apart from the carrot, which I used to substitute both capsicum and celery). If I was making a recipe I was confident was great, it would make more sense to do double the recipe and keep some for later. So don't be surprised if you get a paltry amount of sauce out of this. It did enough for 4 adult servings and one toddler.

Together with the Pasta Sauce (Mk II), I made fresh meatballs, boiled up some noodles, and steamed some fresh veges (for a change). Lovely stuff.

Special Orange Pasta Sauce (No Oranges Required)


Boil a pot of water on the stove, and have a pot of iced water standing by. Pop 5 tomatoes in the boiling water, watching for the skins to split (about 1 minute). Remove the tomatoes to the ice water and leave for a few minutes. (See, I knew that I'd read something like that somewhere). Remove the skins (so easy!) and slice, scooping out the seeds.


Chop 4 into a bowl and puree. Chop the last one roughly and put aside. Heat a splash of Olive Oil and a hunk of butter in a medium pot, and cook 1 chopped onion, 3 small chopped carrots (see, orange!), and about 6 finely sliced cloves of garlic. Cook until the onion starts to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the pureed tomatoes, the chopped tomato, 1/2 handful of chopped Oregano leaves, 1 pinch of dried Italian herbs, 1 small bay leaf, and 30ml of Red Wine. Bring to the boil and simmer for 1 1 /2 hours. Add 15ml of Tomato Paste Concentrate, and simmer for a further 1 1/2 hrs. Discard the bayleaf and serve as required (see below).


Buffalo Meatballs (No Buffalo Required)


In a large mixing bowl, place about 500g of mince, 5 finely chopped garlic cloves, freshly ground salt and pepper, a grate of nutmeg, a pinch of dried mixed herbs, 1t of mustard powder, and 2t of paprika. Break in one Free Range Egg and mix thoroughly, until the mixture holds together nicely. Lay out 2 plates and sprinkle both with flour. Using a pair of soup spoons, roll the meat mixture out into even sized balls. Roll the complete meatball in the first plate of flour, then place on the second plate.


This helps to stop the meatballs sticking to the plate before you get to cooking them. Heat a layer of oil in a pan, and place the meatballs in it. Turn the meatballs as they brown, taking care not to let them stick or burn.


When the meatballs are ready, place in an oven dish lined with oiled tinfoil. Grate colby cheese followed by parmesan cheese over the meatballs and fold the tinfoil over, without covering them. Place in the oven at 200C, for about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and spoon some Special Orange Pasta Sauce (or other Pasta Sauce - I won't take it personally) around the meatballs. Bake for another 10 minutes, then switch the oven over to grill and place the meatballs under it. When the cheese has browned up nicely, pull out and dish.


To Serve


Boil up a pot of long noodly pasta (whatever you prefer), drain when cooked and stir the Pasta Sauce through it. If you are using a freshly cooked pasta sauce, you can dish immediately. If you are using a jar or can of sauce, return to the stove and heat through. Layer the noodles, then the meatballs, and dress with EV Olive Oil, freshly ground pepper, and parmesan cheese.

Then try to find a plate at the table with anything left on it.

Call Yourself a Market?

A few weeks ago, we swung past the Tawa market, but from the signs and the number of people and trucks about, we thought that it mustn't have been up and running yet, so we went to the Hutt instead.

Today, as things worked out, it was far more convenient for us to go to the Tawa Market, and since it was already an hour since its official start time, I took Isaac and we drove down there, expecting to find a half-dozen vendors at least.

There was one truck, and a stall selling eggs for three times the price you can get them at the Hutt Market. I put Isaac back in the car, went home to pick up C, and we went to the Hutt instead.

Since when is one grocery truck a market? I checked over the prices, and I might as well have gone to a supermarket if I was going to get my veges there instead of at the Hutt Market.

So now it looks like we'll be trekking over to the Hutt every week, unless by some miracle we manage to get in to the Porirua Market, which is pretty much driving away by 8.30am. I can't see that happening anytime soon.

Just a little moan. Now I'll move on to the Saturday Night Dinner Post: Homemade Meatballs with Special Orange Pasta Sauce.

Almost a Vegetarian Night

There are many good reasons why we should all try to make one or two meals a week vego. Aside from any ethical or moral reasons, which I can't really declaim about since I'm a well-publicised eater of meat, it makes sense both in terms of our physical and financial health to put less meat and more veges on the table.

As well as our new tradition of getting to the market every week, and the extra veges that's putting on our plate every night as a result, we also decided that we would try to cook at least one vegetarian meal every week, just like we do at least one leftover meal out of a big roast or lasagne or whatever. Last week we made nachoes with a tin of chilli beans and a tin of baked beans, which was really good.


The next day, I was glad that I work in a large, open space.

Tonight, we had wedges on the menu again, just because they are easy and yummy. I decided that this would be a good opportunity for a vegetarian meal, even though C had planned on us having them with fried bacon and onion, which I completely forgot about. So all was moving nicely towards our having a vege meal this week, when I remembered that I had forgotten to take my lunch to work today. And once a piece of lasagne has thawed from the freezer, it really has to be eaten.

So tonight we ate vegetarian wedges, with a pile of steaming brocolli, cauli and carrots, a big serving of garlicky cabbage, and sour cream and sweet chilli sauce.

With a side of lasagne.

We tried. That's all anyone can ask, surely.

Free Rice!!

No not for you, for REALLY hungry people.

Go here to have a look at the "Guess what a word means to donate Rice to the World Food Program" site.

Big Ups to Moose for this link.

A recipe for Risotto what I stoleded...

I discovered two new things last week: Risotto, and deseeding tomatoes.

The Risotto I will cover in detail just below. The concept of removing most of what makes the tomato a tomato struck me as strange, even slightly blasphemous, but I gave it a go anyway. I have resolved to try it in other things in the future, as it worked quite well in this particular instance. For the risotto, it added some flavour, colour and body to the dish without introducing a sudden excess of moisture that then would have had to be cooked off, and the acidity may have thoroughly altered the dynamic of the meal. For the record, I tried it in my stuffed sausages tonight, and it left them too dry, so its not for every meal. On the matter of "why-would-you-waste-so-much-of-the-tomato?", I figure the seeds just go into the compost, which goes into the garden eventually, and then up pop lovely wild tomatoes. Its like a storage vault, much like the flash one they just built in Norway, only closer and warmer.

It must be easy to make risotto if I can manage a reasonably passable one on my first try. I was surprised. When we were growing up, the only risottos I knew were those weird packet microwave ones, that are all dry and tasted like numbers. I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to willingly cook up something like that.

Then as time went by I kept seeing cooking shows where cooks were whipping up moist, delicious looking risottos that didn't take long and, it seems, were as flexible as your imagination. And I wondered, maybe there was something in it. Like rice, for example.

More time went by.

Then it happened. By the magic of the preplanned menu, we decided to make a risotto. Here's the trick: I used a recipe (!!) There's a prize for anyone who can identify the origin of this recipe, which I have modified slightly so as not to infringe any copyrights. I'll give you one clue: it's a New Zealand Chef.

Ham & Tomato Risotto

Heat 2T of olive oil in a large pan, preferably a cast iron one. Chop up an onion and a few cloves of garlic and soften this in the oil. Chop up 250g Ham and add this to the pan. Brown this lightly, before adding 1C of Arborio rice.

Cook this all together for about 3 minutes. Pour in 1/2C of Vegetable stock and simmer until absorbed. Add another 1/2C and repeat, until you have added 2 - 2 1/2C of stock to the pan. If you have homemade vege stock on hand, use this. If not, you can get some quite good real stocks from the supermarket, which is what we used this time.

Deseed and dice 3 tomatoes and grate 1/4C of Parmesan.

When the liquid has reduced down and the rice is cooked, add the tomatoes, parmesan, 1/4C of sour cream, and 1/4C of chopped fresh herbs (basil or similar - use less for stronger herbs like sage). Combine and season with freshly ground salt and pepper. Heat through and serve with freshly grated parmesan and a little drizzle of EV Olive Oil, plus freshly ground pepper if you like.


Just like that.

BTW, there's not really a prize, but have a guess anyway.

Lasagne (no need for a clever tag here)

When it comes to labour intensive, you don't get much more intense than making Lasagne. Not if you do it properly anyway. There are several shortcuts you can take, and this is all good and well if you don't have the time or the energy to get in and do it all yourself. I know for a fact that you can slap up a Lasagne in about 20 minutes, plus another 20 under the grill, if you use every shortcut you can imagine. But if I know I have a Saturday afternoon to spend in the kitchen, and Lasagne is on the menu, then I'm going to go all the way.

I make the pasta fresh.

I cook the meat for several hours.

C makes the cheese sauce fresh.

And there's nothing you can buy that tastes anything like it.

Fresh Lasagne Sheets

This same recipe can be used to make all sorts of pasta, from linguine to ravioli, but it does rely on you having a Pasta Machine, or a lot of patience with a rolling pin. I tend to reserve making fresh pasta for things like ravioli, where you really need the fresh sheets to work with, but since I didn't have any dried lasagne in the cupboard, I decided to get out the Machine and make some fresh. We got the Pasta Machine as a wedding present, and it's great to use once you get the hang of it.

Shortcut: Buy dry Lasagne sheets from the Supermarket (But be aware that it pays to preboil these before building your Lasagne, which can be a messy process)

Make up a quantity of pasta to suit your menu. I mix 100g of High Grade Flour with 1 Egg for every 2 people I'd be feeding, but it's best to make up between 300 and 500g worth. Use the biggest freshest Free Range Eggs you can find. Sift the flour into a bowl and break the eggs into a well in the centre. Break up the eggs with a fork and bring the flour in to make a rough dough.

Tip this onto a clean bench and work it with your hands until it is a silky, elastic ball of dough. Alternatively, you can do this in a blender or a food processor, and it works just as well. And I really mean it about the Free Range Eggs. Barn eggs just don't give you the same silky elasticity, and lovely deep colour (without waxing propogandic about the Free-Range/Battery Hen argument).

Wrap this in gladwrap and pop it in the fridge for at least an hour.

While the dough is resting, prepare the meat sauce (See Below).

After an hour or so in the fridge, get the dough out and cut a piece off. Return the rest of the dough to the fridge. Oil the rollers and sprinkle your bench or table either side of the Machine with flour. Be careful not to overhandle or overflour the pasta dough, as this will make it brittle and more likely to break before it's ready.

Flatten the dough down with your hand and start rolling it through on the widest setting. Step the rollers in one setting and repeat. Be sure to gently dust with flour as you go to prevent sticking.

This will take some practice, and it can be frustrating at first, but once you get the knack it's both fun and easy. Even Isaac can do it!

Keep rolling the sheet through until you get to the last or second-to-last setting, or until you feel the dough won't last another roll.

Hang the rolled sheet on the back of a chair.

Once you've rolled out all the dough, you can do what you like with it. For this exercise, I just sliced the ends off and cut the sheets into nice 8" x 4" pieces.

You can use the Pasta Machine to make spaghetti, linguine or fettucine, depending on the cutters, or you can use the long sheets to make ravioli or tortellini. If I feel inspired, I'll cover that in the next couple of months. The pasta cooks in boiling water in about 2 minutes, and can be served just with EV Olive Oil, Parmesan, and freshly ground pepper. Its amazing how nice it is like this.

Meat Sauce

Chop up a couple of onions, finely chop a head of garlic, and deseed and slice 2 small red chillis. Fry these in hot oil until the onion starts to soften.

Remove the onions to a bowl and heat more oil in the same pan. Add mince; you probably want to cook about 1 1/2 times as much as you would use if you were making a bolognaise. Brown the mince and season with freshly ground pepper, salt, and freshly grated nutmeg. Once the bulk of the moisture has cooked off the meat, add a splash of Worcester sauce and allow this to cook in. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, bring to the boil and reduce to a low simmer for at least 2 hours. If you can arrange to have this cooking for about 4 hours or even more, all the better. What you're aiming for is a Sauce, so the longer that mince can cook, the more it will break down and become less like chewy mince and more like a liquid.

Shortcut: Throw onions, garlic and mince in the pot at the same time. Season to taste. Brown and add a jar of pasta sauce. Simmer until hot through.

C's Famous Cheese Sauce

In a small saucepan, heat 50g of butter over a gentle heat. Slowly add a small scoop of flour, about 3-4 T, whisking vigourously until it thickens.

Add between 3/4 to 1 Cup of Milk, and don't allow this to boil. Add a Cup of grated Cheddar and 1/4 Cup of Parmesan, and melt this all through until you have a lovely cheese sauce consistency. Stand.

Shortcut: Buy a grotty packet of Add-Water Cheese Sauce and mix that up instead. If you really have to.

Building the Lasagne

Oil a large oven dish with a lid. Place a layer of meat sauce in the bottom, about 1cm thick.

Add a layer of lasagne sheets, overlapping slightly and ensuring that the edges of the dish are covered.

Add another layer of meat sauce, then a coating of cheese sauce. Keep in mind that you're making about 3 layers, so don't overdo it (like I always seem to). This takes discipline.

Lasagne Sheets, Meat Sauce, Cheese Sauce, Lasagne Sheets, Meat Sauce, Cheese Sauce. Then just to make sure that this dish doesn't get the Heart Foundation Tick, add some extra grated cheese and a grind of pepper. Sprinkle with paprika if you have some (which I didn't - sob!).

Put the lid on and place in an oven at 190C for 20 mins. Remove the lid and switch the oven over to grill for about 10 minutes.

Yip, its a bit of work, but you'll never get a Lasagne like this from a shop or by taking the shortcuts mentioned above. I've even had Lasagne in Italian Restaurants that aren't as good as this homemade recipe. Get into it on a weekend afternoon, then cut it up and freeze it in portions for really easy weeknight meals.

Enjoy, if you can find the time.

Next post: Ham Risotto