It was a small but select group of MFM at Norfolk St last Thursday for 'Anything But Bolognaise' Italian evening. The house smelt wonderfully bready as I'd made foccacia for nibbles and given that the yeast was rather unresponsive it turned out ok after pouring copious amounts of olive oil over it. Given that the previous week was all about lots of butter and cream, I thought I'd better look after the arteries of my MFM... No heart attacks please cherubs!
With the dulcet tones of my 'Best of Bogan' playlist providing a suitable background, we started with quite possibly the easiest and most scrumptious dessert in the world - cream + raspberries + sugar = pink deliciousness. Whenever I make this I am reminded of the Dr Seuss story 'The Cat in the Hat Comes Back' where he turns the snow pink, it is exactly the colour of the gelato.
After putting the gelato in the freezer away from temptation we started on bruschetta topping complete with much maligned anchovies. I love using anchovies, they have a fantastic depth of flavour and add a great bass note to savoury things. We'll be using them with lamb at some stage too and in warm potato salad and in salade nicoise - be prepared guys!
It's such a shame that the tomatoes we get nowadays are so tasteless, the wee tinned cherry tomatoes (Mutti Italian brand) are a good substitute and I really like those Hungarian peppers from the market, I'll definitely be buying more of those. Bet they'd be great with the Havoc sausages we used in the first sauce as well.
Hope you try the pasta sauces, as long as you have managed to be organised enough and have the ingredients in the fridge they are the ultimate in fast food, minus the chemicals and manufactured flavours of bought sauces. Let me know if you experiment, they are so adaptable. The main thing to remember though is not to crowd the flavours, keep it simple.
I trust you have all gone out and got yourselves a lemon zester, my ultimate favouritest gadget. Lemon is really underrated as a flavour I love using it; not bad with a medicinal gin either... and it keeps scurvy away.
Not sure what'll be happening next week. I'm hoping that we'll get a few new members, so I might re-run this week's lesson - those who were here last Thurs are more than welcome to just come and chat and have a turn cooking if you'd like (of course you wouldn't have to pay for that session - and you might get more gelato). Will text you all later.
I'm writing this from bed and it's lunchtime so I really should get up but, oh well, it is a rainy Sunday and I need to conserve my strength for the football tomorrow morning. Take care, eat well, see you all soon!
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