the red kitchen

Pasta King

Max made Lola and I a fantastic pasta carbonara for dinner tonight, with only minimal help from yours truly. It was great. I could definitely get used to someone else doing the cooking around here!

He was inspired by making and eating it at kindy today for mittagstisch (literally, midday table - the kids stay at kindy to make and eat their lunch together). No matter that we had it for dinner on Saturday night as well, and that he ate it for lunch today, he was so keen to demonstrate his cooking prowess (especially his shell-free egg cracking skills - very good!) that he insisted on making it again for us tonight. I didn't mind, cos I'm always keen to encourage him to cook. That's my boy!

Here is the way he made it:

Toffee apples

Hi Dr Alice. Nice to see that you are still reading despite my inconsistent posting - thanks!

Yep, the sticky toffee apple pudding I mentioned previously is based on the sticky toffee pudding I posted waaaay back in Jan 2005, except that I substituted chopped (Golden Delicious - approx 2 apples chopped in small chunks) apples instead of dates (I didn't have any). I poured over the same amount of boiling water and bicarb soda as in the original recipe, but when I added the apples and bicarb water to the mix I only added about half the liquid as I assumed that the apples wouldn't soak up as much liquid as dried dates would have and I feared the whoel thing would be too wet and sloppy.

Once you have mixed in all the ingredients check to see it has the right consistency - it should be fairly runny but not totally sloppy. It's probably not great baking protocol but if it's too runny add a bit more flour and if it's too dry add some of the apple liquid - I don't think it will matter considerably to the height of the end product (ie, beating out the air that is mixed in initially). As I'm sure you know, I'm a bit haphazard about these things but they usually work out well in the end! If you are worried that not including all the apple liquid (and thus all the bicarb soda - valuable raising agent), you could try including an extra half a teaspoon of baking powder to make up the shortfall.

We all loved the apple version of this delicious, decidedly autumnal pudding - bowls were scraped clean and spoons well-licked. The only criticism was that the pudding could have had even MORE apple in it, but I think the amount was just good - too much would have made it soggy and heavy. It's a good version for when there's not much in the cupboard, because if I don't have dates I usually have apples, and the other items are more or less staples.

Just thinking about it makes me want to make another one!!

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

All the essentials for muffin-making - flour, sugar, eggs, fruit, scissors, lipstick, lipbalm, crackers...

Meat and three veg

Meat and three veg, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

Lola's dinner last night.

Simple but good - buttermilk fried chicken, steamed broccoli, carrot sticks, and new potatoes from Bruno's parents garden roasted with garlic and rosemary.

This is the second time I've made the chicken, and it's damn good. The kiddies love it, and it's pretty simple to make.

Daily eats

I'm just roasting some veges right now, and they smell so, so good. Nothing special: zucchini, capsicum, potatoes, onions, and garlic with a splosh each of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Mmmmm. To go with: some green leafy rocket, balsamic seared pork chops (shield yr eyes, veges and vegans) and applesauce with rosemary. Goddamn, the house smells fantastic!

Yesterday when I got home from Lugano it was cold, wet and miserable, and the fridge and cupboard were bare. Having missed lunch (except for a packet of chips and an apple somewhere between Lugano and Zürich), I craved someting rib-sticking and hot. I managed to scrounge up the ingredients for a fortifying tomato, bean and barley soup which we ate with bread and cheese, and finished with a decidely rib-sticking sticky toffee apple pudding with butterscotch sauce. It really hit the spot, I tell you.

Tomorrow its home-made buttermilk fried chicken, and somewhere down the line this week I want to make my friend Gabriella's caponata, with sauteed aubergine, zucchini, capsicum and potato, mixed together with vinegar and sugar (that sounds awesome). And I've had a dark, sticky ginger cake on my mind for some time now, too...

Salumeria

Salumeria, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

This quaint shop was distinctive for the rows of enormous salamis hanging outside its doors. Very evocative. To our surprise, they were still hanging outside once the shop was closed. Perhaps they were trip-wired to a burglar alarm?

Beautiful tomatoes

Beautiful tomatoes, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

I was in the beautiful lakeside city of Lugano in the Italian part of Switzerland over the weekend, and we happened by the weekend market. I fell in love with these gorgeous, gorgeous tomatoes, piled high in big scarlet mounds. And, the coffee was great!

The value of eggs

We just got back from summer holidays here, here and here. Finally, it seems as if we have turned a huge corner with our family holidays, and we had a surprisingly great time. Not that we don't have a good time usually, but we have realised that Lola is old enough now to do fair amounts of walking and sightseeing, and we really did a lot of things (ok, mainly visiting castles and walking in the mountains) that made our holiday memorable.

We did a lot of walking, and we had a few picnics. Perhaps it was just this article at the back of my head, but I made sure to pack a clutch of hard-boiled eggs along with the sandwiches and fruit, and boy, were they the highlight of the day! I'm not sure what makes a hard-boiled egg so appealing to a stomach emptied by vigorous walking (I'm not usually a big fan of hard-boiled eggs), but we all wolfed them down, even when I forgot the salt wrapped up in a twist of foil. I did long for lashings and lashings of ginger beer to wash them down with, but alas, we had to make do with plain old water.

Still, I've come a new appreciation of the humble picnic. Fancy stuff is all fair and good, but when you're really hungry, well, actually, anything even vaguely edible will do, seasoned as it will be by the fresh air, sunshine and the atmospheric value afforded by mountainous alps, lakes and forests.

Vineyards

vineyards, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

We went on holiday.

The Valais is renowned for its white wines, and there are vineyards on every patch of land possible.