In the kitchen with little time, little money and little people
Magnolia flowers…. we’ve been eating a lot of them lately, between Magnolia Flower Pickle and Chocolate Dipped Magnolia Flowers and this amazing Magnolia Flower Drizzle. We’re two weeks into official spring and we’ve already finished off two of these beauties!
I’ve been enjoying the summer weather lately, and been loving the entertainment opportunities that presents too. When I have guests though, I like having pre-prepared, or quick to prepare meals as I don’t like spending ages in the kitchen! That’s just one of the reasons I really enjoy this Calamari, Tomato & Basil Pasta: it’s easy to prepare before hand, leaving just 10 minutes cooking time required.
I prefer to use fresh pasta when pasta is the main part of the meal, so I’ve used fresh pasta in this recipe. Dry pasta works, but needs to be cooked for longer. It can also be served in a salad, or with quinoa or other starch of your choice.
Use a good quality squid for this recipe too – nothing worse than leathery calamari!
Now, if you want to prepare this meal for later cooking, chop the garlic cloves, wash and dry the cherry tomatoes – halve them if they are the larger variety – wash the squid, clean it and cut it into rings, and chop the basil leaves roughly. Store all the items in the fridge till about 20 minutes before you’re going to cook them, leaving it to warm to room temperature a little.
If your calamari loses a lot of liquid in the cooking, you can pour it out about before adding the cherry tomatoes.
Serve immediately – and if you’re having wine, Calamari, Tomato & Basil Pasta pairs really well with a dry white wine, like a Pinot Grigio – a wine I don’t normally like, but it works fantastically with this. Another alternative is Riesling.
If you want to truly torture a South African expat* ask them about Prego Rolls.
For a moment you’ll see a memory pass across their eyes. And if you were so inclined you could measure their spit production, because for most of us, there’ll be an immediate saliva release – drooling – in anticipation of something good. It’s practically Pavlovian .
The memory will most likely include Saturday mornings heading down to Pick n Pay to buy groceries, and stopping outside to pick up a Prego Roll from someone making them (and possibly pancakes) for a school, church or youth group fund raiser. Or just a family side business. Or if you weren’t a Saturday shopper, you’d find someone at the local fete selling them. Even our local Tuis Neiwerheid (popular home industries shops) used to specially make them on a Saturday.
I’ve tried to make my own Prego Rolls over the many, many years I’ve been in the UK, but it’s never quite the same. I think you need that dry sand smell, baking sun on your back and maybe a Savannah to wash it all down with to completely complete the experience. Well. You do the best you can with what you have.
A lot of people don’t know this, but South Africa has quite a strong Portuguese influence. In school we were taught that Jan van Riebeeck ‘founded’ South Africa in 1652 – which I always took to mean he discovered it. It was only later that I realised that actually the first ‘discoverer’ of South Africa was Bartolomeu Dias – a Portuguese explorer, all the way back in 1488.
Remember this: “In 1652, het die wind gewaai, toe kom ek met my skippie in by Tafelbaai. Die wind het so gewaai, ons was almal op ‘n klomp. En so kry hy die naam die Kaap van Storms.”
So why the history lesson? Well, most people have eaten or at least seen a Nando’s restaurant at some point. Did you know that it was a chain started in South Africa? By a Portuguese South African. It is to South African food what curry is to British food! People should know this! **
Prego Rolls are Portuguese Rolls – Carcaças Rápidas – dusted in flour, filled with red wine and garlic marinated flash fried steaks, topped with piri piri sauce – or not, and aragula (rocket) – or not. It all depends on who is making and who is eating. Hmmm.. drooling, yep, drooling here.
A few years ago I was living temporarily in Australia, and trying to convince a friend that she needed a Thermomix. Her husband, Jimmy, was very against it, and highly disbelieving when I told him he could even make Portuguese Rolls in it. (Jimmy is from Mozambique. His mother lives with them, and speaks only Portuguese). Jimmy didn’t believe I could make the rolls in the Thermomix, so when we had a New Year’s picnic a few weeks later, I took along a basket of fresh Portuguese Rolls (those in the picture). Jimmy couldn’t believe I’d made them in the Thermomix. I did see him have two! (Jenny and Jimmy now own a Thermomix!) 
So, how do you make these delicious, soft, crusty, light and fluffy Portuguese Rolls?
Here’s the recipe I use!
*most of us. obviously we’re not all exactly the same.
** I’m really touch on this point. I have no idea why.
I love Basil. It’s such a sensory herb, with the ability to transport you to just about anywhere – usually in Italy.
I also love chocolate, and one of my favourite memories is from my honeymoon, some 10 and a bit years ago, where we spent time backpacking through Italy, from Sorento through to Bergamo. Our last night was in a hotel in Turin, and by the time we got there we were pretty worn out. The 4-star hotel had an amazing jacuzzi in the bathroom, and with promises to return one day, we didn’t venture further than the cafe on the corner.
This particular cafe, however, had a delicious selection of home made chocolates and ice cream, and I fell in love with the combination of Basil and Chocolate. No, it’s not one you come across often, but it works – trust me, it works.
I recently agreed to participate in a challenge where I had to come up with a recipe that speaks to the taste of Italy, and I can’t think of much that speaks of Italy like Basil does, so here is my contribution: Chocolate Mousse with Basil Cream – and here is my advice: don’t knock it till you try it!
This is an incredibly rich mousse. We had two people (including two children) sharing the two ice cream bowls of mousse & cream in the pictures, and it was still a lot. So it’s a great sharers dish.
We hope you love the Chocolate Mousse & Basil Cream as much as we do!
This soup came about because I really don’t like a chunky soup. Contrary to popular belief this isn’t because of the texture, but rather is because I get bored half way through a bowl of same tasting bite after bite. And by the time you’ve boiled your vegetables long enough to extract the flavour into the broth, every bite tastes the same.
I prefer a deconstructed soup. It’s still hearty, filling, healthy, but it looks much prettier since everything retains it’s colour and shape, and every bite is a mini-adventure.
Take this soup for example. Butternut soup with lardons, sage and Grana Padano cheese.
The first bite has a little bit of lardon and a small sliver of sage. It’s tasty. The next bite, has a hint of garlic, and a bit of onion along with the butternut, and tastes homey. The following spoon picks up a large piece of melted cheese, and the rich full flavour of Grana Padano accompanies the butternut down my throat. The next spoon hits a pocket of sage butter, and provides a whole other taste to any of the previous bites – and next it’s just a plain spoon of butternut, that almost cleanses your palet. And so it goes, on and on.
Well, it works for me, and I hope you like it too!
For this soup I like to roast the butternut squash. While you can just go ahead and make it from an uncooked butternut squash, which gives it a fresh flavour, I find a roasted butternut squash has so much more depth to it. It’s definitely worth the extra 40 or so minutes.
We’re still learning about France this week, and another recipe from the France: Food and Celebrations* book that we’ve been using that we just had to try is the Chocolate Mousse. According to the Frenchling in this book, this dessert is only for special ocassions, but a great thing about it is that it’s really simple to make.
I think if you have two Thermomix bowls this is the simplest recipe in the world. I just have the one and it’s still dead simple, just requires a bit of a wash inbetween.
Of course I am trying to teach the kids to cook without the Thermomix too, so there’s a bit of ‘elbow grease’ required in three sets of whisking, but that’s good for them too. They used the Annabel Karmel Casdon Baking Set which has a fabulous bowl and whisk, perfectly child sized and very effective in whisking.
I had each girl responsible for her own whisking ingredients while I did the chocolate, but managing kids whisking liquids doesn’t leave much time for photo taking!
The original recipe calls for three hours in the fridge, but I’m not convinced by that. After an hour the mouse was almost more of a pudding, whereas initially upon finishing it, I couldn’t resist tucking in a little had to perform a taste test and it was very light and airy.
You can add flavoured chocolate to this to make a flavoured mousse – mint, orange, strawberry, whatever you like. I used dark chocolate in this recipe.
Granita, despite my children calling it ice cream, is actually a semi-frozen dessert made from sugar, water and various flavourings. It is related to sorbet and Italian ice; but in Sicily it has a coarser, more crystalline texture – a bit like this recipe below. 
Watermelon is a childhood memory for me. It reminds me of hot days, living in a hot, hot place, and my mother deciding to to make dinner, because who wants to cook when it’s 42C outside?! It reminds me of sweet sticky nectar running down my arms, of getting hosed down in the garden. It’s a good memory, and while we now live on – quite literally – the opposite side of the world, and the watermelons are round and have softer skins, but I love that I’m able to pass this same memory on to my own little girls now too. 
When there’s left over watermelon – and sometimes there is – I like to make a watermelon and rose water granita. It keeps the watermelon going for a few days more and it is just so refreshing.
I hope you’ll love it as much as I do!
Our family had some pretty amazing travel plans for this year, and if things hadn’t gone as they did, we’d be setting off from Sintra near Lisbon in Portugal roundabout now, for Spain. One of the things I remember from a previous visit to Portugal is Pastel de Nata – Custard Tarts – which are delicious sweet baked custard tarts in a puff pastry shell.
If you’re a fan of the Nando’s restaurant chain, you may recognise these as one of the only desert options on the menu, but I’ve never been a fan of them! There’s nothing quite like fresh, home made tarts. It just wins out. No surprises there, I suppose.
I’d like to be all holier-than-though, but I actually bought this puff pastry, because as Lorraine Pascale, James Martin and Jamie Oliver all say – there’s no reason not to! Especially if you buy the all butter pastry. It’s about £1 more than the ‘normal’ one, but it’s so much better, with a much nicer taste and no bitter aftertaste. It’s well worth paying that bit extra.
If you are going to make it, have a look at this easy puff pastry recipe from Jane at Why Is There Air?
Sprinkle the icing sugar before you’re going to serve, as it will be absorbed and you won’t see it and if you keep adding sugar it becomes terribly sweet. My five year old was the icing sugar distributor in these photos and she was, shall we say, liberal in her application 😉