We have a family tradition where the birthday star picks what they want to eat for their birthday menu.  On more birthday menu’s that I care to remember, Tiramisu has been the dessert of choice.  I have a tried and tested recipe that calls for savoiardi biscuits, sweetened coffee and yet more sugar in the egg mixture.  However this recipe from the Italian Food Safari television series on SBS calls for no sugar in the coffee ,1 cup of sugar in the egg mixture and pavesini biscuits.  It also uses 2 more eggs than my original recipe.  Even though essentially it’s the same recipe as my original one, i’ll be using it from now on because quite simply it’s better in flavour and texture.

Read the rest of this entry »

Seriously – I don’t know ANYONE who doesn’t like bog…okay for you fancy readers out there; spaghetti bolognaise!    My daughters were raised on spag bog.  Not a week went by when I didn’t cook it.  Back then, I used to add grated carrot and finely sliced mushrooms as well to get some well hidden vegetables into their diets!  Over the last two decades my bog recipe has evolved beyond recognition.  There was the time when it was low on meat and heavy on tomato!  Then there was the period when it was full of roughage for the kids.  Then there was the veal and pork mince mixture.  Nowadays, it’s got more meat, but only veal, it’s still heavy on the tomatoes and to give it depth I saute some spec or prosciutto at the beginning of the cooking process.  But the biggest change that I have made so far has been to change the cooking method from the long slow stove top cook method to a quick and easy pressure cooking method.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weeknights are busy at our house.  We don’t always get the time to cook from scratch even though it’s my preference to do so.  So we take shortcuts…that means instead of using home made meatballs i squeeze the meat out from Italian sausages from a good vendor (San Marino Meats, Central Markets) and use boutique bottled tomato sauce (Lucia’s Neopolitan sauce).

This recipe is a weekday staple in our home; it fills all the weekday criteria: quick, yummy, easy, nutritious!

Read the rest of this entry »

While your dough is resting get your gear together. I hand-made my ravioli with these cutters.

I rolled my dough using the pasta attachment on my KitchenAide mixer.

Fillings for ravioli can be as diverse as you like; so be creative and experiment! I used pecorino cheese, fresh basil and an imported Italian proscuitto that my Italian grocer at Norwood highly recommended. Next time i think i will mix all my ingredients together in a processor to make a paste filling.

Make sure you flour your pasta very well so they don’t stick together while you continue to make the rest.

Make sure there’s plenty of water to boil your ravioli in. Don’t put oil in the water, it’s unecessary, but do salt the water.

We served our ravioli in a runny meat sauce because i took it out of the freezer yesterday to have spagetti for dinner. We didn’t end up having spaghetti so i needed to use the sauce with the ravioli so it wouldn’t be wasted. Ordinarily i would saute garlic in a pan, add tomatoes and cook on a high heat for a few minutes and then toss the ravioli in it.

It was a delicious meal and fresh home made ravioli is has no subsitute. Try it; you won’t be disappointed! If you have any left over dough after using all your ingredients, roll and cut into spaghetti, linguini, paparadelli etc and then freeze in a freezer bag. That way when you want a quick meal and have some sauce on hand, all you have to do is quickly boil some water. Fresh pasta cooks a lot quicker than dried pasta! Bonus! LOL