Fresh Food Love

Recently a customer asked me what it was that made me smile. I had to think for a moment, not because I don't smile; I smile and laugh often every day, anyone that visits The Fresh Ingredient will have experienced the quirky style and sense of humour that pervades the business, I had to pause and think because I needed to pinpoint what it was that made me smile. I replied that the sound of children laughing made me smile. I thought about this conversation often in the days following and added many things to my mental list of things that make me smile. This list includes; the snuggly cuddles of my children, the feel of an anticipated book in my hand, a cup of coffee made by my husband and handed over with a smile, but the thing that keeps coming up in my list is always related to food. Food is not just fuel for my body, it is also food for my soul.

I love cookbooks, I always have. I remember as a child often sitting and reading cookbooks, I didn't necessarily want to cook what I was reading about, I just loved to read the recipes. I love to read menus, I will take a long time to decide what to order in a restaurant or cafe, because I am reading each item and thinking about how it will taste, or how it has been prepared. These make me smile.

I love to look at fresh food, I love to hold fresh food, these make me smile. I love to cook. Cooking food for family and friends makes me smile, however I don't have a lot of free time, so I need to have a repertoire of "recipes" that are tasty, family friendly and reasonably fast to prepare. I am inspired to create meals by the beauty of fresh produce, I will think about flavour combinations and play around with the ingredients, with what I have on hand and what is affordable.

With pumpkin in season I am creating many dishes inspired by this delicious vegetable, soup comes to mind first, but The Fresh Ingredient family also love  a pumpkin pasta dish. I turn the oven on as soon as I get into the house, ready to roast the pumpkin and also to heat the kitchen, which is the heart of our home. With this dish I don't measure or weigh out ingredients and I substitute if I don't have something on hand. The protein element in this dish can be either chicken or bacon (or both). The sauce can be cream based, or stock based or both.

Creamy Pumpkin and Chicken Pasta

Ingredients(serves 4)

1/2 butternut pumpkin, peeled and diced, or use a good sized wedge of Jap Pumpkin.
2-3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 eschallot, diced
1 double chicken breast, sliced.
2-3 rashers best quality bacon, cut into strips (I love Seller's Butchers at Merewether, they smoke their own bacon. It is the real deal!)
1/2 cup pure cream (Udder Farm if available)
1/2 cup chicken stock (or pasta cooking water)
3 cups dry penne pasta
1/4 cup pine nuts
fresh parmesan, grated
salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. 
2. Toss pumpkin in half of the oil and roast for 30 minutes or until tender and golden. Season chicken with salt and pepper and add to oven for the last 10-15 minutes. In the last 2-3 minutes place a small roasting pan with pine nuts into oven, agitate to make sure they roast evenly.
3. Shortly before the pumpkin is ready, boil salted water for the pasta, cook the pasta following packet directions.
4. Fry bacon, add garlic and eschallot to the pan, (use remaining olive oil if required) turn heat down to low heat.
5. Add pumpkin to frypan contents stirring gently, slowly stir in the cream and stock. Pumpkin should go a little mushy and blend with the cream. 
6. When pasta is ready, stir the parmesan and chicken into the pumpkin mixture and season with salt and pepper.
7. Drain pasta and combine with pumpkin mixture. Serve with a little extra parmesan, the roasted pine nuts and a grind of black pepper.

Kids in the Kitchen

We are in the middle of Summer. The days are warm, the evenings long, and for many families our meals get simpler. These easy meals are the perfect opportunity to get kids into the kitchen.

I believe that one of the most important things that we can teach our children is a love of food, a respect for food and from those, we teach them how to prepare food. I was brought up with food growing in the backyard; I saw the life-cycle, the seed, the plant, the fruit or vegetable and then the meal on the table. I helped with this process, planted seeds, weeded and watered the garden, harvested crops and watched and helped with the preparation of the food. I respect food; I respect the effort that goes into producing our food.

We are teaching our children this respect. They travel with me when I collect produce from local growers, they see the trees with the fruit laden, and they see the farmers working to harvest the crop. They see the fresh food on the shelf at The Fresh Ingredient, and they see it on the kitchen bench at home. They love to stand on a stool and help to cut up vegetables, stir a cake batter, shake a salad dressing, or assemble a burrito. Our children understand that food comes from nature; it is not a pre-packaged, plastic product that gets heated, or rehydrated. It was a living thing, which helps us, as humans survive. I often hear little Miss 5 telling her brother (4) that “if you don’t eat good food you won’t grow up to be big and strong”.

Child-rearing books and experts tell us that we should model the behaviour that we want our children to exhibit, use good manners, stand-up straight, read books, be kind. We should also model food behaviours, let them observe us as we eat our fruit and vegetables, as we work to avoid wastage, as we prepare meals. Studies have shown that if children are involved in the preparation of a meal, they are more likely to eat that meal; they have a sense of ownership.

Our children love pasta and they love cheese, so this is a winner in our home. They can be involved in the preparation of this meal by helping to grate the carrot and cheese, measuring out the milk, weighing out the pasta and butter, measuring out the vegetables, and helping to assemble the bake. It can be served with a simple tomato and leaf salad, or a spinach and avocado salad, my personal favourite!

Cheesy Vegetable Pasta Bake

Ingredients

·       350g shell or penne pasta

·       30g Udder Farm butter

·       2 tablespoons cornflour

·       2 cups Udder Farm milk (full cream or light)

·       2 cups grated cheddar cheese

·       1 medium carrot, grated

·       2 cups loosely packed baby spinach leaves

·       1 cup fresh corn kernels

·       ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Method

·      Grease a 2L capacity baking dish.

·      Preheat oven to 180°C.

·      Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling water, following packet directions, until just tender.

·      Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in cornflour and cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat; slowly pour in milk, whisking all the time to make a smooth white sauce. Return to heat, continue stirring until sauce thickens.

·      Drain pasta, return to pot and stir in white sauce. Add cheese and vegetables, stir well to combine.

·      Spoon mixture into baking dish and sprinkle with parmesan. Bake for 25 minutes until golden and heated through.

Summery Zucchini Pasta

Zucchini is on special at The Fresh Ingredient this week, so why not try this easy, tasty summer pasta dish?
Serves 2-4 people

Ingredients
250g dried spaghetti or fettucine
4 small zucchini, sliced into thin ribbons
2 tbs olive oil, preferrably Wollombi Extra Virgin
2 cloves garlic - crushed
4 slices of prosciutto, roughly torn
1 punnet cherry tomatoes (250g) halved
Freshly grated parmesan cheese and freshly cracked black pepper to serve
4-8 freshly picked basil leaves as garnish

Method
1. Cook pasta according to packet directions.
2. Heat olive oil in large heavy based frypan. Add garlic and zucchini to the pan, cook stirring for 2 minutes, or until zucchini just starts to soften, add prosciutto and cherry tomatoes, cook stirring for another 2 minutes, lower heat under frypan.
3. Drain pasta & reserve a little of the cooking water (about 40-50mls).
4. Add pasta and reserved cooking water to the frypan, heat through.
5. Arrange in serving bowls and top with freshly cracked black pepper and freshly grated parmesan. Finish off by arranging 2 basil leaves on each serving.