I've been experimenting with making pasta. I was happy to discover it doesn’t take any fancy ingredients (nor fancy tools as long as you don’t mind a rustic look), and it isn’t that tricky-but it seems a bit special. Last week I made sweet potato gnocchi, adapted from a recipe from Taste. Another recipe to use up sweet potato since we still have plenty! Recipe Ingredients For the gnocchi Plain Flour 2 tablespoons Cream cheese 1 small sweet potato, diced 1 egg For the sauce 1 tin crushed tomatoes 1 brown onion, diced 1 teaspoon garlic 2 bacon rashers, diced 1 tablespoon sour cream 1 cup grated tasty cheese Method 1. Boil the sweet potato until soft then mash and let cool. 2. In a bowl combine flour, mashed sweet potato and cream cheese until it forms a soft dough. 3. On a floured surface roll the dough into a long sausage about 3cm thick. 4. Cut 2cm sections from the dough sausage and flatten slightly with a fork. Dip the fork in flour to stop it sticking. Set aside on a plate in the fridge to chill slightly. 5. In a frying pan add the onion, bacon and garlic and cook on medium heat until coloured. Add the tin tomatoes and cook until mixture bubbles. Turn the heat to lowest setting. 6. Fill a saucepan with water and add a pinch of salt, bring to a gentle boil. Drop in a few gnocchi at a time being careful not to overcrowd the saucepan. When cooked the gnocchi will float to the surface. Using a slotted spoon scoop the cooked gnocchi from the water and place in the tomato sauce. Repeat with remaining gnocchi. 7. Add the sour cream and grated cheese to the fry pan and stir the cooked gnocchi through to ensure they are covered with the sauce. Serve immediately. This week I made some ravioli filled with what we had in the fridge-yellow squash, cream cheese and sunflower seeds. It was quite tasty except for the semi-dried tomatoes I put in the sauce, I don't think their flavour suited so much. I also tried making some zucchini pasta-not technically a pasta but zucchini sliced into thin strands. We didn't like it as a pasta substitute, the texture and taste just wasn't right-so I ended up cooking some spaghetti to go with it. Recipe Ingredients For the ravioli 1 cup plain flour 3 eggs 1 teaspoon olive oil For the filling 2 yellow button squash, finely diced 2 tablespoons cream cheese 1 tablespoon grated tasty cheese 1 handful sunflower seeds For the sauce 1 red onion, diced 2 tablespoons tomato paste 2 tablespoons sliced semi-dried tomatoes (optional) 1 tablespoon ricotta cheese ½ cup water 1 cup tasty cheese Method 1. In a bowl combine the flour, eggs and oil. Turn onto a floured surface and knead until mixture forms a smooth dough. Set aside to rest for 30 minutes. 2. Mix ingredients for filling in a bowl and set aside. 3. When dough has rested roll into a thin rectangle on a floured surface. 4. Place small tablespoons of the filling about 4cm away from one edge of the dough, leaving about a 2cm space between each. Fold the edge of dough over the filling, pressing to seal around each spoonful. Cut folded section of dough away from remaining dough. Cut between each spoonful of filling to create individual ravioli. Press around the edges of filling with a fork to ensure dough is sealed. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. 5. Fill a saucepan with water and add a pinch of salt, bring to a gentle boil. Drop in a few ravioli at a time being careful not to overcrowd the saucepan. When cooked the ravioli will float to the surface. Using a slotted spoon scoop the cooked ravioli from the water and place in a baking dish. Repeat with remaining ravioli. 6. While cooking the ravioli prepare the sauce by frying the onion in a lightly oiled saucepan on medium heat until transparent. Turn down the heat and add the semi-dried tomatoes (if using), the tomato paste and the water. Stir in the ricotta cheese until combined. 7. Pour sauce into the baking dish and stir so it covers the ravioli. Sprinkle over the grated cheese and place in the oven at 180deg until cheese is melted. Serve immediately.
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We’ve had problems with fruit fly in the past, ruining peaches, tomatoes and capsicums- now that we’ve got several fruit trees we want to ensure we actually get the fruit minus the grubs. So gross discovering fruit filled with squirmy, undulating maggots. And they are so sneaky too-fruit can look perfectly fine on the outside but still be full of grubs! I was looking for a product that would kill the grubs if they got into the fruit-but it looks like these sorts of sprays have been discontinued. The products available for battling fruit fly seem to be attractant type sprays designed to lure in the adult flies and poison them. They are applied as a spot sprays around the garden, or used in traps. The traps available looked a bit ugly-like plastic kitchen jars, so I decided to get some glass bud vases to try these out instead-they seem to be similar to the fly traps with only small holes at the top for entry. They look a bit nicer hanging around the garden-so hopefully they’ll be effective. I’ve filled them with Yates Natures Way Fruit Fly Control, so far they don’t look to have caught any flies-but maybe we don’t have any in the area yet, there’s been no grubs in the passionfruit and mandarins that are ripening. I also got some exclusion bags from Green Harvest for extra protection-they are meant to stop the flies from laying eggs in the fruit. They suggest the bags may also help protect fruit from birds too which would be very handy. I only have a bag on one of the blueberry bushes for now-protecting our bumper crop of just two fruits. We finally got our first blossom after the cold snap this week! We’d started thinking we wouldn’t get any because winter had been so warm. It’s on the peach tree-and there seems to be lots more buds getting ready to open. Hopefully the cold will stick around for a bit and the buds will develop into fruit. I’ll try out the exclusion bags on these if they do start fruiting because fruit fly and birds LOVE stone fruit. We’d had four little figs on our fig tree when we got it-two fell off, not sure why, maybe just because of transplanting. The last two fell off this week with the help of a certain big puppies tail-dogs are so helpful in the garden! It’ll probably be better for the tree settling in without the fruit on it, but bit disappointing we won’t get to try a fresh fig. I've never actually had fresh fig before-but they look pretty.
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![]() "And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." William Shakespeare Archives
February 2017
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