Christmas and Fresh Pesto

I hope you don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this Christmas was the best Christmas ever! Not only did I get to spend it with wonderful Michael for the first time (of many) and get showered with presents but I also got to eat so much wonderful food.

Our family celebrates Christmas on the 24th so early Thursday morning Mum picked me up and drove me back to hers to enlist my help in preparing for the epic family feast.
My biggest job of the day was to bake a pavlova. I'd never made a pav before so I was a little apprehensive but it turned out delightful. Crisp 'n' brown on the outside, marshmallowy on the inside......or so I was told. I was really full of Mum's delicious Christmas parfait so I planned on trying some of the leftovers the next day. But then Mum took it back to the kitchen, tripped and...
...pavlova, meet cranberry sauce. No perfect pav for me.
Anyway, Christmas was awesome and there were plenty of lovely presents.
Today's installment focuses on three of my favourite presents: a George Foreman blender from Michael's devine mum, a pasta machine from the best cousin ever and a beautiful mortar and pestle from Michael.
For the longest time I've wanted to make pesto myself and now that I've got my little George Foreman I can! So I consulted Mum for a recipe...I'm not sure whether I should divulge family secrets but.....
I put the leaves of two bunches of basil in the blender, added 5 cloves of garlic and two handfuls of grated parmesan cheese and blended them 'til they were smooth enough. Mum told me I should add the oil in a steady stream while blending to get the consistency right but my blender doesn't have one of those holes in the lid for adding things while it's going so I just had to add a glug of oil and hope for the best. Then when that's done you add a handful of pinenuts and [the secret family ingredient] and pulse. You don't want the pinenuts to be ground up, you just want them chopped a little.
When I was done the pesto was a little thin (Mum says you should be thick enough to cut it), probably due to the way I added the oil so I ground up some more pinenuts and [secret family ingredient] in my new mortar and pestle and stirred them through the pesto.
The only problem is that, for the amount of pesto, there's too much garlic. It's enough to make you cross-eyed. Luckily Michael and I really like garlic.

Then it was time to bust out the pasta machine.
Mum says that when she's making spaghetti or any other long pasta she likes to make them with just the egg yolk. Her rule it 175g of flour to 4 egg yolks. Unfortunately I have no scales so I just had to gestimate. I think I probably ended up with about 375g of flour.
So you take your flour and dump it on a clean bench, make a little well in the top and start adding the yolks and mixing them through the flour. I used 7 yolks coz that's what I had. Mum says that at the end you should have a very stiff dough. I just had crumbs. So then I started adding a little water until it all came together. I don't know if that was right but what you gonna do?
Then it's time to start putting it through The Machine. You smoosh it a little flat, flour each side and put it through the rollers at the widest setting. Then you fold it in half, flour it again and repeat. You do this a couple of times 'til it's nice and smooth.I had to occasionally cut it in half so it was more manageable. Then you start feeding it through on the thinner settings. I did it once on 2, 3, 4 and 5, then jumped up to 7. After that it was quite thin enough, even though it goes up to 9.
Then I started with a pasta cutting (?)
Glorious!
I worked my way through all the dough and hung it all on the clothes horse to dry.
The pasta only took about 3 minutes to cook coz it was super fresh. Then you take about half a cup of the pesto and mix it with 1/3 cup of the water that the pasta cooked in and stir it through the pasta. Scatter with a few more pinenuts, parmesan and a fresh sprig of basil. Om-nom-nom!
Michael's final word: Yum! Oh my gosh! What a perfect treat waiting for me today! I've never had homemade pasta or pesto before and now I'm not sure I'll be able to eat the 'bought stuff' ever again. Sarah is truly a genius.
So I would like to truly thank everyone for all their wonderful Christmas presents that made tonight's dinner possible.
Happy New Year, y'all!
PS- Sarah's pesto is the besto (That made her laugh.)

Aromatic Stewed Tomatoes and Eggs

Some time ago I bought this awesome cookbook called Grub by Australian Jane Lawson.
It's all about food that she remembers from growing up and even if you're not in the mood to cook, it's great to flick through and read about why each recipe is special to her.
Unfortunately I've been really slack. Even though I've had this book for about a year and read it at least a dozen times I've never cooked anything from it. I decided that tonight was the night!
It wasn't an easy choice, there was the home made baked beans, coq au vin, a recipe for apricot chicken that didn't make me want to puke (alas, coriander), beef stroganoff...luckily Michael got home and made the decision for me: aromatic stewed tomatoes with eggs.I won't go into the recipe in depth, the story here is about all the new experiences it afforded.
It involved making a thick sauce of tinned chopped tomatoes, garlic, red onion, red chilli, paprika, red capsicum, lemon zest, basil, parsley, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar.
There were a few obstacles. Michael forgot the red onion ("there were too many ingredients that started with 'red' on the shopping list!") so I used brown to no ill-effect. The next hurdle was that I couldn't find my zester so I had to vegetable-peel slices of zest from the lemon and try to finely chop them. It was okay but I occasionally bit into a big ol' bit of peel that I'd missed.
The interesting part was that I've never cooked with fresh chilli before. I have a morbid fear of getting chilli ever since this one time when I was 10 and we were at a Vietnamese restaurant and I stuck my fingers in a bowl of raw chopped chilli and then accidentally rubbed my eye. All I remember was being in the kitchen with two waiters and one going "MILK IS GOOD FOR CHILLI!" and then them trying to pour milk into my eye.
Aaaanyway, I chopped the chilli with plastic bags over my hands. It was a little cumbersom but I've rubbed my eyes several times since and they're fine! HA-HA-HA-HAAA!
And about the paprika, it was really good in this. And I don't say that lightly, because I hate paprika. When I was young (yes, another story from my childhood) I was watching Oprah and she had a segment all about putting paprika on potato salad. She was all like "I didn't think anyone sprinkled paprika on their potato salad but then we got all these letters in from woman who sprinkle paprika on their potato salad." And then they had this procession of women with their various potato salads all sprinkled with paprika. Then someone was like "paprika's also really good on grilled cheese." So I tried it and it was gross and ever since I've hated paprika.
Anyway, I was brave and still put it in and it was delicious.
So once the tomatoes are all stewed and thickened up you crack 6 eggs straight into it, put the lid on and simmer for about 10 minutes and serve on hot buttered toast, garnished with fresh parsley and basil.
Deeeelicious!!
I remember Mum making something like this when I was very, very young so it tasted like home to me.
It even got the Michael seal of approval and he's not a big fan of tomatoes. He started by saying "I thought we were at home....not a fancy restaurant! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk." and then went on to say "even better than I though they'd be and I thought they'd be great!"

No leftovers.

Nachos

"They're mine, nachos." Max, Sam & Max.

Nachos, to me, are one of those things that you don't really get to eat until you're an adult...or at least in your late teens.
I remember a few much-enjoyed occasions when I was allowed to have them at a restaurant but other than that I never really ate them 'til my later years of high school. My boyfriend at the time and I used to eat them constantly and now that I think about it, his mum must've spent a small fortune on Doritos, salsa and cheese.
That was so long ago and there've been many a nacho since so I've pretty much perfected my technique. Now, you might be sitting there thinking "How hard is it to make nachos? Surely there's no technique or skill to nacho construction."

WRONG!!

Several months ago I decided to make nachos in the oven. If I had to pick the main mistake it would be the layers. In theory it sounds fine to do a layer of chips, salsa, cheese and repeat it a couple of times. You get even sauce distribution, plenty of cheese...what's not to love?
What I didn't foresee was the chips completely dissolving as a result of too much sauce. What we ended up with was a nacho casserole with 'hint-o-corn' flavour.
It was tasty but it wasn't right, dammit!!

So last night Michael and I were well into the lengthy process of choosing what to have for dinner when I though how good nachos would be. We set out to the supermarket to obtain our supplies.
Now, to me there are two kinds of nachos. You can go with Hasty Slapdash Nachos which involve buying all the ingredients pre-made and just throwing them together, or you can do Proper Nachos.
I myself am not a huge fan of store-bought salsa for nachos. It's too sweet...I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it. Needless to say, I made my own nacho topping last night and it went like this: 500g minced beef, cooked until brown. Add one 420g tin of chopped tomatoes and one 420g tin kidney beans, stir and then add a sachet of taco seasoning. I am well aware that using taco seasoning is cheating but I had it in the pantry and I happen to like it.
While that's cooking away you can make some guacamole.

"These would be great with guac-a-mole!" Zap Branigan, Futurama
Ordinary, plain avocado sliced or mashed is more than fine for nachos but for some time I've been dying to try making guacamole à la Nigella. I haven't watch the DVD in a while now but as far I could remember it basically involves lime juice and a lot of coriander. As you all know, however, my boyfriend won't tolerate delicious coriander in anything...and also there was none at the supermarket. All I did was mash an avocado with a generous squirt of Lazy Lime, salt, pepper, a couple of drops of Tabasco and a scant shake of garlic powder.
It was so delicious that it almost didn't make it onto the nachos. I had to keep testing it to make sure it wasn't poisonous. I am never having nachos without guacamole again!

So now we come to the exciting part, putting the nachos together.
You can do it however you like (who am I kidding, you're doing me a favour just reading this) but I've found that my way is pretty damn good.
Spread a small handfull of corn chips (plain, unsalted chips are a must!) on a plate and sprinkle with some mozarella cheese.
Pile more corn chips on top of the first cheesy layer. Now spread some of your beefy salsa stuff over the chips and cover with a further generous sprinkling of mozarella. Microwave on high for 2 minutes or until the cheese is gooood 'n' melted.
Now you add the guac' and obligatory sour cream. Garnish with coriander if you have some and enjoy!!!

Fun fact: Most 'Mexican' food we enjoy is actually what's known as Tex-Mex. Very few true Mexican recipes have cheese in them. This might be elementary to many Americans but it was news to me. Consult your local library for more information.

Nachos à la Sarah get Michael's "Om-Nom-Nom of Approval."