Spring time orecchiette

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Springtime pasta

All the different produce coming out with the change of season gets me quite excited. I usually buy vegetables without meals in mind, and wait for inspiration to strike. When I realised that I had asparagus, broad beans and fresh peas, I knew that I wanted to throw it all together and have a little homage to spring. As a bonus, I also had ricotta, left over from the chocolate and cherry ricotta cake. This pasta made itself, really.

I am my harshest critic when it comes to my food, but even I thought this pasta was freakin’ awesome. 😀

This is my contribution this week to Presto Pasta Nights. Check out Presto Pasta Nights for more great recipes!

Spring time orecchiette

Serves 3-4

300g dried orecchiette or other pasta
400g fresh broad beans, podded
200g fresh peas, podded
Small bunch of asparagus (around 250g)
3 rashers of bacon
3 garlic cloves, crushed
200g ricotta
Salt & pepper

Bring a small pot of salted water to the boil, this will be for the vegetables. When boiling, add the podded broad beans and blanch for a minute. Remove with a slotted spoon into a bowl of cold water.

Return the water to the boil, and add the podded peas. Boil for 5-10 minutes .

While you’re waiting for the peas, peel the thick skin off the broad beans and set aside. It should take a few minutes to get through and by then the peas should be ready. When the peas no longer taste raw, remove them from water with a slotted spoon and add to the broad beans.

Put a pot of water on to the boil for the pasta and start cooking the pasta.

Snap the woody ends off the asparagus, and slice into 3cm lengths. Add the asparagus to the water and cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from the water and set aside with the broad beans and peas.

In a frying pan, fry the bacon to your liking. Remove and drain on paper towels, then cut into small pieces.

Wipe the frying pan with paper towels, then add and garlic on a medium-low heat. Cook gently for a few minutes, then add the vegetables and bacon and leave them on the medium-low heat to warm up, stirring occasionally.

When the pasta is cooked, drain, reserving some of the cooking water.

Tip the pasta into the pan, adding a couple of tablespoons of the cooking water. Add the ricotta, and stir it through the pasta, mashing it up a bit if necessary.

Taste, season with more salt if required, and finish off with lots of freshly ground pepper.

Chocolate and Cherry Ricotta Cake

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Chocolate and ricotta cake

The second sweet item for the inaugural barbeque was a chocolate and cherry ricotta cake. I adapted it from a recipe on taste.com.au which was for a Chocolate and Raspberry Baked Ricotta Cake. Essentially, it’s the same, except I used cherries instead of raspberries (der).

I had long ago eaten my frozen berry stash from last summer, but I did have a jar of cherries that I bought in a moment’s madness in Aldi. We hardly ever go there, but whenever I do I’m always amused by the weird stuff you can buy. Last time we were there, you could buy a petrol generator, or a portable foozball table, in case you needed more than just groceries and alcohol! Totally random, and that randomness must’ve influenced me to buy a jar of cherries that I didn’t need.

The cake itself is a contender for the ugliest thing I’ve ever baked. It was so ugly it was beyond ugly. It was fugly. I found the “batter” very thick, and had trouble smoothing it down. When I pulled it out the oven, I had concerns that it would be dry – it certainly looked dry! After we dished it out though, I was happy that my fears were unfounded. It had quite a dense texture, and you could certainly taste the tang from the ricotta. I didn’t think it was quite sweet enough, or taste chocolaty enough but it was still tasty. I would love to play around with the recipe and try it with some melted dark chocolate.

Chocolate and Cherry Ricotta Cake

Adapted from Taste.com.au

Ingredients (serves 8)

3/4 cup (165g) ricotta cheese
2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup caster sugar
100g butter, melted
1 cup hot water
1 cup pitted cherries (I used ones from a jar)

Cherry sauce
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup pitted cherries

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease and line base and sides of a 6.5cm-deep, 22cm (base) round cake pan with baking paper.

2. Sift flour and cocoa into a bowl. Add sugar, butter, water and ricotta. Mix well. Gently fold through cherries. Pour mixture into pan. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in pan for 5 minutes. Turn onto wire rack to cool.

3. Make cherry sauce: Combine sugar and 2 tablespoons cold water in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until syrup thickens slightly. Add cherries. Remove from heat and set aside for 15 minutes.

4. Cut cake into wedges. Place on plates. Spoon over cherry sauce & serve.

Malteser biscuits for an inaugural barbeque

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Malteaser biscuits

On what turned out to be a rather windy and chilly Saturday evening, we were invited to an inaugural barbeque at Ben and Lisa’s. The inital inaugural barbeque had been scheduled several months ago, but unfortunately the connector from the barbeque to the gas bottle didn’t, well, connect. This time, we were assured that the correct connector had been purchased, and some barbeque would be had!

So it was a rather special occasion, and in it’s honour I took along a couple of sweet things. One of those items was malteser biscuits and the other was a chocolate and cherry ricotta cake (to be blogged about later).

They’re quite straight forward, and contain condensed milk and chopped maltesers (I gave mine a good bash with a rolling pin). The recipe is from taste.com.au here. My only deviation from the recipe was to only add one teaspoon of vanilla essence rather than two.

The biscuits were soft and chewy, and particularly chewy in the parts that had malteser bits. If I’m going to be picky, I think they may have been a tad dry…. which was most likely my fault as I turned on the grill instead of the oven again. I didn’t even realise until the biscuits had been in the oven for 10 minutes. Still, I was probably the only one who noticed the slight dryness, judging by how quickly the biscuits got gobbled up!

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