The secret to this dish is quality ingredients in the pasta and the ricotta. Pay that little bit more or even better make your own of both.
Super quick, easy and frugal for a Friday.
cook up some great pasta
stir through some excellent ricotta
in a pot add some
local garlic and olive oil
quickly stir through some
frozen peas or if you are lucky, fresh ones
pop that on top of your pasta
and roughly rip some garden mint on top
and eat with gusto.
I live in a small space in a big city. A small space that when required to hide something my options are sometimes limited. However when I’m not required to hide something, and instead something goes missing that small space can feel quite large. Cavernous even.
You see I lost my cups.
My newly bought cups. I know I had stashed them somewhere ‘safe’ for a small period as I wasn’t quite ready to use them; but when it was time to use them, alas not a cup to be found.
I searched high and I searched low. I pulled everything I owned out and then back in again, only to be repeated again the next day. It was doing my tiny brain in. WHERE did I put those cups!?
If we had a cat I would have blamed whiskers, but we didn’t so the next most likely choice was the pint sized one. Surely she must have put it in a box or something and somehow that same box had grown legs and walked out. Surely it was the only possibility?
So I had to buy more.
The cups were clearly not coming back and we really needed some new drinking cups for the kids. I felt a little embarrassed, but clicked pay and now and a couple of days later, there they were. In all their enamel loveliness again, ready to be drunk from.
Along with the cups, I’ve also been enjoying the baking dishes I bought the first time around as well. I’ll tell you why I love them-
– they’re light weight, which means they don’t have a hefty weight when food is cooked in them like ceramic or glass can do
– they are stackable
– they easily live inside my oven when it’s not being used
– and size wise, I have options. After so many years of no options, I’m loving this one to bits.
When I first considered getting these dishes, I wasn’t entirely sure you could bake in them. I’d always associated enamel ware with camping, or the dogs dinner bowl. Happy to say that association has now changed, you can definitely bake in enamel ware and just quietly…I’m loving doing so.
[My enamelware was bought through the lovely Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores... *ahem* both times. And yes, the other cups turned up as well. Turns out the pint sized one didn’t hide them in a box, her mother did… I now have ten of these cups.]
farmers market cherries and rhubarb 1000g (roughly half and half)
300g sugar
300mls water
2tbls cornflour
Pastry
150g cold butter
50g sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
300g plain flour
1 tbls cold water
In a pot cook the fruit, sugar and water up until softens. Add the cornflour with a tablespoon or so and add into the mixture. Stir through and cook for a further 5 or so minutes. If there is visabally too much excess water just drain a little off for drinking, this will depend on the fruit your are using. Once cooked, stand this mixture aside and begin on the pastry.
In a blender, pulse flour, sugar and butter until resembles bread crumbs. Tip out to a bowl and add vanilla, egg yolk and cold water. Knead lightly until it comes together to form a dough. Wrap in glad wrap and chill in the fridge for about half an hour. Then roll out for your pie shape.
Pop the fruit mixture in and bake for about 35 minutes at 180C.
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Once more Friday rolls around and there is not much left in the fridge. Not quite so little as to go shopping but not quite so much as to have many options. What to do with some organic pumpkin, carrots, and some flaccid celery and still get the monkeys to eat it? Carrying on from the Indian theme from last Friday, I think it was going to have to be dhal. Add a little red lentils, vegetable stock, some garlic, a fistful of spices and I had myself a tasty, healthy, budget friendly, monkey friendly dinner. Add a little natural yoghurt on top, and some fresh naan bread and dinner was done for ‘Frugal Friday’.
Naan bread I had tried to make a number of years ago, with the end result being little hard round bricks. That was the last time I had attempted them. Naan bread being a firm favourite here and with an excellent little Indian take away around the corner to happily oblige us when the taste for naan over comes us.
But not today. I wanted to give it another crack…..
160ml warm water
1tsp dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbls oil/or ghee
2 tbls yoghurt
Mix the water, yeast and sugar together in a bowl until dissolved. Leave in a warm place for 10 minutes. Add flour salt, half the oil and yoghurt. Mix to a soft dough then knead on floured surface until smooth and elastic.
Place dough in a bowl with wet tea towel over the top in warm place for approx 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.
Knead dough on floured surface for 5 minutes, then divide into 6 portions. Roll out into rounds. I pulled one side to get the traditional ‘teardrop’ shape that you would get if cooking in a tandoor oven.
Cook in a very lightly oiled frying pan and pop the frying pan under the grill to get those distinctive brown puffy circles to finish it off. Brush naan with remaining ghee or butter.
cityhippyfarmgirl 