This afternoon we wanted to celebrate the wonderful weather by doing a summery seafood dish for dinner! A blatant effort to beg the sun to stick around.
I also showed Mr T an episode of junior masterchef at Grampies and Nanna’s house today, and the kids were making pasta. It got me well and truly inspired to pull out the pasta machine, as we haven’t had fresh pasta (and therefore any pasta for that matter) in 3 weeks. So there we had it – our two main ingredients, seafood and pasta. And then, in a nostalgic mood, I thought – well, we better make it a mussel marinara. We had a wonderful meal in Naples, Italy after we visited Herculaneum – I ordered a delicious eggplant pasta dish for myself and a traditional Naples pizza for Mr T, while my parents ordered a big plate of mussel marinara to share. Well, Mr T ended up eating more mussels than anyone else – the first time he had tried mussels, and he was in loooove.
So off we went to the shops and came home with 10 mussels and 6 cooked tiger prawns. Made some pasta dough, got a tomato and eggplant sauce started, rolled out and cut the pasta dough, got the mussles started (we steamed them), put the pasta on to boil, and butterflied and fried the prawns quickly in some butter and garlic. I’ve started posting my recipes on the thermomix community, and the first thing I did after Mr T went to bed was to post tonight’s recipe on there. You can find it here.
Oh, it was heaven to have some fresh pasta again. I well and truly over-indulged. Have to get back in the pasta-making spirit, that’s for sure. I want to start experimenting with pasta flavours (not sauce flavours, but adding things to the actual pasta itself).
In other news, today was Sunday – market day!!! We love market day. I buy Mr T a quark pocket from the German Bread stall (and get a bit of eye candy for myself – the German guy who works there is very easy on the eyes!), and then we get on with the shopping. I bought lots of fruit and veg, some milk, etc… But lots of other exciting finds this week! I bought some delicious-looking meat, including a spatchcock – I am so excited to cook this, but unsure of what flavours I’m going to go with yet. I also bought some wonderful yoghurt made with the most delicious milk you will ever taste – unhomogenised milk to boot! I’m very excited to taste the yoghurt, and hopefully I can get my act together and use it as a starter for my own yoghurt-making attempts. I bought some more mangoes and strawberries, so tomorrow I’m planning to make some more of my beloved jam as we actually don’t have any in the fridge at the moment (isn’t that terrible?!?) and a friend has requested some.
And last but not least, I found some wonderful organic maple syrup at the markets which has inspired a wonderfully delicious idea of a dessert to make.
Lots of exciting projects ahead – I hope everyone else is starting off the week with as much cooking-enthusiasm as we are!!!
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