Cauliflower Cheese

Today I saw a gorgeous cauliflower at the market which screamed at me, "Cauliflower cheese!" This is a classic English dish that I first had when living in London.  The dish is simply cauliflower covered with a cheese sauce and breadcrumbs and baked briefly to get a nice crunchy surface.  The taste is smooth and mild and comforting.  I like to toss in some pasta which allows for maximum usage of all the luscious sauce.  Some crusty bread to mop up the sauce would serve the same purpose.

For the sauce, I decided to use my new favorite combination of cheese, namely, cheddar, parmesan and American, which I use for my macaroni and cheese recipe.  The classic is just to use all cheddar.  I usually use whatever combination of cheeses that I have in the refrigerator at the time.

Serves 4 as a main course

1 large head of cauliflower

½ cup breadcrumbs or pankko
250 grams pasta of your choice

Cheese Sauce

About 30 grams

3 tablespoons flour

half a liter Milk

200 grams Cheddar cheese plus a handful to sprinkle over
100 grams parmesan
5 slices American cheese

A couple shakes of Worsteshire sauce

1 teaspoon Mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

Take the cauliflower and cut off the dry end of the stem.  If there are any leaves still attached to the head, you can leave them on if they are nice and fresh, or cut them off if they are starting to get dried out.  Put the cauliflower whole into a big pot and fill with water at least halfway up the side of the cauliflower.  Add a generous amount of salt into the water, put on a lid and bring to a boil.  Throw the pasta into the pot. Let the cauliflower cook for the amount of time it takes to cook the pasta (around ten minutes) or until it is tender.  Using a large spoon, carefully take out the cauliflower and place into a baking dish.  Drain the pasta and pour it around the cauliflower.

While the cauliflower is cooking, make a standard white sauce.  In a saucepan, melt the butter and then add the flour.  Stir and cook for two to three minutes to get the raw taste out of the flour.  Add the milk slowly, stirring all the time until all the milk is added and there are no large lumps.  Don’t worry if there are a few small ones.  These will melt away as you stir.  Use a wire whisk if you feel the lumps aren’t going away fast enough.  Bring the milk to a boil, stirring continuously.  If you want this process to go faster, then heat the milk up before you add it to the pot.  Once the milk comes to a boil, cook it for a further two minutes until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.  If you feel it is too thick, you can add a bit more milk (or the water that the cauliflower was cooked in).  Add the cheese, the mustard, a few shakes of Worsteshire sauce, and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir until the cheese melts, taste, and adjust the seasoning.

Drain the cauliflower and put it in a baking dish (or use the pot that you boiled the cauliflower in, if it is oven-safe) to go into the oven.  You can either put in the cauliflower whole, which will make a nice presentation, or you can break it up into pieces, which will give you a higher crust ratio.  Pour the cheese sauce over the cauliflower. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs and cheese over.

.

Put the dish into the oven with the broiler and bake until the top is browned (about 10 minutes).

Options:  Sometimes I like to put some sliced tomatoes into this, in which case I lay the slices over the top of the cauliflower.

If you want the dish extra luscious, you can whizz up some fresh breadcrumbs, add a slug of olive oil and some fresh rosemary and throw this on top.

Quintessential Mac and Cheese

Gustaf and I decided to walk the perimeter of Sodermalm a couple of weeks ago, stopping at the Hornstull Marknad for sustenance along the way.  This market is a great place to try out the latest food trucks, including some of my favorites including burritos at The Good Gringo, sliders at Flippin Burgers, and crepes at Bon Coin. On this occassion, there was a lovely couple with a table set up serving macaroni and cheese.  It was such an unlikely thing to find at a Swedish market, we had to try it.  And it was wonderful.  Really wonderful.  Cheesy and creamy but not too rich.  It had a bread crumb topping and to top it all off, they drizzled it with some truffle oil and put some grated truffled cheese on top.  It made us very happy.  So happy, that I was a bit annoyed. OK, really annoyed. Up to this point, I had felt that I made a pretty good mac and cheese.  But this mac and cheese blew mine away.  Clearly I had to up my game.

On our walk, Gustaf and I discussed the qualities that made this mac and cheese wonderful. We decided that the following items were key:
1) The pasta needed to be cooked slightly past al dente.  Not mushy but yielding.
2) For crunch, buttery toasted bread crumbs for a topping
3) The cheese sauce needed to be silky and rich tasting but still mild with a good mouth feel. How would we achieve this?  I have always used a good quality aged cheddar for my sauce.  But in fact, cheddar is not a great melting cheese.  It has a grainy quality that keeps the sauce from being silky.  Finally, we decided that if we used a combination of aged cheddar, parmesan, and plain trashy American cheese, we might hit the right flavor and mouth feel.

Here is how we did it:

Serves 4 to 6 persons

Bread crumb topping:
3 to 4 slices white bread
25 grams butter
1/4 teaspoon dried herbs (like rosemary or thyme) or 1/2 teaspoon finely minced fresh herb
a pinch of salt

Cheese Sauce:
50 grams butter
5 tablespoons flour
3/4 liters milk
250 grams grated cheddar
100 grams grated parmesan
5 slices American cheese
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
salt and peppar to taste

500 grams pasta
Truffle oil, for an optional garnish

Make the toasted crumbs:
Prepare the crumbs by putting the bread in a food processor and blitzing until you have fine crumbs.  Mix the bread crumbs and herbs and salt together.  You can toast the crumbs in the oven or in a pan on the stove.
For on the stove:  Put the butter in the pan, with the heat turned up high.  When the butter is melted, add the breadcrumb mixture and toss until the crumbs are coated with butter.  Stir the bread crumbs in the pan until they are lightly browned and toasted.
In the oven:  Melt the butter in the microwave or in a small pan on the stove and toss the butter, breadcrumbs, salt, and herbs together until all the crumbs are coated in butter.  Pour the mixture onto a baking sheet and put in the oven at the highest heat or with the broiler/grill on.  Cook, stiring occasionally, until the crumbs are a golden brown, making sure you keep a close eye so that they don't work.
Set the crumbs aside to cool.

Cook the pasta:
Put a big pot of water to boil.  When the water comes to a boil, add a generous amount of salt and the pasta.  Bring the water back to a boil and cook it for the time as directed on the pasta box.  Taste the pasta and cook it one to two minutes longer, so that it is slightly past the al dente stage.  Drain, the pasta, reserving a cup of the pasta water, in case you want to thin the pasta sauce.

Making the cheese sauce:
While the pasta is cooking, you can make the sauce.  First grate all the cheeses and set aside.

With a pot on medium heat, melt the butter.  Add the flour to the butter and stir until combined.  Continue stirring for a few minutes. Add the milk and stir quickly with a whisk to get out the lumps. As you add the milk, the sauce will thicken quickly.  Just keep stirring. Don't worry if the sauce seems a bit grainy.  As you continue to stir, the sauce will become smoother.  Continue stirring until the milk comes to a boil and thickens.  I alternate between a whisk to keep the sauce smooth and a spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan.

Once the sauce starts to boil, turn down the heat to low and add the cheeses, a pinch of salt and mustard.  Whisk until the cheeses are melted.  Taste and adjust the salt and add a bit of pepper.

Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta and mix until all the pasta is coated.  If the sauce seems to thick for your taste, then it with a bit of the preserved pasta water.

To serve, scoop out some of the mac and cheese into a bowl. Sprinkle with truffle oil, if desired.  Sprinkle on a generous portion of buttered crumbs.  Eat while hot.

Chinese Cold Sesame Noodles

I am not sure how Chinese these noodles are but they serve them at every hole in the wall Chinese take-away place in New York city. 

These should be eaten from a paper cartoon, in your pajamas, with your best friend, watching TV or perhaps having a good gossip.  Shoebox-sized, cockroach infested apartment, optional.

½ pound (250 grams) dried egg noodles

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 cucumbers, peeled, and cut into fine strips

1 carrot, peeled and cut into fine strips

A few cabbage leaves, cut into fine strips

2 scallions, trimmed and minced

¼ cup minced cilantro

1/2 cup tahini

1/2 cup peanut butter

2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar

1 1/2 cup chicken broth 
(or water with one chicken bouillon cube)

2 teaspoon soysauce

1 to 2 tablespoons sugar, depending on how sweet your peanut butter is

Black pepper to taste

Red chili flakes, to taste

Boil the noodles in a large pot of salted water until tender. Drain, and fill the pot of noodles with cold water, and then drain again.  Toss the noodles with sesame oil.  Cover and put in the refrigerator.

In a large bowl, combine the tahini, peanut butter, rice vinegar,
 chicken broth, sugar, black pepper and red chili flakes.  Whisk until smooth.  Taste and adjust the seasonings.  You can add a teaspoon more soy sauce if it needs more salt.

Add the cold noodles and toss until well coated.  Add the cucumbers, carrot, scallions, cabbage and cilantro.  Toss well and serve cold.

If you are planning to make this ahead of time, toss the noodles with a quarter of the sauce, so that it can soak in and flavor the noodles.  Save the rest of the sauce and the vegetables and toss together right before serving.  If you toss it all together, then the noodles will soak up much of the sauce and the dish will be a bit dry.

Simple Supper: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

My favorite canned olives are green Spanish olives stuffed with anchovies.  They come in a tall thinnish can and seem to taste the same, regardless of the brand.  You can't really taste the anchovies but they give a delicious "unami" flavor to the olives.  I generally keep a can or two in the cupboard to whip out if guests drop by for a drink.

This zesty pasta has the same "cupboard" mentality because all of the ingredients can usually be found in a well stocked larder. While most recipes for this famous dish use canned tomatoes, I prefer to use fresh ones, even in the winter when tomatoes are not that great. It makes the dish a bit lighter in flavor but by all means, use canned if fresh is unavailable or too fiddly for you.  You can also leave out the thyme and the dish will still taste great.  But if you can be bothered, the fresh thyme sprinkled on top adds a herbal note which contrasts nicely with the vinegary flavors of the olives and capers.

In the summer, this dish tastes fresh but comforting while in the winter, the zesty flavors lift tired palates. So basically, you are good to go, year round.


Serves 4
500 grams spaghetti or other pasta
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons fresh thyme, plus extra for garnish
8 medium ripe tomatoes
300 grams olives*
4 tablespoons drained capers
salt and pepper to taste
red pepper flakes, if desired
pinch of sugar if necessary
olive oil

Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta.  While the water is heating, start the sauce. Chop the tomatoes with the skins on.  Chop the onion and garlic finely. Chop the thyme.

Add a generous glob of olive oil to a frying pan and turn on the
heat to medium.  Add the onions and garlic and saute for a couple of minutes until translucent.  Add the chopped tomatoes and thyme.  Season with a bit of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, if you are using them.  Stir and let it cook until the tomatoes start to break down.  Taste and adjust the salt and pepper.  If the mixture starts to look a bit dry, you can add a dash of water or a bit more olive oil. If the tomatoes are not very flavorful, you can add a pinch of sugar to bring out some sweetness.While the tomatoes are cooking, chop the capers and olives.

When the water for the pasta is boiling, add a generous tablespoon or two of salt and add the pasta.  Bring the water back up to boiling, stirring occassionally and cook the number of minutes that is stated on the packet.  When the pasta is done, take a cup of the cooking water and set aside, and then drain the pasta.

While the pasta is cooking, add the capers and olives to the tomato sauce.  Stir and simmer for a minute.  Taste and check your seasoning.  If you like it a bit more zesty, you can add some of the juice from the olives or capers.  Let the sauce simmer until the pasta is cooked.  Toss the sauce and the hot pasta together, adding a bit of the pasta water if it looks to dry. Serve with hot, topped with parmesan cheese and a bit of chopped fresh thyme on top.

*If not using olives stuffed with anchovies, add 4 anchovies, finely chopped, with the tomatoes at the beginning.

Simple Supper: Roasted Broccoli and Lemon Farfalle

Although I think that there is nothing more comforting than warming stews and braises when blasted by the snowy days of winter, I sometimes feel the need for something a bit fresher and lighter on the tongue. Something that hints that Spring is coming. This dish fits the bill with the freshness of lemon adding zest to the broccoli and pasta.  The broccoli is roasted which gives a heartier flavor than if you simply sauteed or boiled it. Roasting vegetables in a hot oven like this, simply tossed in olive oil with salt and pepper, can transform even the most mundane into something lovely.  Try it with cauliflower, brussel sprouts, zuchinni, eggplant, and peppers! As a bonus, my kids almost always eat vegetables that I prepare this way.  As there is nothing so frustrating for a parent than preparing dinner and having the kids turn their faces away after a bite or two, this last advantage should not be taken lightly!

Feeds 4

2 to 4 heads of broccoli, depending on the size  (more perhaps than you think you need---it shrinks when it cooks)
1 onion
4 to 6 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
a few rashers of bacon, optional
500 grams of farfalle or your favorite pasta.
parmesan cheese to taste
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Put a big pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil.  Salt generously and throw in your pasta.  Cook the number of minutes as indicated on the box.  Take a cupful of the cooking water before you drain the pasta and set aside.

While the pasta is cooking, heat your oven to 225 C (450F).  Prepare the broccoli by cutting off the stems and breaking the heads into bite-sized florets. Don't throw away the stems! Cut the hard skin off and the inside piece is tender and delicious. The kids and I usually eat these pieces raw as I am cooking but if any survive, they can be roasted with the rest.  Put the cut broccoli onto a baking sheet and sprinkle very generously with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss to make sure that the broccoli is evenly coated in oil. Spread out in one layer on the baking sheet and put in the oven.  Stir once or twice while it is cooking.  They are done when they start to have some color and some bits take on a slight char.  It takes about 15 minutes, depending on the size of your pieces and your oven.

While the broccoli is cooking, prepare the rest of the ingredients.  Slice the onion in half and then slice again into strips.  Peel the garlic and slice. Slice the bacon into thin strips crosswise, if you are using it. Zest the lemon with a grater and then cut the lemon in half.

Heat a pan on medium high heat and put in about two tablespoons

or so of olive oil.  When the oil is hot, put in the bacon, if you are using it, and the onion.  Saute for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts taking on some color.  Throw in the garlic and stir. Cook further, stirring occasionally, but keeping an eye on the garlic because you don't want it to burn.  As soon as the garlic starts taking on a tiny bit of color (or starts to smell very aromatic) throw in some of the pasta water--about half a cup.  Throw in the lemon zest and squeeze in the juice of half of the lemon.  Stir, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to get any lovely caramelized bits into your sauce.  Season with salt.  You can add more pasta water if it all evaporates.

When the pasta is done, mix the pasta with the sauce in the pan and the roasted broccoli. Generously grate in some parmesan.  Toss to mix everything up.  While this pasta does not have much sauce, if it looks and tastes too dry, add in some more olive oil and pasta water.  Taste and adjust the salt, peppar, and lemon juice.

Serve hot with more parmesan and black pepper.  For those who like heat, some red chili pepper flakes would be lovely added into the sauce as it is cooking.

Simple Supper: Zucchini and Leek Pasta

"No onion," scolded my friend Jessica.  She had just come from Italy and was showing me how to make a zucchini pasta sauce that she had there.  "Ok," I replied, "but how about a little garlic, then?"  "No garlic," Jessica said exasperatedly, "Just the zucchini."  Jessica's sauce was very simple.  Just grated zucchini, sauteed slowly in a lot of olive oil until it melted down into a thick sauce.  On pasta with grated parmesan, she was right.  It didn't need anything else.  It tasted fresh, like the essence of summer.  However, in the middle of winter with zucchini out of season and without much flavor, Jessica's sauce would need a bit more.  I couldn't quite bring myself to put an onion in it, but surely Jessica could have no objections to a lovely leek?  And really, some garlic couldn't be wrong.  Of course some basil to add a bit of zest. This is fresh and yet warm and comforting.  A glimpse of summer for the winter.

Serves 4

2 to 3 medium sized zucchini
1 leek
4 cloves of garlic
generous handful of basil
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
500 grams of your favorite pasta

First, put a big pan of water on the stove for the pasta.  Salt generously once the water is boiling and cook the pasta for the number of minutes indicated on the packet.  I like to use a penne or farfalle pasta which will take up plenty of the sauce.

Meanwhile, prepare your vegetables.  Rinse off the zucchini and grate them.  Slice the leek in half.  Rinse carefully to get any grit from between the leaves.  Slice into rounds.  Roughly chop the basil.  Peel the garlic and chop.

Heat a saute pan and add a generous amount of olive oil, about 3 to 4 tablespoons.  When the oil is hot, throw in the leek and a pinch of salt and stir for about a

minute on high heat until it starts to wilt.  Throw in the garlic and stir for another minute.  Then add the grated zucchini.  Add another pinch of salt and stir.  Add some more olive oil if you feel it is getting dry.  Turn the heat down to medium and let the mixture simmer, stirring occasionally.  When the zucchini starts to break down, the sauce is ready.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and throw in the basil and give it a final stir.

Drain the pasta when it is cooked, saving a cup of the water. Toss the hot pasta in the sauce and stir until it is coating all the pasta.  I like to do this with a pair of tongs.  Add a bit of the pasta water if it seems a bit dry, and you can even add a bit more olive oil.

Incorporate about two tablespoons of grated parmesan into the sauce and stir.  Serve the pasta hot with more parmesan on top.

Simple Supper: Basil Pesto Pasta

I can still remember in the 1980s when basil pesto (pesto alla genovese) became fashionable in Los Angeles where I grew up.  Suddenly, it was on every restaurant menu and bottles of pesto appeared in the pasta aisle in the supermarket.  No one really knew how this mysterious sauce was made, but it seems to involve a lot of hand grinding, so the best course of action was to buy the jar, or even better, the sort-of-freshly-made-plastic-canister in the refrigerated section.  We didn't know any better and it tasted pretty good.  Fast forward to the 1990s and my first trip in Italy. There, in any grocery store, you could find a big bowl of what looked like freshly made pesto. Glistening bright green with flecks of cheese, this looked and tasted amazing.  It tasted reminiscent of the pesto of my childhood but better. A lot better.

Some years later, my best friend was married in Italy and the first course of her wedding supper was basil pesto.  It was served in the traditional way, with green beans and potato mixed in with the pasta.  It was so delicious that I had two helpings, despite that this was just the beginning of a five course meal.

When I finally made pesto myself, I was shocked to realize how

simple it was to make at home, and I find it now hard to understand how anyone could buy the jarred kind.   Perhaps the mystery lies in that you really need to have a food processor or what I like to term a "woozy woo", which is a mini food processor (if you don't have one of these, I suggest you buy one immediately).  If you don't have one of these two items, then indeed, making the sauce by hand in a mortor and pestle could be time consuming...although I bet it really isn't that hard...maybe I will try sometime.  In the meantime, here is how to make one of my family's favorite dishes.  I have substituted tomatoes for the potatoes in the traditional dish, which I think makes for a fresher dish.


Feeds 4 as a main course, 6 to 8 as a side dish

For the pesto sauce

2 bunches basil
50 grams parmesan
75 grams pine nuts
pinch salt
1 to 2 garlic cloves, according to your taste
about 1/3 cup olive oil

For the pasta
150 grams haricot vert
300 grams cherry tomatoes
400 grams spaghetti or other pasta

Garnish
grated parmesan
a sprinkle of pine nuts


Put a big of water to boil.  Don't forget to liberally salt it.

While you are waiting for the water to boil, prepare your pesto.  In

your food processor, put in a pinch of salt, the pine nuts, parmesan,
garlic and basil. Add in about half of the oil.  Pulse to mix.  If the mixture seems dry and is not grinding smoothly, add some more oil.  You want a thick paste that still has some texture.  You can always add more olive oil if necessary.  Taste.  It should be very flavorful. If it tastes a bit flat, then add a pinch more salt or some more parmesan.  If it is too strong, then add a bit more pine nuts to give it a creamier mellow taste.  Remember, though that the flavor will be very diluted by the pasta so it should be strong.  Set aside.

Prepare the green beans by chopping off the tops and tails.  I like to chop mine in half because it makes it easier to eat.  Slice each cherry tomato in half.

When the water is boiling, add in your pasta and cook for the number of minutes it says on the packet.  About 3 to 4 minutes before the pasta is done, put in the green beans.  When the time is up, take a mug or measuring cup and scoop out a cup of the pasta water and set aside.  Drain the pasta and green beans in a colander. Put the pasta and beans back in the pot (or in a big serving bowl) and pour over the pesto sauce.  Using a big pair of tongs, toss the pasta until the pesto evenly coats the pasta.  If it seems a bit dry, add a bit of the pasta water.  Add the tomatoes, and do a last toss.

Serve hot with more grated parmesan and a sprinkle of pine nuts.

New Year's Supper: Luxurious but Easy

This New Year, I felt for something special but really couldn't be bothered to spend the whole day cooking a dinner.  It would just be family, so I decided on a menu of foods that we really love to eat and to eat the way we love, by which I mean lots of little things eaten at the bar in the kitchen, rather than a sit down formal affair.

To start, we had Gravad Lax.  My father-in-law, a former butcher and fish monger pronounced it excellent, which is in my book, the highest praise possible.

Then, we had my version of Oysters Rockefeller.  This delectable dish is supposed to have been created by the famous New Orleans restaurant Antoine's and named after the then American's richest family.  There are many recipes out there but it is claimed that no one has recreated the original correctly.  I don't care about that, however, because my version tastes delicious and everyone that I have ever made it for has been equally entranced.

Up next was a dish of scallops that Peter recreated after eating them at the wonderful restaurant Fäiviken near Åre.  At that magical meal, we were served the largest scallops we had ever seen, from Norway we were told, served simply in its own shell with a bit of butter and set to cook over juniper smoke.  There really isn't a recipe for this.  You put a pat of butter into the scallop shell and put them over the BBQ which has been topped with juniper branches and let the smoke infuse the scallops, while the heat cooks them. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good photo of these.

Our main course was a pasta with lobster sauce, where I was trying to recreate the wonderful pasta I have had several times in Italy. The secret to infusing the sauce with lobster flavor is to fry the shells in the oil that you will use in the dish.  It is impossible to recreate the flavor of eating this dish while sitting on a sunny terrace in Italy, but I was pleased enough with the result to eat a third helping, which I do not advise but seemed a very good idea at the time.

Finally, we finished with some madeleines and a rich salted chocolate rye cookie, made famous by the San Francisco bakery Tartine, but which I had for the first time at the Green Rabbit here in Stockholm.  Do not think I was so ambitious as to make two desserts.  The madeleine batter takes just a few minutes to throw together and I had some left over chocolate cookie dough in the freezer, which I garnished with candied orange peel instead of sea salt.

After all of that, I could barely move, so I waddled over to the sofa and lay down, nursing my excellent glass of Quinta Do Vallado 10 Year old Tawny Port.  And fell asleep well before midnight. Which was fine by me.  Happy New Year!

 Oysters Rockefeller

Allow at least 2 per person, or 6 if you are greedy.

The hardest thing about Oysters Rockefeller is to shuck the oysters.  Luckily, Peter is excellent and this task and does it happily.  If you don’t know how to do it, you can find a good description here.

2 dozen oysters, shucked on the half-shell

One package frozen spinach, about 500 grams

150 to 200 grams bacon, diced finely

About 1 cup heavy cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan to garnish

Breadcrumbs to garnish

Heat some olive oil or butter in a pan on medium heat and add the bacon, diced fine.  When the bacon is cooked, almost to how you like to eat it, add in a big sploge of cream and the packet of frozen spinach.  Stir occasionally while the spinach thaws and cooks for a minute.  Salt and pepper to taste.  The spinach will let out a bit of water, so let the water cook down so that the cream is thick, about 10 minutes.  If you think it does not look creamy enough, add some more cream.  Be careful not to salt too much, because the oysters will be salty.  If you like, you can add the juice from the oysters into the spinach which will add both salt and bit of sea flavour. 

When the oysters are shucked, arrange them on a baking pan.  You can use the other half of the shell to try to stabilize them so that they lay nicely on the tray.  Put a good tablespoon or so of the spinach mixture on each oyster, smoothing the mixture over so that the oyster is covered.  If you have leftover spinach, it makes a good omelette filling for your breakfast the next day.  Sprinkle a bit of breadcrumbs and a generous layer of parmesan over each oyster.  Bake in a hot oven, about 220 C (425 f) for about 10 minutes or until the parmesan is nicely coloured and the spinach is bubbling.  Eat while hot.

Lobster Pasta

Serves 4 to 6 persons
2 cooked medium sized lobsters

4 to 5 tablespoons olive oil or butter

1 onion or a couple of shallots

4 garlic cloves

One packet cherry tomatoes (minus the ones your son ate during the day)

Zest of one lemon

Juice of half a lemon

Splash of white wine (or more lemon juice)

Large handful of fresh basil

250 grams of spaghetti

Salt and pepper to taste

Dried red chili pepper to taste, if desired

Remove all the meat from the lobster, reserving the shells.  Do this by splitting the lobster in half.  Pull out the tail meat.  Remove each claw by twisting and use a knive to cut the shells so that you can remove the meat.  Chop the meat roughly into bite sized pieces.  You can also get the meat out of each tiny leg by using a rolling pin along the leg but I usually can’t be bothered.

Heat a large pot of water, add some salt and cook the spaghetti according to the instructions.

Meanwhile, chop the onions and garlic finely.  Quarter each cherry tomato.  Chop the basil coarsely.

Heat up a large frying pan with 3 tablespoons olive oil.  Fry the lobster shells on medium high heat for a few minutes until you can smell the lobster scent and the oil takes on some color from the shells.  Remove the shells, shaking them to keep as much oil as possible in the pan.

Throw in the pan the onions and let cook on medium heat until translucent.  Throw in the garlic and cook for another minute, stirring to keep the garlic from burning.  Add in the tomatoes, lemon juice, lemon zest, splash of wine, and chili pepper, if desired.  Cook for about ten minutes until the tomatoes start to break down.  Season with salt and pepper.  

About two minutes before the pasta is done, throw in the lobster pieces and basil, reserving a bit for garnish and heat gently.  Add a further tablespoon or two of olive oil. Taste the mixture and correct the seasoning.  If the mixture seems to be a bit dry, add a few tablespoons of the pasta water.  When the spaghetti is cooked, add to the mixture and toss until the spaghetti is fully coated with the sauce.  Garnish with basil.  It is not considered “correct” to eat seafood pastas with parmesan, but add some anyway, if you like.

Lasagna Anyone?

I have just shoved two huge pans of lasagna in the oven after three hours of preparation. My shoulders, neck, and arms ache from all the chopping and stirring. Why so much lasagna, you ask? Well, it is because all my friends are having babies! I have two friends who have just popped the little ones out of the oven and I, helpful person that I am, said, " You must be so tired; let me please make you some lasagna to feed you and your hungry family." Then, a few days later, another friend had a baby, so I said, " I am already making lasagna, why don't I make a pan for you? It will be no trouble at all." So, I got up this morning, went to the store, bought ingredients and started cooking. How long could it take, right? I figure, the lasagna will be in the oven in an hour, and I will go running while it cooks. And the plus is that my family gets an excuse to have yummy lasagna for dinner, too. Three hours later, I am just finishing up. A huge vat of tomato sauce made with beef and pork sausage and flavored with rosemary and porcini mushrooms...and a huge vat of bechamel sauce with Parmesan...a hunking pile of grated mozzarella....Hey! This is starting to be work. Finally, I can begin assembling. I take out the pasta and realize with horror that I have bought the old-fashioned kind that must be boiled before layering up....oh god...well, here goes... OK, so finally I am done. But here's the catch....there was only enough sauce for two pans of lasagna...no lasagna for us for dinner! Peter comes in the kitchen as I am finishing up and hears the bad news. He sulks. It is sad to see a grown man sulk. I promise, I will make you lasagna with bechamel any time you want....just not today.