Heavenly Caramelized Garlic and Goats Cheese Tart

If you do not already own an Ottolenghi cookbook - buy one today, any of them, all of them, it doesn't matter so long as you have one to inspire your own cooking. They are filled with recipe after recipe that you just want to make, each one such a perfect pairing of flavours and textures you wonder why you aren't eating them right now. If I am stressed I like to go to a foreign supermarket where I am so quickly distracted by the unknown ingredients with their exotic possibilities I relax immediately. If I am exhausted I have a hot bath and either read the New Scientist starting with the "feedback" page, or flick through a cookbook, not really reading recipes but absorbing the pictures and letting ingredients lodge themselves in my psyche. Recently I was  neck deep in hot water, holding Ottolenghi's "Plenty" aloft so as not to turn it into a soggy mess and this recipe caught my attention - caramelized garlic, soft goats cheese AND mature goats cheese in a flaky pastry shell, I was instantly relaxed... to the point of drooling.

Buckwheat 'Galettes' with Asparagus and Gruyere

Happy Pancake Day! If you think you have missed the boat on celebrating with a breakfast pancake, fear not... you have the whole day ahead of you. Years ago when I was still young enough for mum to cook most of our meals, she happened to be away and dad was left in charge of dinner. We all dutifully ate grown up food along the 'meat and three veg' lines every night, except one night when mum called just as we were sitting down to dinner and asked what we were having... pancakes with golden syrup. Sigh, we really should have just had pancakes every night.

 

In France beautiful savoury crepes made with buckwheat flour are called 'galettes', and are filled with cheese and/or ham and sometimes come with a cracked egg on top, the whites just set and the yolk all runny. Anyone who has ever had breakfast with me knows I cannot abide runny yolks. I would rather cook an egg until it doubles as a bouncy ball than chance softness of any sort, such is my loathing of oozing yolk. As such, I have not gone down the egg route, instead opting for a simple combination of asparagus, béchamel sauce with nutmeg and lots of gruyere topped with freshly cracked black pepper.
 

Silverbeet: Tortellini

I love pasta in all its forms - from packet angel hair that cooks in 2 minutes to a pasta bake that warms and fills... but nothing beats home-made pasta. It really is a completely different experience to dry pasta and can have super simple toppings yet still taste incredible.

 

I sometimes make ravioli with the filling below but had never tried making tortellini before, the 'belly button' shaped filled pasta. It was a learning curve and my first few looked like no belly button I have ever seen (or hope to see for that matter) but it did use up a lot of silverbeet and once I got the hang of it they turned out beautifully! 

 

Silverbeet: Tart with Blue Cheese

A tart or quiche is a great way to use up lots of leafy green vegetables - silverbeet, kale, chard, spinach (or anything green dying in the fridge), combined with cheese and cream they take on a whole new level of YUM. Tarts can be quite rich so you don't need a large piece to be satisfied, and served with a big salad it is just right for a spring time lunch...