Strawberry fields forever

Or so it seems anyway!
Some of the new mounds that G has created for our strawberry plants. They'll get a topping of sawdust as mulch in due course.

Homemade pasta

At last I found the time and inclination to try out my new pasta machine. I made wide ribbons - pappardelle - I tried some dough through the cutting blades but the noodles turned out too narrow for the recipe I had in mind, I guess these are for making fettuccine and spaghetti. Anyway, once I had put the test dough through several times to clean the machine, and practice handling the pasta, I got started on making the noodles. The dough is just 1 egg and 100g flour per person, whizzed in a food processor until it comes together slightly then knead on a floured surface.

I made a simple pasta sauce using chopped red onion, a little chilli, some chopped smoked bacon, white wine, cream, sea salt and pepper. The pasta took a minimal time to cooked in boiling salted water (about 2mins). After draining the pasta I added it to the sauce, and served it with some grated parmesan and a green salad on the side.

The taste of the fresh pasta was amazing, much superior to using 'fresh' pasta from the supermarket. I can see this pasta machine will be getting a lot of use!

Tamarillo chutney

We were given a big bag of tamarillos the other day and as I had no homemade chutney or pickle in the pantry, it seemed the right thing to do with them was make up a batch. This recipe (a new one for me) was out of the tremendously useful book 'A NZ Country Harvest Cookbook', by Gilian Painter.

1.5kg tamarillos
500g onions
500g apples
1/2 cup crystalised ginger
2 cups vinegar (I used malt)
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp mixed spice

Peel and chop tamarillos, onions and apples. Put in large preserving pan with all other ingredients. Bring to boil and cook until thick. Pour into sterilised jars and seal. This quantity made 9 average size jars (approx 300g each).