Friday, August 11, 2006

Chocolate delights and pink honeycombs

I discovered my then 7 year-old son, JH's views of food and art only when I found pics he had taken of the food he had been eating. Unknown to me, he had used a freebie digital camera his grandpa had given him to take the pics you see here...ahhh...the beginnings of hedonistic leanings...


In case you were wondering, the first pic shows pink honeycombs which is actually the cereal he loved then....the following pic is oreo - Os, a chocolate cereal doused with a good helping of full cream organic milk. And for some reason, I don't know why he chooses only to photograph cereals and not other types of breakfasts...we do eat healthy you know...sometimes....

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Tasty Pasta




Have been battling over whether to continue my food blog since it only confirms my worst fears - that I am food obsessed! guess it helps when my 9 year-old foodie son, J encouraged me to push on!

Hungry and short on time, decided to do the pasta, with animal shaped pasta (ok, so...it was the only wheat free ones I have at present in my larder). Having an allergy to wheat does not make it impossible to enjoy a good plate of pasta. Au contrare, one of the better pastas in town, is a rice pasta made by i scotti, available at good supermarkets or Culina. It's very al dente and scrumptious with any viscous sauce that it mops up so quickly.

There's nothing quite like the smell of pancetta crisping in the saucepan when one is ravenous. Recipe below:

dried good quality pasta for 2;

3 tbs single cream;
handful of peas;

1 small onion

2 small cloves of garlic;

150g dry cured pancetta or bacon

handful of parmigiano reggiano, grated

handful of coriander and sprinkling of thyme

Cook pasta in pot of boiling water with some salt. Heat 1 tbs of oil in the pan. When hot, add pancetta and cook till brown and crisp on the edges. Drain on paper towel. Use remaining oil to fry onion and garlic till fragrant. Add peas and cream and simmer for 1 min. Toss in pasta, add bacon, salt and pepper to taste. Toss in parmigiano - I like to use the microplane grater which gives the grated cheese an airy texture. Toss in coriander and thyme and mangiano (let's eat)!