Cyber Dinner Party at Chez DKG

Since I'm suffering from total writers' block and don't want to be bothering you with my anti Climate Change bollocks, anti Labor government rants (enough of that on FB) I thought I'd write about my other favourite subject right now: food.

So here are the two recipes I'd make if you were popping over for a quick Sunday night dinner. Strangely these were the two things I did actually make today; the former for our dinner, the later to bring to playgroup.

Pasta with Chorizo Seafood Tomato Sauce

500g packet of curly fettucine (or pasta of choice)
Big dash of olive oil
500g green medium prawns, peeled and deveined
400g firm fish fillets (I used red snapper), cut into 3cm cubes
2 chorizo sausages medium diced
1 clove garlic finely chopped
6-8 tomatoes peeled and chopped or 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes or combination of both
1 large mushroom or 4-6 button mushrooms finely sliced
Dash of GOOD balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs
3/4 cup vegetable stock or water
Zest of 1 small lemon

Cook pasta and set aside.
In a large pot (I use pasta pot) heat oil and add garlic and chorizo. Cook on low-medium heat for a couple of minutes. Turn up heat to medium and keep stirring. Add mushrooms.
Cook until chorizo is becoming crispy and mushrooms have cooked down. Be careful that garlic doesn't burn.
Add tomato, stock, vinegar, herbs and cook for 10 minutes or so, until the sauce thickens and tomato cooks down.
Add prawns and fish, mix through the sauce and simmer for about 5 minutes. Be careful not to overcook.
Once prawns turn pink and curl it's ready. Mix the lemon zest through sauce. Then the cooked pasta. Keep on the heat for a minute or two.
Serve with a sprinkle of parsley or coriander.

Chocolate Orange Tart

1 quantity Almond Shortcrust Pastry (I use the Thermomix - doh! - recipe)
125g Philly Cream Cheese, softened
300ml Thickened Cream
120g Chocolate (I used good quality dark chocolate)
2 Tablespoon Caster Sugar
2 large Free Range Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla essence
Zest of 1 Orange
Optional: Pear Jam or Marmalade

Roll out pastry and line an oiled tart tin (20-22cm).
Place baking paper on the pastry and fill with baking beads (??) for blind baking.
Bake at 200deg for 10 minutes. Remove beads and paper. Bake for a further 10 minutes.
Turn oven down to 170 deg.
While the pastry is baking make filling.
Melt Chocolate in the microwave - in 30 second bursts at 80% power.
When chocolate is melted whisk through sugar until smooth.
Add soft cream cheese and whisk until smooth.
Add cream, eggs, zest and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
At this point I spread the pear jam in a thin layer over the base of the tart, then pour in the chocolate mixture. If you're not using the jam just pour in the filling.
Don't over fill. You need a couple of millimeters of visible crust at the edge.
Bake for about 25-35 minutes. You want it to be set but not dry or cracked, it should still look a little wobbly in the centre. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, then chill.
If I have leftover filling I bake in oiled patty tins or muffin tins. It's yummy.

There you go. I hope you enjoyed dinner.

If you give these recipes a whirl let me know how they turn out. The tart is a bit fiddly but I love the Jaffa flavours. The pasta is a real winner, those flavours really zing along.

Bon appetit.

Thermomix and the meaning of life

Yesterday was a very strange day indeed.

It started with a plan to have a Vietnamese lunch in Cabramata with my sister and ended with a Thermomix in my kitchen and another major disaster in the world.

Next week is my birthday, the twenty second anniversary of the my twenty first birthday. My wonderful family (who only very occasionally drive me crazy) got brave this year and arranged a SURPRISE for me. Before I go on, it is necessary to say how difficult a task this was and how highly I rate this achievement. Surprising me is not an easy task for various reasons so I understand how much effort and stress it took to not only organise it but pull it off.

So yesterday I drove out to Warwick Farm to have my car valued for a possible trade-in and, after a couple of rather strange conversations with my sister, arrived home to find her and a strange lady and a large box waiting for me. I would have been less surprised had the box contained a naked Robbie Williams (a gift idea for next year...) but, in fact, it contained a brand spanking-new Thermomix, the kitchen machine of my dreams.

You may remember me coming across this masterpiece of kitchen engineering at the Tetsuya cooking masterclass I attended almost 18 months ago. It blew my mind then and I've been coveting it ever since. The price tag put it in the must have/can't have category and it has remained the glittering pinnacle on my wishlist.

And now it's here, in my kitchen, twinkling at me across the kitchen as I write; sitting smugly on my benchtop as if it's always been there. It is occupying the space where my KitchenAid lived until two weeks ago when it had to go to the KitchenAid doctor for a strange alignment problem it had developed. I very much feel like I'm cheating on my husband with Robbie Williams (at least I imagine what that must feel like, I'm willing to put the feeling to the test should the opportunity ever arise...). The KA will hopefully come home soon and my two best kitchen buddies will need to learn to share my love and the bench space.

However, I can now turf my kitchen scales (the TM weighs, you can reset it after each ingredient and then measure the new ingredient - i.e. 200g flour, reset, measure 100g sugar), my blender, my brand new ice cream machine, my stick blender.

The slightly manic Thermomix lady, the gorgeous Lynette, swooped into my kitchen, unloaded the TM onto my bench and within half an hour had produced a yummy soft serve style dessert called a Berry Dream, or some such, a bread dough, a cereal/crumble mix/topping type thing with coconut, apple, dates and nuts (yum!) and a risotto. She then swooped out again leaving me shell shocked (in the best way) and totally bewildered.

There are no sensible words to describe how excited and happy I feel to own such a wonderful piece of kitchen gadgetry. So lucky to have a husband who actually listens to me (who knew?!) and a family who steps up financially and logistically to make my Thermomix dream come true. Well done Big Jay, Jules, mum, dad, linesmen, ballboys.

But then I turn on the evening news and watch the horror unfolding in Japan and my excitement subsides somewhat. Watching the giant tide of water sweep over the landscape, smashing everything in its path, made me put our tiny human lives into proper perspective. Our little, busy ant lives are so important to us but so insignificant to Mother Nature and the march of time. I was overwhelmed with a monsterous tiredness as I watched and went to bed early, heavy with the knowledge that everything doesn't mean anything.

This morning the cloud has cleared. I awoke early, saying goodbye to Big Jay who left for his annual Coffs Harbour golf trip. Turning on the news momentarily brought back the depression (there should be a public service announcement if they're going to make you listen to JGull's dulcet tones at 5:30 am) but the realisation that Hawaii was still above water cheered me up somewhat. A cup of tea and a slice of the freshly baked Thermomix bread (toasted with avocado) brought up my spirits some more.

I've spent a couple of hours surfing the www in search of Thermomix recipes, blogs and communities and have found many. My TM, in future to be known as Theo (in honour of a very cool Mod I knew circa 1984), is smiling at me. A new culinary adventure begins.