Food Archives - Page 6 of 19 - Studio Sixty Photography

We work a lot of nights. Close to five a week. I should say that it is par for the course that when people want to meet us it is either on a weekend (when Jason is shooting weddings – not possible!) or at night, after work. This means that I often don’t get started cooking dinner until close to 9pm. As you can imagine that makes for a lot of quick silly meals like a handful of dried peaches and some cheese and crackers, or (my personal favourite) take away. Now that swimsuit season is upon us (why oh why!!!), the frequency and amount of take away has so got to stop! My goodness!!! Wobbly things are starting to take root on my thighs and stomach that are truly frightening! So I decided that the ~~only~~ best course of action was to cook a whole bunch of healthy things and freeze them in calorie controlled portions so, late at night, we can just grab something, stick it in the microwave and PRESTO – a home cooked dinner without the ~~delicious~~ extra fat and calories. That was what I was meaning to do but, when you see the recipe I have listed below you couldn’t really call it ‘diet food’. Oops – it looked so good in the recipe book that I had to give it a go. Next week will be better, I promise. Baby steps here guys…baby steps!

Baked Pasta with Sausage and Silverbeet (adapted from Bill Granger‘s Bill’s Basics)

400 gms pasta (I used shell shapes but you could use rigatoni as well)

200 gms silverbeet, cleaned and roughly chopped

1 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra to drizzle

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 red onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 teaspoon dried cilli flakes

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

6 sausages (the coarsest you can find), meat removed from the casings

10 cherry tomatoes

200 gms fresh ricotta

a small handful of grated parmesan cheese

Cook pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water until al dente. Add the chopped silverbeet for the last 30 seconds to blanch it and then drain and tip into a large baking dish. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and add the onions and garlic and fry for 2 – 3 minutes or until translucent. Add the chilli flakes and fennel seeds and fry for 10 seconds to release the flavours. Add the sausage in little clumps and cook, flipping the ‘meatballs’ from time to time, until browned. Once browned and cooked through, add the wine cook until no liquid remains. Add the sausage mixture to the pasta and stir together. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and dot throughout the mixture. Break the ricotta up and sprinkle over the top and then scatter with parmesan cheese. Drizzle the extra olive oil and place in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes.

Now huddle up people, gather round, I need to let you in on a little secret. Before you even attempt this recipe let me warn you good and proper – it is not for the faint hearted. It is four, full hours and four, heavy kilos of sweat, tears (and trust me – there were tears) and pain. You’ve really got to hand it to the French, they have a knack of managing to make something as humble and simple as a soup, an almost operatic experience. I mean, have you ever thinly sliced four kilos of onions and then sweated them in and world of butter and their own juices for over four hours? Not only that they need to be stirred every 20 minutes of those four hours – to help with the caramelising process!!! If that ain’t opera, I don’t know what is?

I made this soup for a dinner we recently had with a bunch of friends who are all crazy into cycling. For some reason unbeknownst to me, we are making our way through every cycling film ever made and this night it was The Triplets of Belleville, a crazy animated film about a mother searching for her son who was kidnapped from the Tour de France. As you can see from the photo I even dressed for the part – I love a good costume party! Although everyone enjoyed themselves, and raved about the soup, I just could not get over the four hours of stirring and sweating, FOUR WHOLE HOURS!!! Just thinking about it now makes me need a lie down…so, it is with trepidation that I give you this recipe. Please don’t blame me if, at the end of cooking it, you would rather throw it at your guests than serve it. You have been duly warned. (And also remember, as with all recipes that use only a few ingredients, make sure you use the best you can – as it will really show in the end result.)

French Onion Soup

200 gms butter, coarsely chopped

4 kgs onions, thinly sliced

2 litre or 4 cups beef stock

8 thyme sprigs

6 parsley stalks

2 fresh bay leaves

16 slices of baguette cut on diagonal

500 gms coarsely grated Gruyère

Melt butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan over medium heat, add onions, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes or until onions are soft. Remove lid and cook slowly for 2 hours or until soft and starting to caramelise. Stir at approximately 20 minute intervals so the onions won’t burn. Add stock, half a cup at a time, and simmer for 5 minutes or until stock has almost evaporated. Repeat three times more until 2 cups of stock has been added. Using kitchen twine, tie herbs together, add to onions with remaining stock and season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer, scraping the base to remove any caramelised bits, for an hour or until thick. Makes 8 cups.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius. Ladle soup into an oven-proof casserole dish and transfer to an oven tray. Scatter with half the cheese, top with baguette slices and scatter with remaining cheese. Place in oven and cook for 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Serve immediately.

Health Food

French Onion Soup

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