Tony Meloney - my signature dish

If you know how much we like naming our meals & how much I like to try & get my name in all my puns.... then this meals name will come as no surprise. It was originally going to be called Mel-alonni. But as it was orginally inspired by a recipe in the Tony Ferguson cookbook, I thought Tony should get a mention too.

It's really like making spinach & ricotta cannelloni - except you use eggplant in place of pasta. I use one big eggplant & cut it into strips & bake them in the oven until they are soft. I never bother with salting eggplant before use.

In a bowl I mix one bag of thawed frozen spinach & a 500g tub of cottage cheese. Then, I spoon it onto the strips of eggplant & roll them up.

I like to cook some mushrooms in a pan & then pour them over the top, before adding the tomato sauce (see: All Goodfellas deserve good tomato sauce). Cover with lots of delicious cheese (tasty, parmesan, whatever) & bake until it bubbles and the cheese looks too good to resist any longer.

All Goodfellas deserve good tomato sauce

One of my favourite movie food scenes is from Goodfellas, where Paulie slices garlic with a razor blade while making tomato sauce in prison. If they can make tomato sauce in prison (& 100 other things in a rice cooker) there's no reason you should be using tomato sauce from a jar.

This is how I make mine & it changes all the time, depending on what we have at home. But basically you just need two tins of tomatoes, an onion, sugar, olive oil, salt & wine or balsamic vinegar.

After heating a generous amount of good olive oil in the pan, add your finely chopped onion. As it cooks, cover it with about a teaspoon full of sugar so the onions caramelise. Yum!

When they're cooked, add your tomatoes. From now on, you just have to keep checking the flavour and that you have the right balance of sweet, salty, & acidic. So just keep your sugar, salt & cooking wine or balsamic vinegar nearby & add as needed.

In the picture above I've added porcini mushrooms - including some of the water I soaked them in. You of course can add basil, pesto or capers or a bit of chilli.

Spaghetti with shiitake & asparagus

Another shiitake pasta creation, this time with spaghetti & asparagus. You can buy shiitake fresh, but we often pick them up at the asian grocer dried. They come in vacuum packed bags & you can choose from lots of different types of mushrooms, as well as buying them whole or sliced. If you buy dried mushrooms, just cover them in hot water to reconstitute them. Drain before adding, but keep the water you soaked them in as it can be used to add flavour to your dish. If making soup, just throw the dried mushrooms in as they are - they will come back to life as they cook.

When Jonathan cooks pasta he likes to use some good quality vege stock to add flavour. I love a bit of chilli too. Even if you put the tiniest bit for those who don't like it it will add a nice interest to your dish.

Having pasta, dried mushrooms & semi dried tomatoes in the cupboard means you can always have a nice vege meal - even when you feel like you have nothing to eat! The chives on this dish were grown in a pot on our balcony & are a nice change to having basil & tomato all the time. Speaking of tomato, this dish has fresh tomato cubes in it - they add nice moisture without making your pasta too soupy.

Baked feta & rosemary parcels - my current fave

This is Jonathan's latest creation: baked feta parcels. Inside each baking paper parcel is feta, roasted with lemon slices, capers & rosemary. The fragrances that waft out when you open your parcel are devine! Served with roasted tomatoes & broccollini, this is heaven on a plate. The broccollini goes a bit crunchy on the ends & is topped with this delicious red pesto we get in the fridge at the supermarket. The tomatoes are roasted with balsamic & have garlic cloves pressed into them. I think this night we had half a roasted field mushroom each too. 

If we have no feta, Jonathan will use haloumi instead. Sooo good!

Some kind of medley magic

Another bit of Jonny magic in the form of a delicious roast dinner. We had tomatoes roasted in balsamic with garlic cloves in them; broccolini with parmesan & pine nuts with roasted eggplant.  All this served with field mushrooms, one stuffed with semi dried tomatoes & capers and the other with gruyere cheese. All topped off with a touch of cottage cheese with black sesame seeds. 

Upside down apple crumble with walnuts & ice cream

Jonathan created this dessert on one of those nights when it felt like we had nothing in the cupboard. He went into the kitchen & a few minutes later, came back & presented me with this: a kind of golden poached apple crumble with walnuts & ice cream. He poached the apples in butter, cinnamon & nutmeg. Then in the pan, he made the crumble topping with rolled oats, coconut, brown sugar & heaps of butter. Next he added some toasted walnuts before mixing through with vanilla ice cream. I'm not sure the phrase 'necessity is the mother of invention' was coined for this moment, but I do believe that sometimes the best recipes come from when you have nothing to eat!

The rice you have when you don't want rice

This makes a delicious alternative to rice - for two people we use half a cauliflower & break it into small pieces. Then we put it in a bowl & use the bar mix to break it up, but a food processor would do. Try to leave some nice size pieces for texture and add about a teaspoon of a good quality vege stock powder to give some flavour (not cubes). Heat in a pan & use as you would rice. That is, as a base for curries or stir fries. I'm not a huge fan of cauliflower & wouldn't normally eat a lot of it. But doing it this way gives a really yummy flavour base to whatever you put on top. Bon appetit!

Shiitake mushroom linguine

Shiitake mushroom linguine

This was made by Jonny, based on a recipe from Tetsuya's cook book. You can use oyster mushrooms or any other yummy fresh variety. I really think mushrooms are my favourite vegetable. The key things that make it magic are cooking with sake, mirin, black sesame seeds & pinch of chilli powder.

Jonny's pear & raspberry bread

I'm not sure I can even tell you how delicious this bread is - what really makes it is the brown sugar that goes yummy & crunchy on the top. Jonny used a banana bread recipe from the net and changed the 'theme' ingredient. 

The secret of baking loaves, or any baking for that matter, is to just combine your batter, being careful not to overmix it. Don't be too concerned if the mixture contains little dry spots - if these spots are visible, you have combined the ingredients to just the right stage. Overmixing works the gluten in the flour and the resulting loaf will be tougher and drier as a consequence. 

Ginger & lime creme brulee

We first had this delightful dessert at Tetsuya's in Sydney. Jonathan made this version when his Mum bought us the cook book..... the use of fresh lime juice & zest is really good with the fresh grated ginger. Of course burning the sugar on top with the blow torch so you have a hard top to crack with your spoon is just the icing on the cake.

Wild Mushroom Soup

Yum! If I do say so myself....I made this from a recipe from a certain UK nude chef... & styled it like the picture in his cookbook. Easy & delicious. You can make this with any wild mushrooms, blend half and add back to the soup. Then, top with some marscapone & a little bit of lemon zest. Finally, if you like it (or love it like we do) add a couple of drops of truffle oil.