Ode to an Oak Tree: Mont Blanc with a twist!

Mont blanc is a traditional French dessert which is based on creamed chestnuts. Both chestnuts and acorns come from oak trees. Thus in tribute to this wonderful tree, and because I still had some acorn meal left over, this version of mont blanc combines these two ingredients.

Serves 3

Preparation time: 1 hr + overnight chilling time.

Ingredients

Base:

1/3 cup acorn meal

3 scotch finger biscuits

2 tbs brown sugar

1 stick butter

2 roasted chestnuts

Cream:

About 12 roasted chestnuts (see previous recipe for roasting instructions)

1 tbs butter

vanilla essence

2 egg yolks

1 cup milk

2 cloves

whipped cream

Instructions:

1. Crush all the dry ingredients for the base in a bowl with a pestle. Soften butter and mix through with fingers until mixture resembles course bread crumbs. Push into 3 well greased cups in a muffin baking tray. Chill in fridge for at least 1 hour.

2. Put chestnut meat with milk, sugar and cloves into a saucepan. Simmer for about 20 mins. Watch to ensure milk doesn't burn or boil over. Stir regularly.

3. Push mixture through a fine sieve. This is a good opportunity to fish-out any husks from the chestnuts remaining. Throw away cloves.

4. Mix into puree the egg yolks and melted butter. Pour into the 3 muffin cups with the bases. Refrigerate overnight.

5. Serve topped with whipped cream.

Warm Autumn Chestnut Salad

Chestnuts are somewhat of a novelty for me. So sorry if this isn't so 'exotic' as some of the other things i've posted here.

Serves 2

Ingredients

~ 10 chestnuts

handful of wild rocket leaves

2 carrots

1 potato

3 cloves garlic

olive oil

salt & pepper

fresh rosemary

Method

1. Roast the chestnuts. You do this by first cutting a cross on the flatter end of each nut. This stops it exploding in the oven. Then place them in a preheated 200 degree C oven for about 15-20 mins. If you put a sheet of baking paper over the top of the roasting nuts this might make cleaning the oven if any explode an easier task. The nuts should be a golden colour and fairly easy to remove from the shells when they are done.

2. Roast veggies, garlic and rosemary in a baking pan with olive oil on 200 degrees C (thus you can cook both the chestnuts and veggies at the same time if you want.

3. On a bed of rocket crumble some roasted chestnuts and roast veggies. Squeeze the garlic cloves into the oil the pan and mix. Pour some of the garlicy olive oil over the salad.

Serve as a side to a main dish. In the spirit of Autumn this would be best with roast venison or duck...or roo, just make it gamey :)

Red Wine Pasta

This is pretty simple to make, and worth the time. It tastes much, much better than dried pasta with bottled sauce. Oprah if you are reading this, perhaps this could be an example of 'cook yourself fit' because I think any carbs in the pasta would get burnt off with all the kneading and rolling!

Serves: 2
Preparation time: about 2 hours
Cost: Probably about $10

Ingredients
Pasta

250g plain flour
3 eggs

Sauce
4 roma tomatoes
1/2 a bottle cheap Aldi french red wine
basil
oregano
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
plain flour for thickening

Instructions

1. Start by making the pasta. Sift flour onto a clean bench. Make a well and crack eggs into it. Using your hands mix egg and flour. Knead until pasta dough feels smooth and elastic.

2. Wrap in cling wrap and put in fridge for at least 30mins.

3. Finely chop tomatoes. Heat some olive oil in a saucepan. Add tomatoes, garlic, herbs spices. After about 1 min add red wine. Simmer on low for 45 mins

4. Remove pasta dough from the fridge. Split into 2 balls of equal size. Knead each ball and then using a rolling pin roll as flat as you can. With a knife cut into long thin strips.

5. Boil water in a saucepan. Add pasta. It will be very quick to cook in comparison to dried pasta so watch it!

6. When pasta sauce is reduced down to about 1 1/2 cups take off heat. Sprinkle a small amount of flour. Return to heat and stir until it thickens.

7. Drain cooked pasta. Add sauce. Serve with cheese and fresh basil.

Other ideas: this pasta recipe can be used to make all sorts of pasta. Make lasagna or ravioli using spinach and home-made ricotta (see recipe below).

A Purist's Shopping List

It has been a bit of an obsession lately of mine to get my shopping list down to only the essentials (plus any gathered foods I find) from which I then make everything I can from scratch. It is fun, satisfying, healthier and cheaper (and because of that if you wanted it probably would be affordable to opt for organic versions of everything).

It might take a little bit more time, but often most of the time making basics is spent rising, setting etc. Thus it takes longer to have the finished product, but while you wait you can do other things. So it is just a matter of planing and setting a routine whereby you make things to set overnight every few day etc.

So here is my current shopping list (many of these things last for ages or can be bought in bulk, thus this doesn't represent a weekly shopping list, just what you would have to buy to set yourself up to start this particular lifestyle):

- fresh fruit, veggies and meat (bought from a local market if possible)
- a variety of dried beans and lentils
- eggs
- butter
- oats
- milk
- milk powder (for yoghurt making...but not essential)
- brown sugar
- caster sugar
- bakers flour
- plain flour
- baking powder
- herbs and spices (including salt and pepper)
- vinegar
- red wine
- dried yeast
- nuts and dried fruit

From this list you can make pasta, bread, croissants, cakes, muffins, yoghurt, jams, preserves, ricotta, musesli... the list goes on.

Ricotta

I'm posting this on request. Note I didn't invent this recipe (like i did the others). The following will make about 1-1 1/2 cup of ricotta.

Ingredients

2L milk

1/4 cup vinegar

2 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Heat milk to 83 degrees C (or just before it starts to boil).

2. Add vinegar. Stir mixture ever so slowly :1 cm every 10 sec or so for a maximum of 1 min. Add salt.

3. Allow to cool for 2 hours.

4. Put a cheese cloth in a colander and pour in mixture. This will catch the curds and let through the whey. Let strain for about 1/2 hr.

5. If the liquid that goes through is still milky then return to the stove and heat until it fully separates and the liquid appears yellowish and clear. Pour through cheese cloth to add to the curds.

6. Squeeze the cheese cloth until ricotta is the amount of dryness that you would like. Scoop into a jar and refrigerate.

Ideas for Using Your Ricotta

- Lasagna from scratch. Make the pasta for it as well (let me know if you need the recipe too).

- Makes a yummy breakfast on toast (even better when you've made the bread too) with cinnamon and sugar.

- There are some tea cake recipes that use ricotta. It adds nice moisture and creaminess.

New Lessons Learnt:
This is one recipe that can be made using long-life milk (even the $1 Aldi stuff). I have done this with skim, but I suspect you get more ricotta from full-cream milk. The process can also be sped up a lot. It isn't necessary to leave it for a full 2 hrs to separate. 20mins is actually enough. Even though it will still be hot drain it through the cheese cloth. The liquid will still be milky so then bring the liquid to the boil and it will fully separate. Now drain the additional curds through the cheese cloth and then with the help of a teatowel to protect your hands from the heat, squeeze the excess liquid out. This way you can probably make your ricotta in a fraction of the time. I haven't noticed any real difference in the quality (although fresh milk is a little better than long-life...don't use powdered milk it won't work).