It seems we’re straddling the seasons right now with cool nights and still lovely warm days, so we’re trying to reflect this in the menu we’re preparing in the cottage: some lovely light dishes with fresh herbs and citrus, a few crispy and delicious fritters and also something heavier to make you think of open fires and warm jumpers…
So we’ve rolled handmade pasta into something light, fresh and slightly spicy with Sean’s linguine with rocket, lemon, parmesan and chilli oil – a big dish to get made from scratch although we cheat slightly by using the pasta dough made by the class before, and then when the linguine has been cut and the rocket ready, we make the dough for the next class. There is a lot to do in a short time but every class has managed to achieve the bowls of steaming hot and fragrant pasta well in time to eat it!
Another Bondi chef features on this menu too, with Bill’s famous sweetcorn fritters with avocado, lime and coriander salsa – a generous dad brought in a bag of avocadoes from his trees and they were fab mashed up with a little red onion too.
Autumn nights always make me feel like something a little richer, so we steeped some bay leaves in milk to whisk through polenta, and then added mascarpone and parmesan and finished with crispy sage leaves. Total comfort food – and totally gluten-free too! I reckon a slow-braise of lamb one weekend lunch soon would do just the job to match…
The Stage 3 kids have been talking in classroom activities about Asia, so to correspond with their lessons we’ve been wok-tossing Nasi Goreng – working out what the words actually mean – and also about how many languages put the noun first and the adjectives afterwards. And we’ve also been chatting about the nationalities that eat savoury food like rice and noodles for brekky instead of sweet cereal or toast and jam.
And finally we’ve been using up the popping corn we grew last term! The children have plucked and threshed the kernels from the cob, and made two flavours of popcorn: one with a rosemary and thyme oil, and the other with a spiced butter of cinnamon, smoked paprika and cumin. Delicious and fun… Sounds like the whole program to a tee!
Chooks: Thank you very much to the families that have signed up recently to feed and water the chooks or tuck ‘em in to bed! It’s great to have such community minded folk around!
Edmodo: do you want the recipes in advance of the lessons? Join the SAKGP group – ask me how!
The Bondi Cook 