Spelt Pasta with Sweet Potato, Spinach and Ricotta Filling

Easy to make, freeze in to bags ready for a quick dinner.

Make a batch of pasta dough by mixing 300g of spelt flour with 3 eggs and 20g of olive oil in the thermomix. Knead for two minutes, then wrap in plastic for ten minutes to rest.

Steam 3 small sweet potatoes and a couple of big handfuls of spinach, mash and combine with 200g of fresh ricotta, an egg and plenty of salt and pepper.

Roll your pasta dough through the machine, in small batches. You want to get it down to the smallest setting, so just do a small ball at a time.

Lay it on to tea towels, covering as you go.

Once all done, cut in to triangles and place 1 teaspoon of filling in each centre, run a wet finger along each edge, then bring each corner to the middles, pressing edges as you go. This will form an odd pyramid shape. Bend edges down and tuck in a little. Very hard to explain and no matter how you do them, so long as the edges are sealed, that is all that matters!

Only make a few at a time, keeping the rest of the dough covered to stop it drying.

Scatter flour on a tray and add pasta shapes to the tray, sprinkling liberally with flour as you go to stop them sticking.

Freeze on the tray, then shake off and transfer to a zip lock bag to store in freezer. This made just over 1kg of pasta shapes.

To cook, bring to boil a big pot of salted water, add a few at a time once boiling. Once they rise to the top, after a few minutes, they should be cooked. Serve with your favourite sauce, or with a splash of olive oil and parmesan and more pepper.

Quiche? Or Tart? Leek and Cherry Tomato Pie-Type-Thing

What makes a tart a tart and a quiche a quiche? Incredibly easy, awesome for leftovers, here is one way of using up the cherry tomatoes my lovely neighbours give me when I am all bruschetta’ed-out.

 

Make 1 and 1/2 batches of thermomix pastry, I use spelt flour for this.

• 300g spelt flour
• 150g butter

Speed 6 for around 10 seconds.

Add 1/2t salt and 80g chilled water, bring together on speed 6 for a few seconds to form a ball, then knead for around20 seconds.

Form a flat-ish round shape, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Then, roll it out and lay it in a tart/flan/quiche tin. Put baking paper in the pastry case, add some weights and blind bake for ten minutes at 220 degrees. Remove paper and weights and bake for a further 5-10 minutes at 180 degrees.

At this point, I allow it to cool completely, not sure if that is necessary, it just happens that way for me as I tend to do this part in the morning.

Add to the pastry case, spread across the bottom, 1 grated zucchini, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Add a finely sliced leek to the zucchini base.

Add chopped cherry tomatoes.

Whisk 3 eggs with a little milk and either some crème fraiche or sour cream, around two big tablespoons. Pour over the tomatoes, then sprinkle with grated cheese, or shredded parmesan.

Bake for 30 minutes at around 170 degrees. Eat hot or cold.

Savoury Muffins

These have a lovely flavour, for adults as well as kids and are so easy. Pretty much any veggies you have in your fridge can be used, this is what I used today…

50g or so of parmesan, milled in the Thermomix until fine.

Add and chop on Speed 5 for around 10 seconds, or until desired consistency:

• 1 zucchini, roughly chopped
• 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 red capsicum, roughly chopped
• 50g butter, chopped

Add and mix for a few seconds on Speed 4:

• 2 eggs
• 250g milk
• 400g spelt flour
• 4t baking powder
• 2t Thermomix stock
• salt and pepper

Check consistency, should be thick, but able to fall off the spoon. Spoon in to muffin cases and cook in a preheated oven, around 220 degrees, for around 15-20 minutes, depending on the size.

Slather with butter, eat hot or cold, perfect for freezing too.

Yoghurt Cheese Spread

The Thermomix has copped an absolute hiding these last few days, I honestly don’t know how I ever lived without it.

Yesterday, I made yoghurt, using organic milk and the last half a cup of yoghurt from the last batch I made. I always follow Valeries Yoghurt Method, it is fool-proof. I decided to turn this whole batch into yoghurt cheese, so followed her tutorial here…

Instead of turning it into balls, I sprinkled it with salt and put it in a container in the fridge.

Lunch was simple. The two endies from the spelt bread I made the other day, smothered in yoghurt-cheese spread, sprinkled with a bit more salt and a handful of chopped garlic chives.

Tomorrow’s version will probably involve cherry tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Bring on tomorrow!