​The weekend is near, here is another refreshing cocktail you may like to try. The flavours are lovely for me.

If you prefer it a little weaker, just dilute with some sparkling water, you can add some mint leaves if you like also. It is quite sour from the limes, so you may need to add extra sugar-it depends on how tart your limes are.

​Adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook "Cocktails and Nibbles"

Serves 1 
​
1 lime, cut into 8 wedges
2 teaspoons caster sugar
45ml vodka
Ice

Mineral water, optional
​
Place the lime wedges in a cocktail shaker. Add the caster sugar. Using a muddler or rolling pin crush the lime wedges and sugar together.

Add the vodka and 1/2 cup crushed ice or ice cubes; shake vigorously.

Pour into a 260ml glass, garnish with a lime wedge or a curl of lime rind made using a zester. Add some mineral water for a lighter drink, optional.

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​On days when I have time to cook, I love to make things like gnocchi. I have made gnocchi many times with all types of sauces, but today I felt like trying this rich porcini sauce. I am trying to introduce a few meat free days into our diet and this I thought would be perfect for it.

This was delicious.

The richness from the sauce comes from the porcini mushroom, you will never get the intensity of flavour from any other mushroom. I add the swiss brown mushrooms simply so you can see mushrooms and it looks great, but the flavour comes from the porcini.

These gnocchi are perfect. They are easy to make, they are soft and fluffy and taste amazing. 

I got this recipe from Daniela e Stefania's cookbook, but I thought I'd watch a video of them making it also. So there are two ways you can make the actual gnocchi.

Method 1: You have Daniela's way, once you make the gnocchi dough, you then roll it out into long sausage shapes, then cut the gnocchi to the size you like. Then I press them lightly with a fork and shape into little pillows. Simple.

Method 2: Which I prefer, is Stefania's way, after she cuts the gnocchi to size, she rolls them on a fork to get more ridges into the gnocchi and I love it. Watch the video here, after a few tries it gets easy and the gnocchi looks and taste amazing.

Both methods taste amazing, you choose which one you prefer.

Making gnocchi is well worth the effort as homemade gnocchi are so much better than store bought gnocchi.

You could also serve this sauce with pasta, if you prefer.

This was something my family loved, hope yours do to.

​Adapted from Daniela e Stefania's cookbook Saporito and Simply Italian by Michela, Emanuela and Romina Chiappa

Serves 6-8

Gnocchi:
1kg red skin potatoes
​Olive oil, for rubbing
400-500g plain 00 flour
 2 eggs
Sea salt, to taste
Semolina flour, for dusting

Porcini Sauce:
20g dried porcini mushrooms
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, peeled, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled, finely chopped
8 swiss brown mushroom, sliced thinly
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4-1/3 cup thick cream

Freshly grated parmesan, to serve


Make the Gnocchi: Preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan forced.

Wash potatoes and prick them with a fork. Rub olive oil all over them. Place the potatoes on a baking tray and bake for 1 hour or until the potatoes are soft and cooked through. Allow to cool until warm. 

Cut the potatoes in half. Place the potato half, flesh side down into a ricer, then press the potato half through the ricer into a large bowl or straight onto your clean kitchen bench, discard skin. Continue with all the potatoes. If you don't have a ricer, buy one today, they are brilliant for mashing potatoes.

While the potato is still warm, make a well in the middle. Crack the eggs into the well, season with salt, add a little flour. Start to combine the egg and flour with the potato and gradually keep adding the flour and keep mixing until the mixture comes together. You add only enough flour where the dough is no longer sticky. Sometimes you need to add more, sometimes you don't need all of it. Lightly flour a work surface and knead the potato dough for 1 minute until you have a soft dough.

Divide the dough into smaller workable balls. Roll into long sausages (you get to determine how big or small you want your gnocchi), if the dough is still sticky add a little more flour, but if it is not, don't add it.

Cut the gnocchi roll into 1.5cm long pieces then roll each gnocchi onto the prongs of a fork or gnocchi board. By doing this you get ridges and gaps in the gnocchi that catch the sauce. Then cover lightly with a tea towel, if not using straight away.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. While you are waiting for it to come to the boil, make the sauce.

In a bowl, soak the porcini in 600ml of boiling water for 10 minutes. Reserving the soaking liquid, do not throw it out, drain the porcini and squeeze to remove as much water as possible, then finely chop.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and fry the onion for about 4 minutes, until soft and translucent. Stir in the garlic and cook for about 1 minute, be careful not to let it burn. Add the porcini and swiss brown mushrooms and cook for 1 minute.

Stir through the tomato paste for about 30 seconds, then add the stock powder and the porcini water, keep back the last tablespoon or so of the liquid, as the porcini can sometimes be a bit gritty. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the sauce has reduced and thickened. In the final 5 minutes of cooking time, add in your cream. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

​ Cook the gnocchi in batches for 3-5 minutes or until firm and floating to the surface. I usually cook them until they float to the surface plus 1 minute once they have floated to the surface. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain well. Mix the gnocchi with a little of the mushroom sauce straight away, so they do not stick to one another. 

Once they are all cooked, serve hot with the remainder of the mushroom sauce.

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​This is delicious.

I have a lemon obsession, it's one of my favourite fruits, it's beautiful to look at and you can do so much with them. My dream holiday is going to the Amalfi coast, one because it's the Amalfi Coast and two, because I will get to go lemon souvenir shopping, this is true. 

I grow my own lemons and make my own limoncello, so when it was my birthday this year, I wanted to make something with my limoncello. This was a great cocktail. The limoncello just makes a mojito even better.

This is great party drink as you can make it directly into a jug to make the a large quantity, then pour into glasses and top up with soda water.

So if you love lemon flavoured cocktails, give this a go, it's very refreshing.

Recipe adapted from www.acouplecooks.com/

Makes 1

3 large mint leaves, plus more for garnish
30ml lime juice
15ml sugar syrup
30ml limoncello
30ml white rum
125ml soda water
Ice, for serving 

Lime circle, to garnish
​
In a cocktail shaker, muddle the mint leaves with the lime juice and syrup.

Add the limoncello and rum and fill the cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until cold.

Fill a hurricane or highball glass with ice, then strain in the liquid. Top off the glass with soda water. Garnish with a lime circle additional mint leaves.

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​It's that time of the year again, it is my birthday. Between Christmas Eve and my birthday we also have Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, my son's birthday, and a few catch ups in between, it is an intense part of the year for me. I am all partied out, we've all eaten too much, drank too much, and now it's my birthday, one last hoorah to end the festive season.

I never want a traditional cake on my birthday, it's always something lighter. This year I really felt like a lemon flavoured dessert, so this is how this dessert came about. Now I made a lemon tart, so my daughter offered to make me this cake. She said was it easy to make, and it looked beautiful when it came out of the oven.

The mascarpone cream is optional in my opinion, yes it adds a light and fluffy creaminess to the cake, but I am just as happy eating the cake without the cream. So maybe only make the cream on special occasions.

The original cream recipe did not include lemon zest or juice and I found it bland. So I added the zest and just enough juice to not water down my frosting, but just give it a little more flavour with the lemon. Now it was lovely. Sugar is also, to taste.
​
I say serves 12-20, as it will depend on which tin you use. The tin I use gives you 20 slices, but your tin may be different.

Now for the breadcrumbs. There is nothing worse than making a cake like this in a kuglof style tin and you've baked it and it gets stuck in the tin. I have tried oil, butter, flour and oil, flour and butter, and each time, cakes can get stuck. My aunt told me about using oil spray and breadcrumbs and I have never had a cake stick since. The breadcrumbs need to be fine and they add just a little crunch to the outer layer of the cake. 

​So here is my version of a birthday cake, simple, elegant and delicious.

Recipe adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook 'Indulgent Cakes'

Serves 12-20

For the cake:
225g butter, softened
1 1/2 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup (160g) store-bought lemon curd
1 1/2 cup (225g) self-raising flour
3/4 cup (110g) plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (250ml) milk

​Breadcrumbs, for dusting the tin

Mascarpone Cream:
250g mascarpone, at room temperature
2 teaspoons icing sugar, to taste
300ml thickened cream
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice, to taste


Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan forced. Grease a deep 25cm fluted tube cake pan, lightly dust it with breadcrumbs.

Beat butter, rind and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until just combined. Fold in curd, sifted flours, salt and milk. Spoon mixture into pan.

Bake cake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand cake in pan for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
​
To make mascarpone frosting, beat ¾ cup (180ml) cream in a small bowl with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Combine mascarpone, sifted icing sugar, lemon zest and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in a medium bowl; fold in whipped cream, then remaining cream. Taste, add more lemon juice, if needed.
​
To serve, I like to dust the cake with icing sugar and serve the mascarpone cream on the side. But you could also spoon half of the frosting on the cake, with the remainder of the cream placed in a bowl, in case somebody loves more cream.

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​Recipe adapted from www.recipetineats.com/

Serves 5

500g spaghetti
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
800g fresh cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup fresh basil, lightly packed
Freshly grated or shaved parmesan cheese, to serve


Put a large pot of salted water over high heat, bring to the boil. Whilst this is happening, prepare all your other ingredients.

​Once the water is boiling, add the spaghetti to the pot and cook as per packet instructions, or until al dente.
​

Meanwhile, make the sauce: Heat oil over medium high heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, add tomato and cook briefly, just to warm through. 

Once the pasta is cooked, reserve one cup of the pasta water. Drain the rest of the water.

Add drained pasta into sauce with 3/4 cup of the reserved pasta cooking water. Toss pasta until sauce thickens and sticks to pasta, 1 - 2 minutes, use more water, if needed. Toss through basil. Taste for seasoning.

Just before serving, drizzle with a little more extra virgin olive oil.

​Serve with parmesan.

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​Serves 4

​450g spaghetti
60ml olive oil
6 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 fresh hot red chilli, chopped
4 anchovy fillets in oil, roughly chopped 
​Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling, optional

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water until al dente, follow packet instructions.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the garlic, chilli and anchovies. Fry gently but don't allow the garlic to brown. The sauce doesn't take more than 5 minutes to make. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Lift the cooked pasta from the water, using tongs, and mix directly with the sauce. Taste for seasoning, Add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil on top if you desire.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/spaghetti-with-garlic-olive-oil-and-chilli.html 
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It's that time of the year again, it is my birthday. Between Christmas Eve and my birthday we also have Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, my son's birthday, and a few catch ups in between, it is an intense part of the year for me. I am all partied out, we've all eaten too much, drank too much, and now it's my birthday, one last hoorah to end the festive season.

I never want a traditional cake on my birthday, it's always something lighter. This year I really felt like a lemon flavoured dessert, so this is how this dessert came about. It is the lemon version to my lime tart, that I have already posted.

The tart is delicious, it is simple to make and it looks beautiful.

Some make this recipe with a meringue top, using up the egg whites, I chose not to and went with a cream top.

This time I put cream all over the filling, in future I would pipe the cream on around the rim, so some of the tart was cream free, like I do with me lime tart. 

​You can add a little yellow food colouring, I didn't, but you can if you want it more yellow. The blueberries colour, but more so I love the flavour combination of lemons and blueberries.

This is simple, easy and tasty, something anyone new to pie making should try. ​

Recipe adapted from itsnotcomplicatedrecipes.com/

Serves 8

Crust:
10 digestive biscuits
84g (6 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Filling:
1 x 395g can sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
3 teaspoons lemon zest, grated
A few drops yellow food colouring, optional

Topping:
½ - 1 cup thickened cream
½ teaspoon icing sugar, sifted
Extra grated lemon zest, to garnish
Blueberries, optional 
​

Preheat your oven to 180°C/160 fan forced

. Make the crumb: Finely crush the biscuits (rolling pin in bag or food processor).

Place the biscuit crumbs in a bowl, add the butter, sugar and salt, mix to combine.

Grease a 22cm  pie dish with cooking spray or additional butter.

Pour the crumb mixture into the pie plate and evenly press to form a crust on the bottom and up the sides. Place in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden. Remove and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make the filling: Add the condensed milk, egg yolks, lemon juice and zest to a large bowl and mix thoroughly to combine. Add a few drops of yellow food colouring, if you like.

Pour into the prepared pie crust then bake for 15 minutes, or until set. Allow to cool then refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight.
​
​When ready to serve, beat the cream and icing sugar together until it holds stiff peaks. Using a spatula, evenly spread the whipped cream on top (or pipe the cream and decorate the pie).

Garnish with additional lemon zest and add blueberries, if desired.

Slice and serve.

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​My mother and I work very well as a team when we host parties, we each know what we can cook and we plan menus accordingly so our parties run smoothly. But every now and then she'll plan on me cooking something she wants to serve, that I've never cooked before.

So she decided she wants to cook a prawn buzara, I arrive at her house knowing I'm making fregola with prawns, mussels and pipis, but now she's thrown in this recipe. So now I'm cooking two meals, one I know well, and one I need to quickly read about and find a recipe, I can use as a guide. So I found this one which used scampi, not prawns, and used it as a guide. She also bought 2kg of prawns, not 1kg, so no pressure in getting it wrong, as prawns are expensive and doubling recipes, can sometimes go wrong. So halve the recipe if you don't need 2kg prawns.

But I nailed it, I cooked the prawns perfectly, the sauce was delicious. It is messy eating prawns with the shell on, but the shells add so much flavour to the dish, that I would never make this using peeled prawns.

Cooking times will vary slightly depending on the size of your prawns, you just need to keep an eye on the colour of the prawns and use that as your guide.

This dish can be made with mussels, scampi and crabs also.

This is quite quick to make and absolutely delicious. My family loved it, hope yours do to.

​Recipe adapted from Dennis Valcich's Croatian cookbook 'A Walk Through Croatia'

​Serves 6

2kg raw prawns in the shell
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons chopped parsley
​1 teaspoon vegeta
8 roma tomatoes, finely chopped
1 cup white wine
1-2 tablespoon white bread crumbs
Salt and Pepper, to taste
​
Prepare the prawns, you need to leave the shells on for this recipe as they add flavour to the dish, but I like to devein them. Just make a slit in the prawn between the head and the body,  then with your knife or a skewer, slowly lift up the black intestine, when you can grip it, straighten up the prawn body and slowly pull it out. If it breaks, you can just make a slit near the tail and do the same from that end. You can't see the slits once cooked.
​

Take a large deep frying pan (or wok) (that has a lid), add oil, place over a high heat.

Add garlic, wait 5-10 seconds, then add the prawns, tossing them about to disperse the garlic, so it doesn't burn and to start cooking the prawns. Add parsley, vegeta and a little salt and pepper. Toss again. Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, so the prawns cook evenly. Cooking time will depend on the size of your prawns. 
​
When you see that the prawns are starting to go orange, but before they are cooked through, add the wine, cook, covered, stirring occasionally for a further 3-4 minutes.

When the prawns are nearly cooked through, add the tomatoes and breadcrumbs, stir, cook for a further two minutes, them remove from heat.

Serve in a large bowl with some crusty bread.

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​This year I hosted Christmas Day at my house. One of the dishes I served was roast lamb. Now I intentionally cooked too much as I wanted there to be leftovers, as I did not want to cook on Boxing Day. Now I know making this soup is cooking, but a soup is about 10 minutes of work, then it cooks itself, and after a big Christmas dinner, easy is essential and a light soup is all that is needed.

Now I did buy two large lamb bones for this soup, as on Christmas day my dog got to enjoy the bones that were roasted, but if you don't have a dog, save the bones from the roast and use them.

Also if you just want to make this lamb soup from fresh meat, just add the meat with the bones and cook as per recipe, it doesn't have to be made with leftovers.

​This was something we loved, hope you do to.

Recipe adapted from www.taste.com.au/

Serves 6

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 carrots, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
2 tablespoons parsley stalks, finely chopped
2 large lamb bones, either fresh or leftover from your roast
3 litres water
1 tablespoon vegeta
1 large potato, peeled, cubed
1 cup frozen peas
200g beans, trimmed, cut into bite sized pieces
1 1/2 cups cold shredded leftover cooked lamb
120g, any dried pasta you like to have in soup 
2 tablespoons fresh continental parsley, torn

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, carrot, celery and parsley stalks. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes or until vegetables have softened. Add lamb bones and water. Bring to a simmer, add vegeta, season with a little salt and pepper. Cover. Reduce heat to low. Cook for 1 hour.

Add potato, peas, beans and lamb. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add pasta. Taste, season with salt and pepper, if needed. Cook a further 10 minutes or until the pasta is cooked. Sprinkle soup with parsley just before serving.

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​This year I hosted Christmas Day at my house. One of the dishes I served was roast lamb. Now I intentionally cooked too much as I wanted there to be leftovers, as I did not want to cook on Boxing Day. Now I know this is still cooking, but this is so quick and easy to make, that it seriously doesn't feel like cooking, and more importantly, I bought all the ingredients earlier, so I didn't have to go shopping.

​This really was a fast dish to make. The dish is ready in about 20-30 minutes, with minimal effort. The only thing I will mention, if you want the lamb shredded do it while it is still warm, as cold lamb doesn't really shred, but I just sliced it thinly instead.  

At first my husband wasn't sure he would like it, as the aromas are middle eastern and not something we are used to eating. But after trying he, he loved it, as did my kids. We definitely all wanted to eat this again.

So if you have leftover lamb, and I'll probably make sure from now on, I always will, this is a great way to use it up.

​Recipe adapted from www.taste.com.au/

Serves 4

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup basmati rice
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
3 teaspoons ground cumin
400g can chickpeas, drained, rinsed
3 cups cold shredded leftover cooked lamb 
1/2 cup currants
1/2 cup fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 pomegranate, seeds removed


Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring, for 3 minutes until onion is soft. Add rice. Stir to coat in mixture. Add stock, 1 teaspoon curry powder, 2 teaspoons cumin and chickpeas. Stir to combine. Cover. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat. Set aside for 10 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork to separate grains.
​
Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of remaining oil in a large non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add lamb. Sprinkle with remaining curry powder and cumin. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring once, until the lamb is browned and heated through. Transfer to a large bowl.
​
​Add rice mixture, currants, coriander, parsley, lemon juice and remaining oil to the lamb. Toss gently to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Serve sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.

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