​This is delicious. I don't really need to say anything else. I just love this pasta salad.

This pasta salad has so much flavour, I like to make a large bowl of this and pop it in the refrigerator. Then when we want something for lunch, we open the refrigerator and it's there, we get to enjoy it for as long as it lasts, which isn't long in my house.

I love this pasta salad on its own, that's it, this is a great lunch for me, it doesn't need anything else. But if you need it as part of a gathering where you need to feed many, it is also great served as a side with a barbecue.

Any short pasta will work with this recipe including penne, farfalle, fusilli or elbow pasta. My favourite one is the curls pictured above, but use whatever short pasta you love.

If I can't find small mozzarella balls, I just halve or quarter larger ones.

You can make this salad up to 24 hours in advance. Just taste before serving you may need to add a splash of white balsamic vinegar right before serving and toss again. 

This is one of my favourite pasta salads. I love this, hope you do to.

​Recipe adapted from www.smalltownwoman.com/ 

Serves 8-10

500g short pasta like curls, penne, or fusilli
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup white balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon white pepper
2 clove garlic, crushed
450g mozzarella balls (or baby bocconcini)
4 cups grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
½ cup basil, sliced in ribbons


Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Cook the pasta until al dente according to the package directions and drain. Rinse with a little cold water to stop the cooking process and drain well. Add the pasta to a large serving bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.   Let it cool to room temperature.

In a small jar with a tight fitting lid add the remaining extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and garlic.  Shake well to combine.

Add the mozzarella balls, tomatoes and basil to the bowl with the cooled pasta. Drizzle with the dressing and toss to coat.

If not serving right away, cover and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

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​This is a classic dish, is it cooking, no, but it deserves to be here as it's just perfect.

I love it as a light lunch as it is quick and easy to prepare. But it would be great with an antipasto platter to.

For this your ingredients must be fresh. Thick slices of ripe tomatoes (I always have tomatoes sitting on my kitchen counter ripening, as stores never sell them ripe enough), fresh, soft, burrata, fragrant basil leaves preferably home grown, but store bought is okay, and your best bottle of extra-virgin olive oil.

I never put vinegar on it, as I feel it takes away from the flavour of the tomatoes and the cheese. 

You can use mozzarella or bocconcini if you can't find burrata.

This is the perfect light summer dish, but I eat all year round if I'm being honest.

​4-5 large vine ripened tomatoes, sliced 1/2cm thick
1 ball fresh burrata
¼ cup packed fresh basil, washed well and spun dry
3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Fine sea salt, to taste
white pepper, to taste
​

On a large serving platter arrange tomato slices, tear over the burrata slices and basil leaves.
Drizzle with the oil. Season salad with salt and pepper.
​Serve with crusty Italian bread.

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​Recipe adapted from www.recipetineats.com/

Makes 12-18

Dry Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 cup caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:
1 cup buttermilk
60g unsalted butter, melted
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly whisked
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

250g fresh blueberries
​
Preheat oven to 200°C/180C fan forced. Line a 12 (plus 6 ) hole muffin tin with paper patties.

Whisk the dry ingredients: whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a bowl.

Whisk the wet ingredients: In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk, melted butter, oil, eggs and vanilla.

Combine the wet and the dry: make a well in the flour bowl, pour in egg mixture. Mix until just combine - try not to stir more than 8 times. Some flour lumps in the batter is fine.

Stir through most of the blueberries - reserve some for topping.

Divide batter between paper cases. Top with remaining blueberries.

Bake for 5 minutes, then turn oven down to 180°C/160°C fan forced.

Bake for a further 13-15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the muffin comes out clean. You can just gently press them if soft keep baking.

Cool. Remove muffins from the muffin tin immediately onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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​Zelena Manestra is a hearty Croatian soup that I made as I am making an extra effort to cook more Croatian food to keep that tradition going with my family. I'm constantly trying new things and sometimes I forget to cook Croatian, food that I grew up on. So we decided as a family to cook Croatian once a week at least (my kids changed that to at least twice a week, as they are loving the food).

So out come all my Croatian cookbooks that I collected over the last 22 years, since my first holiday to Croatia, it's time to cook more Croatian food.

Soups are important to Croatians, nearly every house makes them, every dinner, all year long, summer, autumn, winter and spring. It can be forty degrees outside, we are having soup.

This soup has the perfect combination of ham hock which we love and cavalo nero and cabbage, which we also love. It is a really easy soup to make and the end result is delicious. This is a hearty soup, so this to me is a meal, nothing else needed. However, my family get hungry a few hours later, so on nights like this a dessert would happen, as dinner was not heavy.

Instead of a ham hock you could use smoked ribs, but you will need to add them to a pot of cold water and bring them to the boil, simmer for 5 minutes. Discard all of the water and then start with the recipe as written below. Smoked ribs can be salty, I find ham hocks generally are not.

So if you are like me and you want to try something traditional or you are newbie to Croatian food, here is a great way to start.

​Recipe adapted from Hrvatska za Stolom-Mirisi i Okusi Hrvatske by Ivanka Bilus, Bozica Brkan, Lidija Coric and Cirila Rode

Serves 6-8

1 ham hock
150g piece pancetta
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon vegeta, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste
2-3 large potatoes, peeled, cut into bite sized cubes
1kg cavalo nero (or kale)
750g savoy cabbage, cut into bite sized chunks
​
Place the ham hock and the pancetta in large pot, fill the pot with water until at least 2/3 full and the hock is fully covered. Place over a high heat and bring to the boil. While it is coming to the boil add in the garlic and vegeta and season with pepper. Once it has come to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered for about two hours, or until the meat falls off the bone.
​

Remove the stalks from the cavalo nero and shred the leaves. Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add the cavalo nero and simmer for about 5 minutes. Drain, discard this water. This first water can overpower the soup, that is why it is discarded and you are left with a nicer lighter flavoured soup.
​
Once the hock is cooked, remove from the hock and the pancetta from the pot. Add in the potato, bring to the boil and simmer about 6 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove bones from the hock and dice up the meat (you can add the skin also to the soup, some people like it, some don't) and slice up the pancetta.

​Add the cavalo nero and cabbage to the soup.  Add more water if needed, taste for seasoning, add more vegeta if you like, and simmer until the potatoes and cabbage are cooked.  Add the hock meat and pancetta. Bring back to the boil. Serve hot.

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