Viva Italia! Parte Uno

I'Amo Italia. Ok my Italian is shocking. Can someone tell me how I say "I love Italy" in Italian? Thats what I want to say. I love everything about Italy. The people. The places. The coffee. Damn good coffee. And the food. I can't even begin to explain how much I LOVE Italian food. It goes oh so well with their fine wines. You name it, they do it, and brilliantly at that. So this piece is dedicated to MM - my lovely Italian neighbour - many thanks for the wonderful conversations had over a pot of freshly brewed Italian coffee. Cheers!

I finally went out and bought one!

And the result? Awesome espresso! And I definitely needed it for the task at hand: Lasagna! You may be sitting there thinking, what is so hard about that? Well let me tell you - for me, EVERYTHING! I've tried a few times, and its turned out all sorts of ways, except for the way its supposed to. So this time I enlisted the "Women's Weekly: Italian for Beginners" cookbook. SSSSHHHHH! No one knows I read WW cookbooks!

Easy peasey. Sort of.

I had to make a pit stop at the Italian Deli near my place. The stock a large range of Italian goods. Perfecto for yours truly.
Loads of chopping to be had. Loads.
And so we begin.

Garlic, onions, carrots - into the olive oil we go!
Bit of tomato paste, mince beef, beef stock, and dry white wine into the mix.

Now for the cheesy, creamy sauce!

Bit of butter and flour. I was amazed at the rate of coagulation happening before my eyes...

And then I added the milk in and hey presto! It resembled something like the stuff I see in lasagna!

So this is the first layer:

And then the second layer of the cheesy creamy sauce:
After repeating the process a couple of times, I finally got to the top layer that I could finish off with parmesan cheese:
After 2 hours of cooking and then about 40 mins of baking, I proudly produced this baby out of the oven:

The verdict? Hmmmm... it was great for a first attempt. Much improvements to be had. I will try it again, and next time I'll even make the pasta sheets from scratch!

Nonetheless, my loving family praised my efforts and ate it anyway!

The Location: My house
The Soundtrack: I was listening to a bit of everything. I started with Damien Rice and the albums O (2002) and 9 (2006) on my Ipod. Then I switched to She Will Have Her Way: The Songs of Tim & Neil Finn (2005). I was in a pensive state of mind...

Tamarind Duck Stir Fry

I know - it's been forever since I've done anything. I have no excuse. I got distracted. And then I procrastinated. But now I'm back! I decided to give this dish a try.

Tamarind Duck Stir Fry - Thai style of course. My sister makes this dish really well, so I thought, why not give it a go? And it was surprisingly quick to make. The recipe was from "Women's Weekly Thai Recipes" - SSSSHHHHH!! No one knows I read that stuff - well the food section at least!

The ingredients:

One whole duck
Green onions
Coriander
Bok Choy
Capsicum
Snow Peas
Ginger
Garlic
Chilli
Oyster Sauce
Tamarind
Palm Sugar

The Result:

The beauty of this dish - I made it in less than an hour - which in my books, is awesome!

Location: My house. The guinea pigs were, yep you guessed it, my loving family!
Soundtrack: VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Vampire Weekend 2008. This was on recommendation from Di. Ezra Koenig is goodlooking in a preppy sort of way and thats about it. I'm still unsure of the music. Since they're an indie group from NYC, their "cool factor" does increase x-fold.