Do overs

There have been some issues with a few of my recipe attempts during this cooking challenge. Not that they didn't taste good - because they did - but part of the challenge was to create the recipe as it was written ... no additions, substitutions or alterations in any way!

Well that's really hard, and a few times I didn't quite make it!

Therefore - Do over!

The first 'do over' came while cooking 'pasta with pancetta and porcini crumbs'. It was early on in the challenge and once the pancetta had sauted, I removed the majority of the oil before I added the crumb mixture (there seemed to be an awful lot of oil/fat for such a non-oil eating gal) ... end result when crumbs were added ...too dry! The tastes were amazing, but the crumbs and pasta together were just, well, too crumbly. I haven't done this one again - yet. Am saving it for when we have people around as it's just too nice a dish not to share!

The second 'do over' was also a pasta dish actually. This time I read the recipe incorrectly and when it asked for pancetta I used proscuitto. Now you and I both know there is very little difference between the two - both from pig after all ;-), but HoM reminded me very definitely about sticking to the rules of the challenge. So I bought all the ingredients again, this time with proscuitto.

I've not been used to cooking with cured meats too much so wasn't too sure what to do when I got the proscuitto home from the deli - where I might add it took the girl behind the counter approximately 100 years to produce 6 slices for me - and it seemed to be all fat! Of each slice, there seemed to be just miniscule amounts of the pink bacon looking meat, and each slice was really, really thick!!!! Aaaah. I spoke to E about it - she's a much better cook than I - and she advised chopping sections of the fat off before cooking. Which I did, and once fried, I guess all the fat turned crispy and didn't look so scary! I knew it was still there though ;-)

I made said pasta dish for dinner last Friday night when the co-tenants came down for the weekend. We all liked it - children included - and there were requests for a 'little more please'. To be honest though I think I preferred the dish with the pancetta ;-)

Yesterday for lunch I remade one of our favourites... goats curd toasts with wilted kale. It's a very easy recipe to put together and so so tasty! I'm not sure what it is about this dish really that we like so much. The boiled eggs are certainly good, but I think it's a mixture of the marinated goat cheese on sourdough toast sprinkled with lemon zest that has my tastebuds a-singing ;-)

For those of you who are experts in their greenery, you will have noticed that the there is actually no kale on these dishes despite what the title would imply! Well, kale being hard to come by in this little beach side resort, I used 'straight from the vegie patch at the farm' swiss chard instead! Cut me some slack! ;-)

I did remember to take a photo though!