Lex Culinaria

Missing Melbourne

When we left Melbourne at the end of October things were just beginning to heat up over there and cool down over here. Sadly, springtime in Melbourne is a distant memory now. It doesn't help that winter descended on Edmonton overnight with a great big whumpf of snow and a 17 degree drop in temperature. Right now in Melbourne it's a mere 13c. Mind you, it's early morning there. Sigh.

Aside from the weather, there's always something for me to miss about Melbourne. More often than not, it's food-related. Good coffee. A favourite restaurant (or two).

Mainly what I miss is really, really good food just about anywhere you go. Sadly, in Edmonton mediocrity is all the rage and truly good meals are few and far between.  I think I'd kind of forgotten that after 2 years away from Melbourne.

For a meal to be truly great, it doesn't have to be avant garde science geek food "inspired" by El Bulli or the French Laundry (which is now so ubiquitous as to be boring - if I never hear another person bill their food as "Inspired" by something it will be too soon!).

Really good food does have to fulfil its potential. If it's a scone, it must be a great scone. A scone that makes me go "wow!".

And honestly most restaurants in Edmonton aren't even half way there. Some are good. Most are mediocre. A few are downright shocking. People here seem to rave about restaurants that hover somewhere around good to mediocre. A sad testament to what is available on tables across the city.

For me, the perfect illustration of the disparity that exists between Melbourne and Edmonton is summed up in one word: Risotto. I have never had a good risotto in Edmonton. Even in a pricey restaurant. Most risottos here are mushy or soupy. And flavourless and uninteresting. I ate several amazing risottos in Melbourne. Not in fancy places for outrageous prices, but in run of the mill local pubs for around $14. My love for good risotto re-ignited, I couldn't wait to try to reproduce my favourite as soon as we got back.

I know risottos are very "Naked Chef", but there's something so cozy yet elegant about them that I can't help but still love them even if they are about 5 years out of style. Besides, there must be a skill to them. Seems a lot of chefs out here have trouble with them.

I promise this one won't disappoint. I had something similar at the Fringe cafe at the Acland Street Junction in St. Kilda.

Pumpkin, Spinach & Goat Cheese Risotto

Serves 6

• 1 medium acorn squash or small, sweet pumpkin (plus olive oil to coat)
• 2 chopped medium onions
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1.5 litres chicken stock
• 2 cups arborio or carnaroli rice
• ½ cup dry white wine
• butter
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan
• 4 cups fresh spinach leaves
• 300 grams goats cheese
• Sea salt
• Fresh pepper

Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, peel and cut into 2cm cubes. Toss cubes in olive oil and roast on a baking tray at 350F for 35 minutes.

10 minutes before the squash is finished baking, sauté the onion & garlic in a large saucepan over medium heat for a 3-4 minutes until they begin softening. Add the rice and cook, stirring for several minutes until the rice is glossy and absorbs the oil.

Stir through the wine until it is all absorbed into the rice and the alcohol has cooked off.
After the wine is absorbed, start adding the stock a cupful at a time, stirring constantly until the rice has absorbed each cupful before adding the next.

This whole process should take between 15 to 30 minutes to absorb all the stock. Keep tasting the rice to make sure it is cooked and soft but with a bit of bite.

With the last cupful of stock add the pumpkin cubes, spinach, butter and Parmesan.
season with salt and pepper. Stir gently to allow the remaining stock to be absorbed and to break up the pumpkin a little bit.

When the risotto is done, it should be slightly saucy, but should still mound nicely, not run.

Ladle piles of the risotto into bowls and top with crumbled goats cheese.

Fresh ricotta, proscuitto and pea pappardelle

This light and intensely flavourful pasta is a great light springtime lunch or supper. We loved it so much I made a second batch the next day! It totally pays to take the time to make your own ricotta. It's totally easy and so much more delicate in taste and texture than the rubbery stuff you buy in the store. Trust me.

• 2 litres whole milk
• 500 ml buttermilk
• pappardelle pasta (enough for 4 servings - about half a large packet)
• 300 grams prosciutto
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil.
• 400 grams (about 1 + 3/4 cup) fresh green peas
• 2 cups roughly chopped watercress
• 1/3 cup coarse grated parmegiano reggiano
• salt, pepper

Combine milk and buttermilk in a large, heavy bottomed steel pot. Set over medium heat - no higher than 5. Allow to come to heat to about 100F. When it starts getting hot, watch it closely. It should look like it's rising, foaming and curdling a bit. Use a table knife to separate the foamy, curdly top. If you can see a watery yellowish fluid below and nice white curds at the top, you're done - depending on how fast your stove is and how cold your milk was, this could take from 10 to 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and use a large spoon to lade the curds into either a ricotta basket or a fine sieve. Allow this to drain and cool for at least an hour.

Meanwhile, boil your pasta in plenty of salted water.

Chop the prosciutto roughly and fry over medium high heat in a large frying pan. When it becomes crispy and very fragrant, add the peas. Cook and stir for 3 to 4 minutes, until the peas are bright green and cooked. Turn off the heat and add the oil, lemon juice and watercress.

Drain the pasta.

Add the ricotta to the frying pan and toss the drained pasta in too. Salt and pepper to taste. Toss with tongs and serve with Parmesan on top.

The Flavour of Fresh

What I love best about summer is the absolute proliferation of fresh local ingredients everywhere. Gorgeous tomatoes, cherries, lettuces that taste miles better than what's available over winter. Produce packed with flavour is the reason why, when Cakes and I were redoing the back yard this summer, I only briefly considered, and then discarded, the idea of leaving out the vegetable garden.

Perhaps I was a bit overenthusiastic though. I now have more rainbow chard, lettuce and herbs than I know what to do with and my tomato plants are easily 4 or 5 feet high! I have dill out the wazzoo. I have enough fresh Italian parsley to make Olive Salad into the next century. I also have an obscene quantity of lemon-y basil. My problem is now this: What to do with buckets of basil?

Make pesto. Fresh pesto is one of those things that every cook should make at least once. The bottled stuff that we all keep in our pantries resemblers fresh homemade pesto only in name. Neither the colour nor the taste of bottled pesto can even come close.

• 5 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Whizz everything bust the cheese in a food processor on high until you get a nice paste. Then add the cheese and continue whizzing for 10 to 20 seconds more.

Serve over fresh noodles. I prefer pappardelle as they are nice and wide and noodle-y.

Smokey Barbeque Beans

I've always wanted to make my own baked beans. Ever since I was a kid and my mom brought home a copy of the "Cowboy's Cookbook" from her school library. It was written by a guy who went around interviewing little old men who used to be the chuckwagon cooks on the cattle drives in the wild west. That book, with its ugly yellow 1970's cover, did a great job of conjuring up images of smokey late-night campfires and pots of boiling coffee and beans. Here I am some 20 years later, finally making my own baked beans.

And just in time for the Summer Barbeque Challenge too. Lucky me.

These beans have a deep smokey sweet flavour that can only come with long (bloody long if you ask me!) cooking. They need a solid day to make. Don't worry about the beans going mushy, haricot beans simply don't do that very easily. After even 8 hours of solid simmering they are still perfectly shaped and a little al dente. If you really like your beans mushy, be prepared to cook them longer, or use smaller white beans such as great northern beans.

These were so yummy, this huge batch disappeared in a matter of minutes.

Lex's Smokey BBQ Beans

(serves a lot! close to 10 or 12 as a generous side dish)

• 700 grams (1.5 pounds) dried white haricot beans
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup italian parsley, finely chopped
• 1 small red capsicum (bell pepper), chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 x 796 ml (28 oz) can diced stewed tomatoes
• 1 x 156ml (5.5 oz) tin tomato paste
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 200 ml dark soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dried hot chilli flakes
• 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons hot English mustard
• 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 450-500 grams smoked duck or goose wings (I used goose)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups beef stock

Soak the beans overnight in plenty of cool water. Drain and rinse.

Chuck it all in a big ole pot (at least 8 litres/quarts!), bring it to the boil and let it simmer for 7 to 9 hours. Check on it periodically. If it looks like the liquid is getting thick, add an extra few cups of water. You'll probably have to do this a few times during the cooking process.

Towards the end, use tongs to fish out the smoked bird pieces. Strip the meat off the bones, dice the meat quite small and throw it back in the pot.

Simple fresh tomato, cheese and proscuitto pappardelle

I realise there has not been a lot of recipe posting on Lex Culinaria lately. I've been so busy at work that I really have not had time to do a bunch of cooking.

I've been feeling badly about the lack of cooking so I was pretty happy to get home in time tonight to make supper, even if it was just something basic like this pasta dish. Sometimes the simplest, most basic things are the best-tasting anyway...

If you're like me and you love very noodl-y tasing noodles, then you can't really beat pappardelle. They are so wide they are alomst a meaty noodle. Becuase I had managed to score soke fantastic tomatoes and fresh basil over the weekend and had also scored some great proscuitto, parmagiano reggiano and a packet or two of pappardelle at the Italian Centre Shop, I reckoned I had everything I needed for a great supper, and I was right. There's nothing I like better on a sunny spring night than to prepare a nice light and fresh meal and share it with my adrobale husband. Even better, he cleans the kitchen after I've cooked!

This is dead easy to whip up - easier even than spag bol, as you hardly cook anything - you can prepare all the topping ingredites in the time it takes to cook the pasta - about 10 minutes - and it tastes like summer!

Serves 2-3

• 200 gm dried Papardelle noodles
• 12 thin slices proscuitto
• 3 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 2 Tablespoons cabernet Sauvignon vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup loosely rolled fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup loosely packed fresh Italian parsley leaves
• 1/3 cup grated good parmesan (plus a bit for garnish)
• fresh ground black pepper

Cook the noodles in plenty of boiling, salted water according to the package directions.

Meanwhile, fry proscuitto slices in a single layer over high heat until well browned. You may have to do 2 or 3 batches depending on the size of your pan. Remove them to a plate and set aside.

Reduce heat under the frying pan to medium.  Saute the garlic briefly until it just barely starts to change to a golden colour, about 1 minute. Add roughly chopped tomatoes in a single layer. Stir and cook for 30 seconds and then remove from heat. Drizzle over the cabernet or balsamic vinegar. Tear proscuitto slices into pieces and add to the tomatoes. Chop up the basil and parsely very roughly. Stir the chopped herbs and the grated cheese through the hot tomatoes.

Drain pasta and toss into pan with tomato mixture. Combine well using tongs and serve with a dusting of fresh cracked black pepper a litte more parmesan sprinkled over.

IMBB 25: Italian Bread Salad

I love the tomatoes at the Strathcona Farmer's Market. We buy probably 3 pounds every weekend from April to September. They look so nice and taste so fresh, I have such trouble resisting. What better to complement these gorgeous fresh tomatoes, than some tender, fresh basil, also from the Farmer's Market?

It is precisely because I love these tomatoes (and the basil is SO fantastic looking right now) that decided to make the Pappa Al Pomodoro - a Tuscan cooked tomato and bread soup for the "stale bread" edition of IMBB. I'd been contemplating making it since I received a copy of the Silver Spoon for Christmas, so we went off this morning to buy some of those gorgeous tomatoes and basil. When I got them home, I couldn't bear the thought of cooking them - I much prefer the tart flavour of these perfect fresh tomatoes to cooked. Besides, I bought gorgeous yellow, orange and red ones and cooking them would have blended their beautiful bright colours beyond recognition.

So I ended up using the ingredients one would usually use for Pappa Al Pomodoro to make a salad instead. Of course I added a couple of special touches, which I think worked pretty darn well. I had to stop Cakes licking the bowl. I can see this becoming a favourite in our house. It's light and tangy and refreshing. The fried ciabatta soaks up the gorgeous tomato juices without getting mushy or falling apart, lending it a meatier texture than most Panzanellas. This makes a great lunch all on its own. It'd be great for company because you can make it in advance and just let it marinate away for a few hours. It would also make an excellent starter for a meal of roasted or grilled beef.

Because this isn't really a Panzanella or a Pappa Al Pomodoro, I don't really know what to call it, other than ...

Lex's really good Italian bread and tomato salad

Serves 4 as a light main

80 ml (1/3 cup) good quality olive oil

3 large cloves garlic minced

300 grams day-old ciabatta, sliced into large cubes (I used 1 + 1/2 individual sized ciabattas from the Italian Centre Shop)

650 -700 grams (1 + 1/2 pounds) ripe red, orange and yellow tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or other good quality grey sea salt

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

juice of 1/2 lemon (about 50 ml)

1 teaspoon minced lemon rind

3/4 loosely-packed cup fresh basil

30 grams parmigianno reggiano, shaved

In a large stir-fry pan, heat the oil over medium - low heat. Toss in 2/3 of the garlic and slowly cook in the oil until golden. With a slotted spoon, transfer the golden garlic to a large mixing bowl. Increase the heat under the oil to just shy of high. When the oil is quit hot but not smoking, add the bread. Turn the heat down to medium-high and stir-fry the bread until it is well browned and the oil has been absorbed, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes coarsely and add to the bowl with the cooked garlic. Add the remaining fresh garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice and rind. Stir the mixture gently to encourage the salt to draw juice from the tomatoes. When the bread is nicely browned, stir it through as well. Allow it to marinate for 30 minutes to several hours. 10 minuted before serving, chop the basil up very roughly and stir it through. Stir through all but a few (reserved for garnish) of the Parmesan shavings.

Spoon into 4 low soup plates and top with reserved Parmesan shavings.

Beehive Pasta Timbale

In 1994 I bought several cookbooks from Westgate Used Books in Saskatoon. Amongst the treasure trove were several Moosewood books, a book called Simple Vegetarian Pleasures and another book that I think was called 101 Pasta Sauces. I could be wrong about that title. All I recall of that book was that the chapters were organized by ingredient: Lemon-based sauces, Tomato-based sauces, eggplant-based, olive-based...etc. The pictures in this book were these clever little illustrations that looked like they'd been drawn with pencil crayons. It was out of that book that I learnt to make a very good, standard tomato sauce from tinned tomatoes, dried red pepper flakes, onion, garlic, salt, pepper .... and the magic ingredient, a teaspoon of sugar. I still use that basic sauce for so many things.

Unfortunately, like an awful lot of my possessions pre-1999, that book (and many others) were lost when I lost track of the possessions I had left in the custody of some friends while I was in Australia. I never heard from them, or my things again after they moved in 2000 and changed their email address. Every once in a while I think to myself..."where's my _____"? The answer to most of those questions is, "somewhere on Vancouver Island with the rest of my stuff."

But I digress.

One recipe out of that pasta book that always intrigued me but which I never had the guts to try was a pasta stuffed beehive-shaped timbale made of ziti. When I suddenly recalled this recipe lest week, I hadn't seen that book for 7 years. I searched in all my even remotely Italian cookbooks for a similar recipe. I googled every imaginable combination of the words "pasta, timbale, beehive, recipe" and several similar terms but came away with nothing. So I was left to my own devices. And this is what I came up with. I think it turned out pretty well. Now that I am no longer afraid of the concept (...it's quite easy really) I think I'll tackle smaller individual ones next time. I reckon this one would make a pretty impressive main course. You could bring it to the table on a big platter and make a show of slicing it in front of your guests. It holds together remarkably well and, provided your knife is good and sharp, slices beautifully.

Traditionally, timbales were the highlight of the meal. They were by and large beehive or dome shaped pastries filled with a creamy mixture of sauce, pasta, vegetables and meat. I've heard of timbales with cases made of all sorts of things: risotto, shortcrust pastry, lasagne sheets. They are almost always elaborate and time consuming. A great many of them appear to have a layered filling rather than a casserole-type filling like mine. While I agree with the traditional position that a timbale is spectacular enough to be the highlight of the meal, I disagree as to the complexity of their construction. As long as you pay sufficient attention to the relative strength of your timbale shell and stiffnes of the filling, I reckon there's not much you couldn't do with a timbale. This one sure came together easily and well.

My timbale was built by lining a pudding basin (I actually just used a dome-shaped metal mixing bowl) with concentric coils of cooked ziti. I held the ziti in place by spackling it with a thin layer of raw minced meat and egg and spices. Then I filled the cavity with a mixture of cut pasta, cheese, vegetables and bechamel sauce. I finished it with a coiled pasta top and baked it in the oven. It popped out of the mould beautifully and sliced like a dream.

Beehive pasta timbale

Serves 8 - enough for one 3.5 litre bowl

• 1 pkg #10 ziti
• 300 gm (1/2 pound) fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 2 large portabella mushrooms, chopped roughly
• 1 leek, white and lower 3 cm of green, sliced, rings separated and rinsed.
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 egg
• 1 lb fresh Italian sausage, casings removed (or make your own meat mix with mince, herbs and spices)
• 1/4 cup butter for greasing bowl
• 100 grams good quality mozzarella, grated (about 1.5 cups grated)
• 100 grams parmigiana Reggiano, grated (about 1.5 cups grated)
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 3 Tablespoons flour
• 190 ml (3/4 cup) milk
• 190 ml (3/4 cup) cream
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

Boil entire package of ziti in plenty of salted boiling water. Use a large pot. Cook ziti until quite tender as al dente pasta will be too stiff for this recipe. Once the ziti is cooked, rinse in cool water until you can feel that the pasta is cold. Drain pasta well and then spread out on several tea towels in a single layer. cover with another tea towel and rub gently back and forth to dry the pasta. Remove the top towel and allow the pasta to air dry a bit while you work. The surface of the pasta should become sticky.

Meanwhile fry the mushrooms in a bit of oil so that they become brown and reduce in volume. Continue to fry them over medium heat until no more moisture comes out of them, about 20 minutes. Set mushrooms aside.

In the same frying pan, brown garlic and leeks over medium heat until softened. Set them aside with the mushrooms.

While the vegetables are cooling, use 1/4 cup softened butter to grease the inside of your metal bowl. The butter coating should be quite thick. If the butter is very soft, pop the bowl in the fridge for a minute or two to firm up the butter to the point of thick stickiness, but not solidity.

Starting in the centre of the bottom of the bowl, begin to coil pasta around in a circle to cover the bottom of the bowl. The first coil of pasta will probably spring apart a bit leaving a hole in the centre of the bottom. That's okay, you can fill that in later. Just try to keep the hole smaller than 5 cm across. To help the first few coils stay put, place a small dish on top to weigh them down. Continue coiling the pasta around in a continuous spiral up the sides of the bowl. Stop when you get just within 1-2 cm of the top. The tacky butter on the bowl will help the pasts stick to the sides. You can now fill in the hole in the bottom by making a coil in your hand and then popping it into the hole, taking care to match up the end of the coil with the end of the last circle of pasts at the bottom. Pop the little weight back on top to encourage the pasta to stick down.

While you wait for the weight to press the coil firmly down, add 3 tablespoons of butter to the frying pan you used to fry the veggies and reduce the heat to medium low. Allow butter to melt while stirring to scrape browned bits off the bottom of the pan. cook butter until it just begins to brown a little. Stir in flour and continue to cook and stir flour and butter for a few minutes over medium heat until bubbly and golden in colour, about 4-6 minutes. Pour in milk and cream and continue stirring. The sauce should become quite thick. Stir through salt and pepper, remove pan from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

While the sauce is cooling, in a smaller mixing bowl mash the sausage meat and one egg together with a fork. When the mixture is quite smooth and well incorporated, use the fork to apply it to the inside of the pasta mould like spackle. When the entirely of the sausage is on, you can use your fingers to smooth it out and make sure it's even. This think layer of raw meat and egg will cook together and help to keep the shape of the timbale after cooking.

Once the whole inside of the pasta timbale is spackled with the meat mixture, trace a circle roughly the size of the top edge of the timbale bowl on some baking parchment. Cut the circle out. Use that circle to help you estimate how much pasta you're going to need to cover the top of the timbale with another coil. It should require about 1/3 to 1/2 of the pasta you have left. Set aside what you will need to make the timbale lid and then cut up the extra pasta into small pieces.

Assemble the timbale filling by combining the veggies, cheese, chopped pasta, parsley and sauce. Mix this together thoroughly with your hands. Mix in the two raw eggs as well and make sure everything is well incorporated.

Spoon the filling into the timbale. The filling should come up to the second last row of coiled pasta. Do not fill the timbale past this point. If your filling doesn't quite make it that far, remove some of the pasta coils until there is only one row left above the level of the filling.

Starting from the outside edges, fill in the top of the timbale with another continuous pasta coil.

Butter the parchment circle you made earlier and place it, butter side down, on top of the coiled pasta timbale top. Place a weight on top of this - I used the metal bottom of a round tart pan. Bake the timbale in the oven at 350F for 80 to 90 minutes.

Remove from the oven and invert onto a plate. Slice carefully and serve.

Classic Veal Shanks

Quite a lot of the time I walk home from work and so on cold and snowy days, I trudge home and by the time I get there, I'm chilled and am looking forward to something warm and comforting. Like almost everybody else, I have limited time during the week to prepare meals. I do all the fiddly stuff at the weekends, but during the week, when my time is at a premium and the last thing I want to do after having been at the office for 10 hours is make a mess in the kitchen and then have to clean it up.

On cold and snowy workdays, I love my slow cooker almost as much as I love my husband, Cakes. After minimal effort the night before or first thing in the morning, I can walk in the door at 6 or 7, shake the snow off my feet and breathe in the smell of caramelized onion, tomatoes and veal without having to lift a finger. Heaven.

This classic braise would do well with veal, lamb or pork. I happened to choose veal shanks because that's what was on offer at the butchers.

Serves 4

• 4 x 3-inch thick slices of veal shank
• 1 large sweet onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 cups red wine
• 1 tin chopped plum tomatoes
• 2 cups good beef broth (or if you're really lucky, substitute veal glace)
• 1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest
• salt
• pepper
• 1/4 cup flour
• fresh parsley

Brown the shanks on either side in a bit of olive oil in a heavy frying pan. Pop them into your slow cooker. In the same frying pan, gently saute your onions and garlic until soft. pour the red wine into the pan and use a spatula to scrape all the good brown bits off the bottom of the pan into the red wine. Pour the contents of the pan into the slow cooker. Add all the rest of the ingredients. If you're making this ahead to be cooked later, just pop the whole slow-cooker insert into the fridge. When you're ready to make your braised veal shanks, turn the slow-cooker on low and let it go for 6 to 8 hours.

When it's ready, use a large slotted spoon to gently remove the shanks from the sauce and set the shanks aside on a plate. Pour the sauce into a saucepan, bring to the boil and thicken with a a bit of flour that's been shaken in a jar with some red wine or beef stock.

To serve, place the shanks in a bowl and top with the nice gravy and some fresh parsley. I served mine with a basic gremolata of lemon, parsley and garlic. It's also nice on top of a pile of  fresh polenta or grits.

1 cup chopped fresh parsley

EotMEoTE 8: Quail Egg and Prosciutto Pizza

Surprisingly, Samantha had slept straight through the night despite the thunderstorms. Now Nicholas had roused her from her dreams to watch the glorious, rainbow-ed sunrise. At first she’d been grumbly about having been woken from such a deep sleep. Now she was pleased: the sunrise was breathtaking.

She stretched her long tanned legs in front of her on the porch floor and nursed the cup of coffee Nicholas had offered her, steaming, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. They’d been up so late taking about nothing and everything. She was watching Nicholas serve up breakfast – it looked like eggs and bacon on a pizza base (surely she was wrong) - and trying her hardest to disguise how much she enjoyed watching him do these little meaningless things. She didn’t know which she found more compelling, the pink and orange sunrise or the muscles on the back of Nicholas’ arm as he dished up breakfast.

He looked sideways at her over his muscle-y shoulder. "I hope you like quails eggs on pizza. I know it’s not exactly a traditional romantic getaway breakfast, but I really don’t eat any non-pizza foods."

That was one of the things she liked so much about Nicholas. He was not afraid to be weird. Weird and smouldering at the same time. She could feel her breath catching in her chest as he worked at the tea table.

When would he put the egg and bacon pizza down and walk over to her, sweeping her up into his brawny arms?

She watched, intently as he walked across the porch to he, bearing his love offering, his pizza. And she knew everything was perfect.

" Samantha? Do you like my egg pizza?" he whispered as he crossed the white painted floor.

His voice wafted through her, like the early morning mist over the ground, and she shivered in the warm sunrise air.

“Yes" she said, softly. "I love it."

Carefully, he put aside the pizza, and her shiver turned to a flush of heat as he swept her into his arms and out into the dewy pink and gold  morning, covering her with eggy kisses.

It is the end of the month and yet I see no signs of the friendly and irreverent EotMEoTE entries that make me laugh until I pee my pants. I can find no limericks, no haikus, no Smith's lyrics. Where are all the other EotMEoTE-ers? Where are all the witty poems? Short dramatic works? Are we all egged out by this month's IMBB?

Anthony promised me that the June editition of EotMEoTE would be the Mills & Boon edition, and my quivering orbs of yolky delight have been heaving with anticipation all month. But alas, I fear I am alone in my love of the egg and the toast (or-other-similarly-bready-and-at-least-heated-if-not-toasted-carbohydrate) this month. Sigh.

I had a dozen quail eggs left over from Sunday's upside down caviar and I needed a quick supper for friends. I also thought it would be a cute twist on the Aussie favourite -fried egg topped pizza. I've been in an Aussie food frame of mind for a few days after we had the pleasure of having a couple of fair-dinkum aussies over for a barbie last Friday night. Waz and Lenny live in the apartment next door to a mate of mine, and I'd never ever met them until Waz emailed me after Judy Schultz of the Journal wrote an article about food blogging featuring Lex Culinaria.

What could be more Aussie than egg on a pizza? Alright, maybe egg on a burger.

I love pizzas best without the tomato sauce base (Makes the dough too doughy) so I just brushed the (partially pre-cooked) dough with olive oil and sprinkled on lots of fresh chopped garlic. I topped it with slices of gorgeous ripe tomato, sliced smoked mozzarella, shredded basil leaves and pieces of prosciutto. I baked it in a 400F/200C oven for about 15 minutes - until the cheese melted and the edges got brown. Then I removed it from the oven, grated over some fresh reggiano and cracked a half dozen quails eggs onto each pizza. I popped them back in the oven for 5 minutes, and Bob's your mother's brother.

Fiddlehead and prosciutto pappardelle

When I was small, maybe 5 or 6, my mother instituted the rule that every Friday night was New Vegetable Night. My sister, having attained the grand old age of 10, quickly gave her own designation to Friday nights. She called it "sleeping over at other peoples' houses night". The childhood burden of new and strange vegetables fell squarely on my shoulders. In all, I think it was probably a wise move on my mother's part. I can only recall one vegetable, Brussels sprouts, my dislike for which even New Vegetable Night could not cure. Despite that, when presented with a plateful of them by Jennifer Leffler's mum at a sleepover I attended a few short years later, I knew would not kill me and so I ate them uncomplainingly. And graciously, I thought, for an 8-year old.

My mother still swears that New Vegetable Night was my fault anyway. She claims that, when I was still very small, and we lived in a remote northern Canadian town, we were invited to the only town doctor's house for supper. Being invited to their house for supper, I gather, was to have "arrived" (inasmuch as one could ever "arrive") in Lac LaRonge. As we lived quite far north (and it was the early 1970's) fresh vegetables were very expensive and hard to come by, especially during the winter. So, on this momentous occasion of being invited to Dr. and Mrs. Weins' house for supper, I embarrassed my mother by clutching a broccoli bunch in my fat pink paw and loudly demanding, "what are these little green trees? I don't eat little green trees." Precocious for a 2 year old, I know. But my mother swears that this is what I said. She also swears it is the reason why New Vegetable Night was all my fault.

One Friday night, the new vegetable that appeared on my plate was fiddleheads.

Fiddleheads, the tightly furled shoot of the Ostrich Fern first discovered by the Maliseet and Mi'kMaq tribes in Eastern Canada, are a springtime delicacy from Virginia all the way up to Eastern Canada. Until tonight, the last time I had eaten one was on a New Vegetable Night in 1977. Not that I didn't like them, I just hadn't seen them in the store. So when I saw them at Save-On a couple of days ago, I declared New Vegetable Night in my house. Even though I don't have kids. Other than Cakes, that is.

They taste just how I remember them - like a very mild artichoke or asparagus, only slightly wilder and muskier and more mushroomy than that. They smell and taste of the earth in the same way that fresh scallops taste of the ocean.

Fiddleheads' texture is surprisingly crunchy, even after cooking for a fair amount of time. I parboiled mine less than the recommended ten minutes (apparently there was a food-borne-illness scare in British Columbia in 1990 purportedly resulting from undercooked fiddleheads - I'm hedging my bets - I hate overcooked vegetables!) and then pan fried them in butter, shredded lemon peel, garlic and white wine. They were crunchy and earthy and green tasting and paired well with the noodle-y pappardelle, crispy, smoky prosciutto and salty reggiano, although next time I might leave off the reggiano and add more lemon.

Ingredients

• One punnet (about 300 grams) Fresh fiddleheads
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp zested lemon peel
• juice of half a lemon
• 1/4 cup white wine
• salt and pepper
• enough pasta or noodles of your choice (my choice is almost always pappardelle) to feed two
• 4 slices Prosciutto, fried until crispy and crumbled

Choose tight dark green fiddleheads that are not mushy or too moist. Use them within two days after purchase. If you have picked them yourself (taking care to ensure they are Ostrich fern, other kinds are highly poisonous) they can be stored, well wrapped in plastic, for 4 or 5 days in the vegetable crisper.

Rinse fiddleheads under cold running water, rubbing gently to remove most of the brownish feathery bits. If the cut ends have got a bit of brown on them, trim them.

While your pasta is cooking, boil the fiddleheads in salted water for recommended time, usually about 10 minutes. I only boiled for 4 minutes, but I am an inherently risky chef and I might die from this. If I don't post again after tonight, you'll know the undercooked fiddleheads killed me.

While fiddleheads are boiling, melt butter in a frying pan. Cook and stir garlic until soft and slightly browned. Add lemon peel, lemon juice, wine and salt and pepper.

Remove fiddleheads from heat, strain, rinse again under cold water and then dry. I found that my salad spinner worked very wekk for this.

Toss fiddleheads into frying pan and cook and stir through the butter for about two minutes or until any excess moisture has evaporated and the butter and wine mixture has reduced enough so that it is no longer watery but thick enough to coat the pasta thinly.

Strain cooked pasta and toss in pan with fiddleheads.

Dish up into bowls and sprinkle with crumbled prosciutto. You can add crumbled reggiano if you like, I think it would be better without it.