Summer Sauce for pasta

This is the only one of three recipes from this fortnight's Cooks Club Challenge that I'll be doing. The others are Pork in Caper sauce and Rice balls. I don't like capers, and DP doesn't eat rice. I've always wanted to try the rice balls stuffed with mozzarella, but it seems like a lot of work, especially when I have to cook a seperate meal for DP on top of it, so that won't be happening this time around. However, this make ahead pasta sauce is perfect for the hot days we've been having lately.

Summer Sauce (taken from the Taste.com.au forums)

The key to this lovely fresh sauce is really ripe tomatoes – vine ripened are best, or better still home grown.

Ingredients
500g firm ripe tomatoes
1 onion (I use a red onion)
6 green olives
1 Tablespoon capers
½ teaspoon dried oregano (or 1 tablespoon fresh)
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley (I like to use a combination of parsley & fresh basil)
2 cloves of garlic
½ cup good quality olive oil – you can use light or extra virgin it’s up to you, I prefer extra virgin
Fresh ground black pepper (optional)
Splash of balsamic vinegar (optional)

Chop unpeeled tomatoes finely; peel and chop onion; stone and chop olives; chop capers finely, crush garlic. Combine ingredients, add herbs and olive oil and mix well. Grind in some pepper and splash with balsamic (if using) Cover and stand for at least 6 hours or overnight. I made mine the night before and put in fridge, but returned to room temp 2 hours before serving.

Toss through hot pasta (I like fettuccini) and top with shaved parmesan cheese.

I skipped the olives and capers, and used a mixture of basil and parsley as suggested. Instead of the oregano and 1/3 cup regular olive oil, I used 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil infused with rosemary. I served with spaghetti, but no parmesan.

Chocotorta: Argentinian Chocolate Ripple Cake.

Recently, as part of the Culinary World Tour, I saw a post about an Argentine dessert called Chocotorta, over at We are Never Full. It looked so luscious I knew I'd end up trying to make it, and thanks to the upcoming birthday of one of my best friends, I did just that. The recipe called for thin rectangular chocolate biscuits. As far as I could tell, they are much like a chocolate Malt-O-Milk, or something along those lines. But I could not find anything like that at all. In fact, the only chocolate biscuit I could find were Chocolate Ripple Biscuits. And then it struck me how much like a Chocolate Ripple Cake this was.

For those of you who aren't Australian, a Chocolate Ripple cake is made by whipping some cream with sugar and vanilla, then making a log with the circular biscuits, sandwiching them with the cream, and covering the edges, once all the biscuits are down. Then it is left in the fridge overnight, and the moisture in the cream turns the biscuits into cake. This seemed to be much the same, only with fancier cream.

Chocotorta (my way)
2 pkts Chocolate Ripple biscuits
1 can of dulce de leche, or make your own from one can of sweetened condensed milk
1 block cream cheese
1 1/2 cup whipped cream

Line a square or rectangular pan with cling wrap, leaving about 8 inches extra on each side, and then place another sheet of cling wrap with the overhang the other way. You are going to use these extra “flaps” to wrap the Chocotorta up. (I didn't do this to start, attempting to build the cake straight on a plate, like you would for a chocolate ripple cake, but this cream isn't as sturdy, so save yourself the trouble, and start in the pan)

Beat the cheese and dulce de leche together with an electric mixer. I didn't have any ready made dulce, so mine was a little warm still, which made the whipping together a lot easier, but you should still be fine with room temperature ready made. Fold in the whipped cream until it is all mixed together.

Put a layer of biscuits in the bottom of the pan. You can tell from my final pictures that my bottom layer had the cream under the biscuits in parts, that's because I tried to do this step on a plate, and got all my biscuits coated before I gave up. It's up to you whether you want cream or biscuits first. Spread (or pour if it's hot in your kitchen, like ours) a layer of cream over your first layer of biscuits.

Miss Four pouring cream on biscuits

Then top the cream layer with another layer of biscuits, then cream, and so on, until you run out of biscuits or cream mixture. Make sure your final layer is biscuits. This is a great time to get your kids into the kitchen too!

Once you have placed your final layer of biscuits, fold the cling wrap across the top of the cake tightly. It won't hurt to squish it slightly, but not too tight, as you want to leave cream between each biscuit layer. Place in the fridge overnight, or for at least 5 hours.

Wrapped and ready to fridge

This was another entry for the 'no cook event' over at Seduce Your Tastebuds

Mango Lime Sorbet

This is a great recipe I got from Cooking of Joy. For once, I didn't change anything about the recipe at all. Normally, in Summer I would have simple syrup on hand in the fridge or freezer, to make ice cream at the drop of the hat, and then I would have made this without the lime zest. (Simple syrup being equal parts sugar and water, boiled together until the sugar dissolves, used in making sorbets and some fruity ice creams) That would have also made this a 'no cook' dish, which is perfect, because Padmajha over at Seduce Your Tastebuds is running a 'non cook' blog event. So pretend you have simple syrup in your fridge, because I don't want to break the rules (no stoves allowed) but this sorbet is too good not to share!

Mango Lime Sorbet (taken from Cooking of Joy)
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Zest from one lime
3 ripe mangos (about 2 1/2 pounds)
1/2 cup lime juice
Pinch salt
3 tablespoons coconut rum

Heat the sugar, water, and lime zest in a medium saucepan until the sugar has completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.
Cut the flesh from the mangoes.
Put the mango pieces, sugar water, lime juice, and salt into a blender. Blend until completely smooth. Pour into a medium bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until completely chilled.

When ready to put the chilled lime mango purée into your ice cream maker, mix in the rum. Process the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the ice cream maker directions. Transfer mixture to a plastic storage container and freeze in your freezer until firm, at least 6 hours.

This makes a very luscious, fruity, refreshing ice treat, that is perfect for family in their underwear on the couch, or friends enjoying a drink or three on a muggy hot night out on the deck, alike. I'm actually quite sad that this is all gone. The mangos I used were squashy and over ripe, marked down ( that's why I bought them) and not only were they bursting with flavour, they had a kind of 'fizzy' quality to the tongue when you ate them. Which brought a whole new layer of awesomeness to this dish. Yes, I know, they had probably started fermenting, but that certainly didn't bother me any!

This was an entry for the 'no cook event' over at Seduce Your Tastebuds