We have a holiday tradition with our friends that we take turns cooking. We make it fun, mixing up teams and playing with themes of food. This holiday it was boys vs girls.
Before we went down, us girls made a plan. My best friend hadn’t used her pasta machine from a couple of christmases ago, so we thought we would give it a whirl. We’d make the pasta in the thermomix and then make large ravioli, filled with three types of fillings. We were making elaborate canapes, finishing with creme brulee for desert. The boys hadn’t even discussed theirs prior to the day before. We were going to cream them…
While we shopped in Dunsborough the boys brainstormed and texted ingredients. First night we got take-away, second night we made pizza and the third was their turn.
Their menu:
Bruschetta, Chorizo, chickpea and tomato stew, Cacciotore, Chilli Mussels, Garlic prawns and field mushrooms.
They looked so cute in the kitchen together and the dinner was a resounding success.
The next night was our turn.
In our defence, we looked after the kids while the boys got in their prep time. The boys watched basketball during ours (after we had an hour or two at the day spa) and we made the kids dinner. Being the last night we also noticed that a lot of our ingredients had gone missing. No butter for the sage and butter sauce….our elaborate entree nibbles had been eaten in different meals and we were bone tired from dealing with so many kids in such a small space.
Our meal changed so many times that it ended up spaghetti (loose term) bolognese. I’d forgotten my blow torch and ramekins so no creme brulee either.
We did however try and make our own pasta. The pasta looked the right colour, texture was good and when we fed it through the machine it seemed to make pretty good spaghetti. The water was on the convection stove but was taking forever to boil. We’d piled the spaghetti on the bench while we were waiting and when we went to get it…it had melted into each other. The pasta machine had also decided that our softening pasta was not going to work and we couldn’t push anymore dough through the spaghetti side. We decided to try and save ourselves and put it through the fettucine section.
The worst the pasta got, the harder we laughed and the quicker the wine went down…the boys were not impressed.
