Day 1

Tonight, as we are in the second week of autumn, I have cooked a delicious veal saltimbocca with roasted root vegetables and ratatouille. Where I live (Melbourne), the following foods are in season for April:

Almonds, apple, avocado, banana, beetroot, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, capsicum, carrot, celery, chestnuts, chilli, coriander, cucumber, eggplant, fennel, fig, garlic, ginger, grapes, green beans, hazlenut, lemon, lime, lobster, mushrooms, okra, olive, onion, oregano, papaya, parsnip, pear, persimmon, pistachio, plums, pomegranate, potato, pumpkin, quince, sage, shallots, sliverbeet, spinach, squash, thyme, tomato, turnip, walnut. (www.sbs.com.au/food/inseason/66/April)

Our veggies were bought from the Vic Market, the garlic and tomatoes came straight from my Mum's garden, the herbs from my garden.

While veal is in season in autumn, I'm pretty sure what we ate was not veal, but the next stage in development which is often passed off as veal, as we bought it from the supermarket (I didn't decide what to cook until this afternoon. One of my plans is to get better at meal planning and buy from butchers who can tell me what is in season and where the produce comes from.)

How did I put it all together?

First I put the oven on, then I prepared the saltimbocca, getting it ready to throw in the pan. I then salted the eggplant. Next step was to get the veggies ready for roasting, then whack them in the oven. I started the ratatouille, then put the veal in the pan. More through good luck than good management, it was all ready at the same time. The whole exercise took about 50 minutes, from getting everything out of the fridge to putting the meal on the table.

Here is what we ate:

Veal Saltimbocca:

I got this recipe from www.epicurean.com, which takes it from "The Silver Spoon", a fantastic sounding Italian cookbook I will buy soon I think)

Serves 4

8 slices of proscuitto, thinly sliced (no more than about 8 - 10cms in length, otherwise get four slices and halve them)

4 slices veal (I used schnitzel and flattened them out a little more and cut into half, making 8)

8 sage leaves

butter, olive oil

1/2 cup dry white wine

salt

Place a slice of prosciutto onto the veal, placing a sage leaf on top, roll up and fasten with a toothpick. Melt butter and oil in frypan and cook veal over high heat on both sides until golden brown. Season with salt, pour in the wine and cook until it has evaporated, remove toothpicks and serve. (I made a sauce with extra wine and butter; it was yum. I poured it over the veal)

This was really easy to make and the two kids (youngish) ate them quite happily.

Ratatouille

I made up my own version of this, so apologies to any Francophiles out there who think I should stick to the original. I've ordered "I know how to cook", a massive collection of French recipes, so I will see when it arrives how my recipe differs.

Half an eggplant, sliced into rings, salted 20 minutes

1 clove garlic, mashed with salt

1 half zucchini, cubed

1 small capsicum, cut into pieces

2 tomatoes, cubed.

After salting the eggplant, I squeezed excess water out and patted the eggplant dry. Heating oil in the pan, dropped in the eggplant and tossed in the oil. I let the eggplant cook on its own for a few minutes, then put in the garlic and salt, stirring. I added in 1 chopped tomato, stirring in, then the capsicum and zucchini. I grabbed some herbs from the garden (thyme, sage, parsley and rosemary, chopped them and in they went. 5 minutes later, I then added the extra tomato. Let it reduce and thicken a bit, then it was done.

Roasted Autumn Vegetables

enough for 4

1 beetroot, peeled, precooked in microwave for 5 minutes, quartered.

2 carrots, peeled, sliced into fingers

2 parsnips, peeled, sliced into fingers

chunk of pumpkin, cut skin off, cut into four 3 cm cubes

2 potatoes, peeled, halved

2 cloves of garlic with skin on

olive oil

herbs.

I also pre cooked the rest of the veggies in the microwave for 3 minutes. dried all veggies on a paper towel, put into the roasting pan with enough olive oil to coat, fresh thyme and rosemary and two garlic cloves. Put into the oven and let cook for around 30 minutes.

It was an easy meal, which my partner and the two kids enjoyed. I also liked the glass of Capel Vale sauvignon blanc semillion (ok, two glasses).