Potatoes

A few days ago, I was rummaging around in the cupboard for some potatoes for a mash that I was making, and was surprised by the variety that seems to have mysteriously accrued in the cupboard.

The dark purple (almost black) skinned variety are called Purple Congo. They have a floury texture and a purple flesh. Apparently they make great Gnocchi, so guess what I will be making this weekend....

The other varieties are (if I remember correctly) Kipfler, Pink Eye, Desiree, Toolangi Delight, & Dutch Cream. They all have different characteristics, flesh colour, texture, & even flavour. And there are alot more varieties out there!

Pizza

There's a new Pizza store that's just opened near us in Carlisle St called The Green Light.
I haven't sampled their pizzas yet, but if this chalkboard special is anything to go by it could be very interesting...

Street Art

Modern technology.

Wondering the streets of Melbourne.

See something interesting?

Take a photo with the trusty mobile phone...

Another Paper Chef entery...

I think I'm going through an un-motivated cooking stage as looking back through my blog, the Paper Chef entries seem to be the only recipes that I'm posting.
This month's ingredients were selected by Bron from Bron Marshall with a some help from her little fairies.
They selected: Prosciutto, Floury Potatoes, Thyme, and (just for something different) a theme of Mother’s Day for the fourth ingredient.
No stuffing around with wild ideas for this one, I went with my first thought: Gnocchi, with herbed butter and crispy fried prosciutto. And the Mother's Day theme? Flowers, vivid blue Rosemary flowers, both colourful & eatable. If you're looking at the photo you maybe wondering what the black specks are. Well my partner Paul suggested adding some crushed dried truffle to the butter sauce. We had a pack of them sitting in the pantry & they hadn't been used for anything as yet.
The recipe for the gnocchi can be found here. It was my first ever blog post which I had initially posted on Paul's now closed blog Eat Me! which I moved onto here when I started Spikey Mikeys.

Ingredients:
1 portion gnocchi
100g unsalted butter
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves
Rosemary flowers
5-6 fresh sage leaves
scraping fresh nutmeg
1 tsp dried truffle, crushed (optional)
salt
fresh ground black pepper
100g prosciutto
Olive oil
Fresh grated Parmesan

Method:
Fry the prosciutto in a little olive oil till it nice & crispy.
Remove & place on paper towels & allow to drain of any excess oil.
Melt the butter of a low heat & add thyme, rosemary, nutmeg & crushed truffles and allow to gently infuse.
Cook the gnocchi as instructed.
Gently toss the gnocchi with the butter sauce and place into a serving dish.
Crumble the crispy prosciutto over the top of the gnocchi.
Sprinkle with the rosemary flowers and serve with the grated Parmesan.

Happy Mother's Day Mum!!! x

Colours

All I can say is it looked good.