The day I discovered truffle oil

Made a small beef roast last night that turned out too salty even though the flavours were good, so I tried to correct it. Or, I corrected them through a series of variations.

Variations:
1) Made a cauliflower puree (with milk). Shredded beef roast (marinated with salt, rosemary, thyme rub, cooked in fruit juice and a bed of soft onions) and heated it in the puree.

2) Added a tsp of black truffle oil, then tossed pasta in it. At this point, this is a very good pasta dish.

3) Then, I shaved Neudorf Richmond Red (a prize-winning Manchego-style New Zealand hard cheese), and it became an absolutely, utterly perfect pasta combination.

I realised today - having never EVER liked cheese from sheep's milk because they always seemed to carry an odd sea-urchiny taste - that perhaps I've simply never had good sheep's milk cheese.

And truffle oil - that's like a whole new taste dimension altogether!

Lovely summer memories. . .

This salad really brings back memories of so many things. The freedom of moving into my own flat, going to the Willis St market every Sunday afternoon, getting fresh vegetables and making salads on the very afternoon itself, strawberry salsas, slicing radishes with my Henckels slicing knife, and all the other memories associated with that old flat. . .running, relationships, chanting, hours at the beach. . .

And then I was also so inspired by the mozarella+fresh basil leaf combination I had at Joanne's house, that I had to get a fresh plant and fashion it myself. Even though it wasn't the first time I've had fresh basil, it left a distinct, indelible impression that the experience of fresh basil is really nowhere near the dried.

It was also at the old flat that I rediscovered mangos in a new way (eating them in a 100% concentrated way, slicing and eating them with my paring knife, feet up), beautiful salad dressing combinations, and eating watercress fresh (rather than in a Chinese style soup).

Rosemary Stilton cookies

Can't remember which base recipe I used, but it resulted in tough cookies. However, rosemary, butter and stilton worked so well, I almost couldn't stop eating them!