Red wine and sausage risotto

Hello everyone, I have just returned from three days in Mount Gambier, South Australia, and have two completely different food experiences to relate. (I was very thankful that the second was so different to the first).

On the first night I was there, with the around 60 or so other conference delegates I went to dinner at a local Italian place. My alarm bells had started to ring early as we were informed we were starting with tapas, to be followed by pizza and pasta. Quite a cultural mix, but I guess at least it was all European. For dinner we were presented with quite a wide choice of pizzas and pastas. Frankly none of them really appealed but I picked one and put in my order with everyone else. We then waited, and waited, and waited for our food. No garlic bread or salads to sustain us. Eventually the food started to arrive. I think my neighbour on my right was just finishing hers when my neighbour on my left received her dinner. And lucky me, I just continued to wait! Finally, when everyone else was ordering coffee my pizza arrived. I looked at it, politely thanked the waiter who had brought it to me, then pointed out that in fact it wasn't the pizza I had ordered. Hands on hips she declared "Sweetheart, that's all there is. I suggest you eat it. It will fill you up." Which is just hilarious to be told that in a restaurant! I have laughed my head off every time I have told someone the story. And not only was it the wrong pizza, the base was only half cooked! So, it will be one of my memorable meals but not for the usual reasons!

Thankfully the next nightwas much better. We were treated to a wine tasting at Balnaves of Coonawarra Winery http://www.balnaves.com.au/. It was lovely. We were welcomed into a beautiful room at the winery which felt like being in someone's very tasteful home, and feasted on delicious cheeses and fruit pastes while tasting various wines. We then moved on to dinner at a wonderful place, Pipers of Penola http://www.pipersofpenola.com.au/ which was outstanding. The restaurant was beautiful, the service was very charming and the food was excellent. Perhaps best of all was the luscious chocolate pudding for dessert. Mmmmm, it was good.

This week's recipe is one I remembered because I did a very similar thing during the week with pork sausages and red wine. In that case I made a delicious pasta sauce, but this recipe is for a very easy risotto. It comes from the very reliable Take Three by Jill Dupleix.

Have a happy week. Love from Jane xx

Red wine and sausage risotto

Serves four

What you need:

• 3 Italian pork and fennel sausages
• 300g Arborio rice
• 115ml good red wine
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 750ml chicken stock, heated
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan, plus extra for serving

What you do:

1. Heat a non stick frying pan.
2. Squeeze the meat out of the sausages and add the meat in small lumps to the frying pan, frying until lightly crusty and golden. Set aside.
3. Melt the butter in the same pan and add the onion, cooking over a moderate heat until translucent.
4. Add the rice and stir until well mixed with the onion.
5. Add the red wine and allow to bubble for a couple of minutes, until absorbed.
6. Add the sausage and stir thoroughly.
7. Add all of the chicken stock and bring the mix back to the boil.
8. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for about 15 minutes, until the rice has absorbed the stock and is tender. If the rice starts to dry out and isn't yet cooked, add some water.
9. Stir in the Parmesan and serve with additional Parmesan served at the table.

Giovanni's sausages with potatoes and rosemary

Hello everyone, I had a really delicious meal the other night. I have been dying to try out a tavola http://www.atavola.com.au/ restaurant in Darlinghurst and believe me, it was well worth the anticipation. It is a narrow restaurant with one of those great long communal tables in the front room, and then you proceed past a long, narrow kitchen and down some stairs into another room that has tables for smaller groups. The fit out is very cool with lots of interesting bits and pieces. Although in a gorgeous Italian restaurant like this I would usually always have the hand made pasta, having consumed an excellent dish of pasta the day before I tried the ocean trout served with a panzanella salad and it was delicious. Dessert, of course, was my main interest and I wasn't disappointed. We had a beautiful sort of chocolate pudding thing that was cooked to order (I'm a little fuzzy on what it actually was because the waiter had such a strong Italian accent I only understood about one word in every three) and it was served with the most beautiful (both to look at and to taste) raspberry icecream. MMMMM it was all good.

So, inspired by this Italian theme and the increasingly cold weather, today's recipe is a fabulous, I think Bill Granger, recipe that I found some years ago in delicous magazine. I adore sausages (and potatoes of course) so to me it's a fabulous combination. Kids really love this dish too.

Have a great week, love from Jane x

Giovanni’s sausages with potatoes and rosemary

Serves four

What you need:
· 6 thick pork sausages
· 800g kipfler potatoes, scrubbed and sliced
· 1 ½ teaspoons paprika
· 2 rosemary stalks
· 2 ½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (you may not use this much, it’s personal taste)
· ½ ciabatta loaf, crusts removed
· A handful of fresh basil leaves

What you do:
1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Slice the sausages thickly and place in a large roasting pan.
3. Add the potatoes, paprika, rosemary, sea salt and pepper.
4. Drizzle with oil and toss gently.
5. Roast, stirring occasionally, for 50 to 60 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and the sausages golden brown.
6. Tear the ciabatta into bite sized pieces and add to the pan for the final 20 minutes of cooking.
7. Sprinkle with the basil and serve.

Chicken sausage and couscous salad

Hello everyone, I had fun today. I had arranged to take out my nieces for a few hours during the day. Being such a cold and wet day my thoughts turned to pizza, so I thought I'd take them to Rosso Pomodoro at Balmain. No go - they don't like pizza anymore. They did last time I looked, but there was no interest in going out for pizza. As they do currently love sushi, I took them to a sushi train instead. Emma, the nearly ten year old managed two pieces of sushi and decided she was full. But Rachael, the seven year old, completely embraced the whole sushi train concept. She loved it! She matched me plate for plate, studied the menu to confirm what she thought she was grabbing from the conveyor belt, and commented a couple of times "I could stay here all afternoon watching all these dishes go around!" So there is now an expectation that she and I are going to try out every sushi train we can find in Sydney. Only the good ones of course!

This week's recipe is a great cold dish which early subscribers to my email recipe service might remember seeing. It is great for entertaining as it makes a huge quantity, and with the chicken sausages kids love it. It certainly has all my favourite flavours in it with the lemon and mint and green olives. The recipe comes from my Womens Weekly Salads cookbook, which has been the source of many good, substantial salads for me. I have a note to myself with the recipe that the Womens Weekly test kitchen must have invited in people to try out this salad who had ENORMOUS appetites as according to them it serves four, and by my reckoning it easily serves eight very generously. See what you think.

Have a happy week. Love from Jane xxx

Chicken sausage and couscous salad

Serves between four and eight, or maybe more, you be the judge

What you need:
· 8 thick chicken sausages
· 1 ½ cups chicken stock
· 1 ½ cups couscous
· 1/3 cup finely chopped preserved lemon rind
· 1 medium red capsicum, sliced thinly (or chopped, your preference)
· 300g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
· 1 cup seeded large green olives, halved lengthways
· 1 cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves, chopped
· 1/3 cup lemon juice
· 1/3 cup olive oil

What you do:
1. Cook the sausages however you like – I usually stick them in the oven for half an hour and they come up beautifully. When cooked, slice them thinly.
2. Meanwhile, bring stock to a boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat, stir in the couscous and cover. Stand for about five minutes or until the stock is absorbed, then fluff up the couscous with a fork.
3. Place the sausages and couscous in a large bowl with the remaining ingredients and toss gently to combine.