The Creative Juices Have Flown

Kalamata Olive & Rosemary Focaccia

Focaccia drizzled with a bit of extra-virgin olive oil and rock salt

Roasted Eggplant & Capsicum Rocket Salad

Savoury Tomato & Basil Clafoutis

I came home from my first day of work today wanting to make some delicious bicotti after having loaded heaps and heaps of trays of biscotti bread waiting to be toasted and turned into the end product. After looking through a few recipes in The Silver Spoon I became unmotivated due to the fact that I had nothing in my kitchen to make an impromptu batch of these Italian biscuits. I decided on a focaccia instead and thought it worthwhile to put one of my newest books to use -- The Bread Book: the definitive guide to making bread by hand or machine. In the tradition of my inability to follow recipes exactly in any of my books for one reason or another, I used a basic focaccia recipe and added kalamata olives.

Vital Vegetables, which is a compilation of vegetable-based recipes from from the BBC Good Food Magazine was quite useful in helping me put together dinner for today and the roasted vegetable salad is a definite winner. Everything on the menu was rather tasty, really, but the winning ingredient in the roasted vegetables was 1 tsp of honey mixed with 2 tsp of extra-virgin olive oil, fresh ground pepper and salt. It added an extra little umph to the usual caramelisation on the vegetables.

I'd have to say that the best thing about my new job is being able to get home at 12:30 in the afternoon and have the rest of the afternoon to plan a proper dinner, also, no work on the weekends. I quit my other job and it feel absolutely terrific.