Welcome Gnome

Gnomesville.

Why?
The story goes that this started when a group of Dardanup Primary School students mentioned there was a traffic hazard at the intersection during a mock council meeting. The council heard about it and started building the roundabout. A local Wellington Mills resident placed a single gnome at the site of the roundabout as a silent protest against the controversial project. More gnomes soon came to join the silent protestor and soon the site had become a large gnome community.

Amazing

We are going to buy gnomes on the internet and take them next time we go.

Wow

Welcome Gnome. Gnome sweet gnome. Gnome is where the heart is. Metrognome. . .

Also on the itinerary - Wild Bull Brewery. Nice simple lunch in a beautiful setting.

pasta in a dish with eggplant, mushrooms and bacon

Thanks to "Dana Treat Yourself" for this recipe

Delicious
Easy
Now I have dinner for the next four days
I had no wine for my tomato sauce so I used some beer - quite a tasty substitution

1 eggplant, chopped into 1.5cm cubes
4 rashers of bacon, chopped into batons
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 bag of button mushrooms - between 8-10
1 quantity of tomato sauce or your own favourite tomato pasta sauce
1 cup ricotta cheese

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

Parmesan cheese

Penne pasta

In a non-stick frying pan saute the eggplant until lightly golden and nice and soft. Remove to a plate.
In the same pan saute the bacon until nice and crispy. Turn down the heat and add the onion. Cook until soft. Add the garlic and cook for a minute longer. Add the mushrooms and cook until soft. Add 1tsp chopped thyme and 1tbsp chopped basil. Season well with salt and pepper. Remove to a plate.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water until al dente. Mix the pasta with the tomato sauce until coated. Pour into a lasagne dish. Layer mushrooms and eggplant on top. Cover with any remaining tomato sauce. Sprinkle with a layer of grated parmesan cheese.

In a bowl mix together the ricotta cheese, egg and milk and 1/2 cup grated parmesan.. Season well with salt and pepper. Pour over the pasta mix. Top with extra grated parmesan. Place in the oven and cook for 20-30 mins or until golden on top.

It can be refrigerated before cooking or after cooking and reheated in the oven.

Tomato Sauce
1 brown onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
Stems from a handful of basil, chopped
1 tbsp tomato paste
A good glug of beer
400g can chopped tomatoes
Leaves from three sprigs of thyme
Large handful basil leaves, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Gently saute the onion until soft. Add the garlic and basil stalks and cook until soft and delicious. Season with salt and pepper. Add the tomato paste and saute for 1-2 mins until fragrant. Stir in the beer and then reduce slightly. Add the tomatoes and cook for 20-30 mins or until beautiful and reduced and yummy. At the last minute stir in the basil leaves and season again with salt and pepper.

red wine and rabbit at mojos (in bunbury)

Wednesday night. Tired of work. Too lazy to cook. Solution = organise dinner at Mojos in town.
Looks nice from outside.
Lots of gold plates on the walls.
Boasting reviews in Gourmet Traveller ...
The rest is for us to decide.

Wine: 2008 Turkey Flat Shiraz --> delicious

Dinner: Fettucine with confit rabbit ragout with cherry tomatoes and mushrooms --> delicious
I suspect someone snuck some truffle oil into this pasta - it was beautiful

Sommelier - very helpful

Waitstaff - attentive

Price - appropriately priced

Will we revisit - yes

Tempting offers for next time:

Blue manna crab omelets
Fresh shucked oysters
Pork belly and prawn salad

and. so. on.

Chilli chilli mahi mahi spaghetti

Adam caught lots of beautiful Mahi Mahi.

Day 1: Sashimi. Fresh mahi mahi dipped in horseradish and soy sauce. Amazing. Best sashimi ever.

Day 2: BBQ mahi mahi. Beautiful.

1 week later: defrost frozen mahi mahi for chilli mahi mahi spaghetti. Super hot. Super flavourful. Super delicious. Substitute any other firm white fish (or prawns, squid, mussels...)

1 large fillet fish chopped into nice large chunks - it'll break up a bit when cooked so cut it a bit bigger than the size you want to eat

3 birdseye chillies, finely chopped

1 long red chilli, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely sliced

4 anchovy fillets, chopped

2 fresh tomatoes, finely diced

1/2 cup white wine (we used beer as all out of wine! - still delicious)

1/2 cup chopped basil

1/4 cup chopped parsley

Plenty of salt and pepper

Fettucine or spaghetti - use nice quality pasta for this. Cook according to packet directions in salted water

In a pan heat a good couple of glugs of nice olive oil and about 1 tbsp butter over a gentle heat. Add the garlic, chillies and anchovy fillets. Cook nice and gently for 2-3 minutes or until the anchovies melt - give them a bit of a squash, and the garlic and chillies are nice and fragrant. Add the tomatoes and cook for another few minutes or until nice and soft. Add the wine and the fish. Cook gently for 3-5 minutes or until the fish is just cooked. Season well with salt and pepper (might already be salty from anchovies).

Just before serving stir through the pasta, the herbs and another good glug of olive oil. Don't add too much pasta for the amount of sauce you get - you want a good sauce to pasta ratio!

You will enjoy this - it is delicious.

Make sure you are generous with the olive oil and butter and seasoning!

It is actually pretty hot - so you could potentially tame back the chilli if you need to. But I like it like this.