Panzanella Salad

Second salad for the Spring season and i've gone for one similar to my very favorite salad- caprese! The Panzanella salad is of Italian origin and is primarily composed of bread and tomatoes. The bread soaks up the olive oil and balsamic and adds a delicious crunch and carbohydrate satiety to the dish.

A note on tomatoes: as we get into the hotter months, the time for the best tomatoes (late summer) draws nearer and nearer! Gone are the the hard, tasteless round globes that we must satisfy ourselves with in Autumn and Winter, and in come the delicious, intensely flavored real deal! If you're a supermarket shopper there is a great tomato available at coles now in a package called 'Intense'. They're marketed as being low in the moist innards of your standard tomato and thus as being ideal for sandwiched. But they're also grown in DIRT (a rarity now) and are strongly flavored, ideal for this salad!

Pork Fillet with Proscuitto, Kipfler Potatoes & Rocket

Spring is well and truly here (ok maybe the weather does not agree) but i'm for one of the first times truly excited about eating wonderful fresh spring food, particularly salads! This one is definitely a 'transitional salad' substantial enough to have in a bit of cold weather. I'm a lover of kipfler potatoes because of their earthy richness, but you could always replace with waxy chat potatoes instead should you wish.

Jamie Oliver's Chocolate Brownies

Okay, i have to admit it. I was a Jamie-hater. The over exploitation of his name on television, along with the sudden reference of a Thai mortar and pestle as a 'Jamie Oliver' pestle left a sour pit in my stomach that was not easily movable. However, recently i went back to his original TV series The Naked Chef, back to the roots of his cooking in it's philosophy of good food, simply and quickly prepared. And i can see, the man has talent.

This talent is more than demonstrated in his recipe for Chocolate Brownies. These deliciously decadent rich morsels have the perfect cominbation of disgustingly opulent richness (enhanced by the use of Lindt Chocolate), sticky chewiness and butteriness.