I must admit I have a problem. Well, really it's a compulsion. Ok, maybe it's a slight addiction. It's costly, and I know it's often pointless, but I can't stop. I, like many gourmandes ("foodie" can be such an awful word"), am addicted to glossy food magazines. Delicious, Vogue Entertaining & Travel, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Donna Hay (only sometimes - it's not a habit, it's cool).... and so on. I don't have a subscription to any yet, which helps me to ignore my worrying magazine addiction.

So, in the spirit of ignoring the problem, I realised that my buying magazines wouldn't be quite so pointless if I got into the habit of cooking from them regularly. And with that in mind, may I present to you my dinner from last week? Both recipes, featuring delicious walnuts, come from this month's Vogue Entertaining and Travel. They looked quite divine, and when I came across some wonderful and cheap walnuts in a general store on Sydney Road, I knew I'd have to give them a go.


The first recipe was a walnut and broccoli pasta. You simply blitz some walnuts with stale bread in a processor, and toast them in a pan with garlic. Then you toss the toasty walnut mixture through cooked pasta and broccoli florets.


The salad was even more simple. Watercress, pear slices, walnuts and parmesan shavings, dressed with walnut oil and balsamic vinegar. I substituted peppery rocket for the super-peppery watercress, and extra virgin olive oil for the walnut oil, but it still tasted good.

We had some great bread to go with our meal - a sourdough loaf and an old fashioned baguette from Noisette on Bay street. I had visited the cafe for the first time that day, on a little excursion down to Port Melbourne with my parents. The lovely cafe is a bit out of my way to become a regular haunt, but their bread and pastries are wonderful.


An old fashioned baguette, also from Noisette . Crunchy, chewy, dense, sour, and fabulous.

The dinner, overall, could be prepared very quickly, and was both light and satisfying. And because the recipes were simple, they would both be easily repeatable for a weeknight meal, without needing to refer to the recipe. Thank-you Vogue!