Spaghetti + broccoli

Sounds dull, doesn’t it? But it’s really, really not. It’s creamy and delicious and also full of goodness and I’ve eaten it two days in a row now.

I made a big bowl of this for lunch the other day to celebrate the beginning of Spring but it would of course also be perfect for a simple supper.

OK, the broccoli also looks weirdly kind of fluorescent against the lime green chopping board! I’ll take some new pics next time I make it.

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To make lunch (or dinner) for one you’ll need:

about 100g of broccoli, chopped

one clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

handful of spaghetti (about 100g)

salt and black pepper

dried chilli flakes (if liked)

Parmesan or Pecorino cheese, grated

Put a pan of water with a big pinch of salt over the heat and cover. While it’s coming to the boil chop the broccoli and when the water’s boiling, add the broccoli and boil on a medium heat for about four minutes.

And while that’s cooking, add a good slosh of olive oil, perhaps a tablespoon, to a non-stick pan and fry the garlic very gently, stirring often. Add a little splash of water from the pasta pan if it even thinks about sticking/burning.

When the broccoli has cooked, remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon and add to the frying pan with a ladle more of the pasta water so it can continue simmering.

Put the spaghetti into the same pan of water that the broccoli was in - it’ll only add more flavour and goodness to cook in the vegetable water. Cook according to pack instructions or to your taste - I did mine on a medium boil for eight minutes.

Keep stirring the simmering broccoli and it’s going to get really nice and soft. After about five minutes season with salt and pepper - and some dried chilli flakes if liked. Also add about half the cheese and stir in .

Drain the pasta when ready and add to the pan - make sure to reserve a little more of the cooking water in case you want to loosen your sauce any more. Stir, add the rest of the cheese and cook for another minute or two.

Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed and voila.

Creamy delicious nutritious broccoli spaghetti.

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Pasta with ‘posh pesto’

My friend Gemma made a huge bowl of this insanely delicious pasta with - as she called it - ‘posh pesto’ for our book club the other night.

A few things …. firstly our book club is really a ‘food and wine club’ with added (optional) book! It’s so much fun, always always a great night. The host chooses the book and we then all eat and drink and try to remember to discuss the book at some point in the evening.

If you’re interested, Gemma's book choice was as good as her food - it’s also very short and can be read in one sitting. It’s The Yellow Wallpaper and I’m just going to copy and paste from one of the editions available on Amazon UK:

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER is a story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental.

I think we talked about this book more than we’ve talked about any book yet!

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Back to the pasta though … we had it that night with tagliatelle but I’ve since made it twice with spaghetti.

If you’d like the original recipe, you can find it HERE.

I have to say I loved it so much I asked for the recipe whilst still eating my first bowlful!

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To make this the way I did for two people, you’ll need:

200g spaghetti (every time I make spaghetti I weigh it by how it feels in my hand, I never trust it but when I then weigh it to check it is always EXACTLY the right amount!)

a pack of fresh basil (the actual recipe says 50g for two people but I only had one 15g bag and it was still delicious, so entirely up to you if you want to use more)

1 small garlic clove

a small handful of shelled pistachios (it should have been 50g but I didn’t weigh them and just guessed it might be about a small handful)

1 small red bird eye chilli (this was still quite hot, so of course adjust how much chilli to your own taste or use a milder chilli)

zest of half a lemon

juice of half - one lemon (to taste)

olive oil

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Put a pan of water on to boil and add a good big pinch of salt (maybe a teaspoon).

While it’s coming to the boil, start making the pesto by first finely chopping the basil. I did this separately to the other chopped ingredients to stop it going mushy.

Put the chopped basil into a big bowl or serving dish and then start to finely chop the garlic, pistachios, chilli and lemon zest.

This is really easy with a big flat knife, so you can squash the ingredients and then chop, but if you don’t have a cleaver-style knife then (a) put one on your next birthday list - it is SUCH a useful knife to have and (b) use any knife you like but the bigger the easier I find.

Oh! The water is probably boiling by now so add in your pasta and cook according to the pack instructions, or to your liking, or for nine minutes (as I did).

Once everything is chopped finely, add back the basil and chop it all together again, just for that last bit of fineness and also to make the basil really part of the mix.

Tip it all back into the bowl and add lemon juice - start with the juice of half a lemon but taste and add more if needed (mine did).

Add a good slug of a good olive oil and a little salt.

Stir it all together and taste again to make sure you’re happy with it or you want to make any adjustments.

When the pasta is done, remove a ladle of the pasta water into a mug, then drain the spaghetti and add to the bowl of pesto.

Stir and mix thoroughly, adding a little of that reserved pasta water if it needs loosening at all.

Serve. As is.

Personally, I don’t think this needs anything else to go with it, except for good company and a glass of red wine …

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Beautiful, easy, no-cook sauce for pasta

Like summer in a bowl, no matter what time of year.

More specifically, like a summer in Italy brought to life in a bowl.

It’s like everything you ever imagined the Mediterranean diet would be.

Actually I’m now not sure about that as I think if I had to think of the quintessential Mediterranean diet dish it might be this sauce on top of a simple grilled white fish.

If you think tuna in a sauce for a fish is too much …. well, fish … you can leave the tuna out.

In fact, you can leave the tuna out anyway, to make this a vegetarian dish - and it’s still utterly gorgeous.

This sauce, with or without the tuna (ok, now I’m singing U2 ‘With or Without Tu’) is amazing with pasta of course but also delicious with crusty bread. If you have it on bread I’d suggest leaving it a few minutes before eating so the sauce has a chance to really soak in.

Here’s what you need - but the quantities are up to you and what tastes good …

Freshly squeezed lemon juice - it’s going to be more than you think. Keep tasting but at least 1 lemon if not two

Good olive oil and lots of it

Fresh sliced fennel bulb and some of the lovely leafy fronds too if you have them

Capers, drained and chopped

Pitted black olives, drained and sliced

Salt, pepper and a pinch of dried chilli flakes

Stir it all together, mix it up and then see what tastes good to you?

What does it need? Maybe a little more lemon? A few more chilli flakes?

Make it taste perfect for YOU.

Add to this mixture

1 tin of flaked tuna, preferably in oil, but do drain it first

Mix and leave for five minutes or so, so that the flavours can really meld together.

And THEN (and literally I’m practically salivating just typing this as I want to be eating it again RIGHT NOW …. scoop it onto bread or toast, stir into cooked pasta, or spoon over that previously mentioned plain grilled white fish.

This is so delicious, I can’t wait for you to make it too.

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Summertime courgette pesto pasta

Summertime … of course just at the very word THIS is draping it’s sumptuousness into your mind right now …

You know those days when it’s so hot, so still, so languid …. that you really absolutely cannot bear the thought of the oven being on for even a second?

Today was one of those.

I did brave the hob though - just for five quick minutes mind you, to boil the fresh penne pasta.

But the delicious courgette pesto is all raw so no unnecessary over-heating going on over here at all.

This is pretty much exactly as one of my very favourite food writers, Diana Henry, shared it, but I made a couple of tiny changes to it.

Her original recipe is HERE.

And I’m also putting the link to her books HERE too as I’m a huge fan so why not share the love?

I used her recipe as a starting point but didn’t really measure what I was using, so here’s kind of what I used to make a very lovely simple summer evening dinner for two …

1 courgette, peeled (mostly) and grated using a box grater

1 small garlic clove, peeled, squashed and roughly chopped

small handful of pine nuts, perhaps around 20-30g

handful of basil leaves, torn

small green chilli, chopped (optional, totally optional, I just like a bit of chilli in things)

salt and pepper

a little slosh of olive oil

Put everything into a blender or food processor and whizz up to a lovely soft paste. I like this to be quite soupy so added a little water too.. Basically, just make it perfect for you and exactly as you like it. You might need to stop a couple of times to push the mixture down the sides and get it all mixed up together.

Pour into a shallow dish and scrape all the mixture from the sides of the food processor or blender.

Add a good handful of freshly grated parmesan and some salt and freshly ground black pepepr.

Stir this lovely fragrant mixture together.

The sauce is now there, happy waiting for the pasta - so time to make the pasta!

Fresh I think is best for this dish and mainly because it’s super-quick and won’t make us too hot on this of hottest of days.

My fresh penne needed just five minutes on a low boil, then drained it was ready to put straight into the bowl of delicious courgette pesto sauce.

I just mixed it all in together, tasted - seasoned a little more - and it was ready.

I added a little more grated parmesan, a little more black pepper, and a few basil leaves to garnish and that was it.

So simple.

So delicious.

So good for these sweltering evenings when you really want to limit having the oven or hob on!

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Spaghetti with creamy avocado sauce

Simple, delicious and immune-boosting (vitamins A, C and E are all present in avocados).

Plus we’re adding fresh lemon juice and some gorgeous olive oil to the sauce just to up the goodness stakes.

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Here we go …

For one or for two, basically it’s up to you how runny or thick you make the sauce:

one lovely soft ripe avocado

fresh lemon juice

a glug or so of olive oil

a handful of fresh basil leaves

salt and pepper

a pinch of dried chilli flakes

a little slosh of water if needed to loosen it up or to make the sauce thinner (as you choose)

Blend the sauce ingredients first so that’s ready to go and then cook your spaghetti in a big pan of salted water.

When you drain the pasta, make sure you keep some of the cooking water behind too, just in case you need to loosen the pasta a little more.

Pour the sauce over the pasta and make sure it’s covering all of it - keep mixing!

And then add salt and pepper and grated parmesan - if liked - and some extra fresh basil to garnish.

Super simple, super good for you and super good for this time of year as we head into winter and want our immune systems to be happy and strong.

PS. Yes, it’s unnecessary to have two almost identical photos of the dish but I’m just having one of those days where I can’t decide which I prefer!

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Bacon + egg carbonara

I mean, the combination of bacon and egg can’t really go wrong, can it?

And combined with delicious, silky pasta …. ?

The secret to all good pasta dishes is not to have them all dried out - just reserve some of that pasta cooking water to add to give it all a little ease, a little slippery glossiness, to make it all just work so much better.

I’ve seen - and tried - my fair share of carbonara recipes …. and find so many so over-complicated.

Some mix the egg with parmesan cheese, seasoning and cream, or even tangy creme fraiche (wrong in this dish in my opinion).

Some use whole eggs, not just the yolk, some use butter.

This is my own favourite go-to quick, easy and delicious - and simple - carbonara recipe.

I made this huge pile of pasta just for me (I don’t eat pasta that often because when I do, I eat GINORMOUS portions of it!) but it would probably feed two - or definitely will do with a little tweaking.

Go with what feels good to you, this is a very instinctive sort of dish, and all the more beautiful for it I think.

You’ll need:

cooked pasta - as much as you want - spaghetti or tagliatelle is traditional, but have whatever you like

a couple of slices of bacon - streaky is good and I believe it’s more authentic to have non-smoked, but I like smoked bacon in this so I have smoked back bacon (and remove as much fat as possible)

a clove of garlic (I know I ‘should’ really squash it and add to the oil and then remove later, but I really love garlic so I crush and mince and leave it all in)

a good slosh of olive oil

a tablespoon or so of finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to serve

one egg yolk (and hurrah I now have an egg white to make lemon vodka sour cocktails later!)

a handful of spinach (if liked)

lots of freshly ground black pepper

Get everything ready, cook the pasta, dice the bacon, mince the garlic.

And then just put a slosh of olive oil into a non-stick pan and add the bacon and garlic and cook for four minutes or so, stirring all the time, until done - add a splash of water (some of the pasta cooking water you’ve reserved is ideal) if it looks like it’s going to stick or burn.

Tip in the pasta and a good spoonful or two of the cooking water and most of the grated parmesan and stir to combine until everything’s mixed and hot through.

Add the egg yolk and stir thoroughly to mix it in and combine everything together and then had a handful of baby spinach leaves if liked.

Taste and season with salt and pepper - it probably won’t need salt as bacon is salty but I do love some added freshly ground black pepper.

So simple and so very, very (very) good.

Oh and if you love the bacon and eggs combo too, you might like my ‘island-style bacon and eggs’ or to try a beautiful bacon and egg pie …

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Prawn, tomato, rocket // easy summery pasta

Simplest summer pasta.

I used to make this all the time, then somehow forgot about it and my sister recently reminded me of it as she'd made it (it was a recipe of hers originally I think).

Quantities are vague really, it doesn't really matter (except what tastes good to you) but for two people, I used:

cooking oil (I use a spray oil)

1 small white onion (finely diced)

1 clove garlic (squashed and minced)

1 red chilli, diced

1/3 chicken stock cube (I always use Knorr)

Water

A glass of white wine

2 ripe tomates, core removed and diced

King prawns - I had these lovely head-and-tail-on jumbo prawns and used four for each person - but any large prawns will be good

A couple of handfuls of rocket

Cooked pasta, to serve (I make this first and add at the end but you might prefer to time it so it all comes together! I also use gluten-free but of course just use your own favourite)

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Put a frying pan over a medium/low heat and add a tablespoon of cooking oil, or a few sprays of oil, if you're using a spray oil (if you are, you may well need a little splash of water too to stop the ingredients sticking so just add a little as needed).

Cook the onion, garlic and chilli slowing until softened - this always takes longer than I think (anywhere up to ten minutes).  Keep stirring to stop it sticking and add a little water if it looks like it will.

Crumble in the piece of stock cube, a slosh of water, and the wine and bring to a simmer.

Then add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a few minutes - it should be good and juicy so add another slosh of water if it needs loosening at all.

Add the prawns to the simmering mixture and cook for a few minutes until either hot through (if the prawns are already cooked) or until the grey raw prawns are completely pink and cooked.

Add the rocket and immediately turn off the heat but keep stirring to wilt the rocket.

You can serve with the pasta or - as I usually do - add the cooked pasta to the pan to re-heat as it'll be slightly cooled if cooked earlier, and stir to combine.

Season to taste and enjoy! 

There's something very elegant about the simplicity of this dish - as in fact with my other favourite summer pasta with prawns + lemon.

Hope you love them too.

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Thai-inspired meatballs + rice noodles

Some dishes are prettier than others and this isn't a very pretty one.

But it tastes MUCH better than it looks and it's really simple (as always) too - so do give it a try.

I made it with beef mince as that's what I had in the fridge, but pork and chicken would both be good and change it up a bit.

Also, I used lovely fresh rice noodles as I'd been to the Thai supermarket and these are my favourites, but dried rice noodles are good, or you could have the meatballs with rice, or even with pasta. All going to be good! Prepare your noodles or rice first so it's all ready to go.

So, for meatballs for one, I used: 

approx 100g mince

half a carrot, shredded and diced

a little piece of ginger, diced

1 birds eye red chilli, also diced

(If I'd had parsley, I'd have added a small handful of that too, finely chopped)

one little lime leaf that was in the salad drawer - I just removed the stalk and chopped the leaf into very fine slices and diced. If you don't have lime leaves, then I'd grate some lime zest in

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and then scrunch it all up to combine and shape into little meatballs.

Then prepare the sauce ingredients.  

You'll need:

1/2 cup boiling water with about 1/3 of a knorr stock cube (I used chicken)

another little piece of ginger, diced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 birds eye red chilli, finely chopped (use just half if you don't want it too spicy of course)

2 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal to look nice

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

And then you just put a frying pan over a heat and either add a tablespoon of cooking oil or, if you're losing weight like me, 20 sprays of that 1-cal-per-spray cooking oil and put the meatballs in.

Keep turning until they're browned all over and if using the spray oil, you'll probably need to add a splash of water too. It takes a few minutes.

When browned, add the chopped ginger, garlic and chilli and fry for a few seconds, then tip in the stock.

Bring to a simmer and cook for around 5 minutes, then add the soy sauce, fish sauce and toasted sesame oil.

Cook for another minute or so, tasting to check you're happy with the balance of flavours, and that's it. 

Ready to serve!

Some parsley or coriander, chopped and scattered over, might have looked nice, but I didn't have any ...

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Stilton & spinach pasta

The Christmas and festive period has finished and I've been back at work three days.  All the chocolates have been eaten and the Port has been drunk.  

But there's still a fairly good-sized piece of Stilton lurking in the fridge and I neither want to throw it away nor eat it on yet more biscuits (or on celery of course which is actually my favourite cheese carrier.  Is carrier the right word?).

So, stilton and spinach pasta it is and it's very good and super simple too. 

It's also quite rich - as it would be - so I made a quick and easy salad of just fresh little gem lettuce leaves and a mustardy dressing to go with it.  I have salad at most meals and this is my favourite dressing.  

I make it one day then pop it in the fridge and just add to it the next day - it keeps going for about a week before I tip the last bits away, wash out the glass and start again. In the summer this never-ending dressing goes beautifully with tomato and onion salad.

For the dressing just put a couple of sloshes of olive oil in a glass, jar or mug and a good slosh of white or wine or rice vinegar.  Peel and squash a garlic clove and throw that in and then stir in a teaspoon of Dijon mustard.  Taste and see if you need more oil or more vinegar to get the balance right for you. 

Put the lettuce leaves in a bowl, spoon on some dressing, add black pepper and a very little salt and that's the salad done.

Cook as much pasta as you like and while it's cooking, you can start the sauce. You will need the pasta cooked and drained to add to the sauce near the end of cooking.

For two, I had: 

light olive oil for frying

1/2 a white onion, sliced very finely 

creme fraiche (I used half fat), a couple of tablespoons

the piece of Stilton (it weighed about 80g)

2 big handfuls of spinach (about 100g)

black pepper to taste

I fried the onion in the olive oil for about five or six minutes until soft and golden - and I added a spoonful of boiling water from the pasta pan when it looked like it was about to stick and maybe burn.

When soft, add the creme fraiche and stir in then crumble in the Stilton and cook on a low heat until the cheese melts.

Add the cooked, drained pasta and the spinach and stir in for a few minutes until the spinach wilts.

Tip into a serving dish and add some black pepper to taste.

Let me know if you make this and please do share your own recipes and ideas for using up that Christmas cheeseboard ... 

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Summer roast tomatoes / roast tomato pasta

Tomatoes to me just smell of summer

I love the smell of them growing, of the stalks, of the green and ripe tomatoes both (and I'm looking forward to next weekend and having tomatoes straight from my parents' garden). 

Add oregano - and they smell like a Mediterranean summer

And roasting tomatoes with oregano has got to be one of the most languid and evocative cooking smells ever. 

So easy to do - but as with nearly everything very simple to make that relies on flavour, using the best tomatoes you can find is going to make all the difference.  I admit to just getting mine at the supermarket but I did get the tomatoes on the vine that actually smell of the fruit. 

Halve the tomatoes, cutting out the stalk if it looks a bit tough, and place on a baking tray.  Drizzle over extra-virgin olive oil, some salt and black pepper, and some dried oregano.  

Then roast in a low oven (Gas 4 / 170 degrees) for an hour.  

About half an in to the cooking time, they started SINGING with the smell of tomatoes and oregano, making my whole flat smell amazing!  

And that's it.  

Once cooked, you can use them as part of an antipasta platter, or the base of a tomato sauce for pasta or pizza.  Put them in pastry.  Have them on toast.  Eat them in a salad. Or even put them in a jar and give them as a gift. 

What I did was make a really simple pasta dish for dinner

In a frying pan I softened some chopped onion and a clove of chopped garlic over a low heat in a little olive oil, then added the tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon.  

No need to add extra seasoning as the tomatoes have so much flavour.  When they started to bubble I added some de-veined prawns, a few chilli flakes and some halved (and stoned) black olives.  

Right at the end, I threw in some fresh basil. 

When it was hot right through, I mixed it with pasta and served with a green salad and my favourite dressing of olive oil, vinegar and Dijon mustard. 

Tempted to make more today - they were so good!

Would love to hear what you make with roast tomatoes - do give them a try. 

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Pasta with lemon

Super-easy, super-quick lemon sauce for pasta and fittingly for today, a sunny day in June, it is sunshine on a plate. Best with long thin pasta like tagliatelle, spaghetti or linguine - but I make it with penne sometimes too.

A good lunch or easy supper, this goes well with a quick salad and it's also easy to add prawns or grilled chicken to make it more substantial. And lemon linguine alone makes an elegant first course.

My favourite sort-of-French-dressing uses:

3 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons white vinegar

1 garlic clove, skinned and squashed (not chopped)

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Method (if you can call it that!) - put it all in a jar and shake, and add more of any dressing ingredient as needed to balance and until you're happy.

I put the jar into the fridge after using and every day just add more vinegar and/or oil as it gets more and more garlicky ...

The original recipe for the pasta with lemon is from Mireille Guiliano's 'French Women Don't Get Fat' and while her recipe serves four, this has been modified and serves two.

if adding prawns, I find it easiest to throw them in with the pasta for the last minute or two to heat or cook.

Make the sauce during the last few minutes of your pasta cooking, or when it's cooked, as it's very quick.

You'll need:

2 lemons

a good slosh of olive oil

around 100g-150g creme fraiche

approx 60g Parmesan

salt and pepper

Grate the zest of the lemons and halve one of them so you have it ready to squeeze into the sauce and grate the cheese.

In a saucepan, warm the olive oil and add the zest. Cook over a low heat for a couple of minutes.

Add the creme fraiche and bring to the boil, then squeeze in the juice of one lemon and bring to the boil again.

The easiest way to juice a lemon is to squeeze a half over your closed hand so your fingers catch the pips.

Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the grated Parmesan, season to taste and cook for another minute.

Combine with the cooked pasta and serve immediately.

Yep, sunshine on a plate and super-quick too :)

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