Courgette Carbonara

We were away at the weekend and so returned to a huge pile of vegetables, not only from the vegbox but also kindly donated from an allotment. In search of courgette inspiration, I got this recipe from Rachel Eats. A wonderful blog brimming with simple, colourful and delicious Italian food. Every time I read it, it makes me yearn to have long leisurely lunches of pasta. In a departure from the norm, I actually followed this recipe as is, it's super easy and you end up with smooth and creamy pasta, made a little lighter and fresher by the use of courgette and basil rather than bacon.

The only tricky bit with carbonara is you need to allow the egg mixture to cook in the residual heat of the pasta and courgettes rather than directly on the hob, so you end up with a silky sauce rather than scrambled eggs. Jamie Oliver also does something similar.
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Courgette, Tomato and Basil Fritatta

A colourful, summery fritatta making the most of the abundant supply of courgettes and sweet and juicy cherry tomatoes at the moment; finished off with a little cheese and a sprinkling of basil (from our overflowing window box). Low in carbs, packed full of veggies and nutrient rich eggs; this is superhealthy summer eating.

Perfect for brunch with bacon or sausages and toast (I would also have it with baked beans but that's probably just me...) or lunch with a green salad eaten in the sunshine.

As with most of my recipes, this is very relaxed. Use what you have; broad beans or spinach would work equally well here. Or maybe, continuing the italian theme, add a torn ball of mozzarella for oozy, stringy, cheesy goodness. Our vegetable boxes have been low on onions recently, but I imagine if I make this again, I'd add a little finely red onion for extra bite. You could also make this even easier by laying the cooked courgettes in the bottom of a small greased baking dish, topping with the tomatoes, basil, cheese and eggs and baking at 180C for about 20mins until puffed up and golden brown.



Ingredients

Serves 2

2 medium courgettes
handful basil, shredded
handful cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 eggs and a splash of milk
knob butter
approx 50g cheese, grated

• Slice the courgettes thinly on the diagonal.
• Heat a medium non-stick frying pan with a little oil. Fry the courgette slices in batches until blistered and brown. Try to refrain from adding too much oil to the pan otherwise you'll end up with a greasy frittata. Season once cooked.
• Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and milk with plenty of salt and pepper.
• Once cooked, return all the courgettes to the pan with the butter and spread out evenly, sprinkle the basil and tomatoes over the top.
• Preheat the grill.
• Carefully pour the egg mixture into the pan, making sure all the vegetables get covered and add the grated cheese. Turn the heat down and using a spatula, carefully scrape the cooked edges inwards, allowing the uncooked eggs to run into the rivulets.
• Once the frittata is mostly cooked around the edges, but the middle is still fairly runny, pop under the grill until the top is completely set.
• To serve, run a spatula around the edge of the pan to loosen the frittata and cut into 4 wedges.
  

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Spicy Sausage Pasta

A simple bowl of pasta. Cheap, cheerful and full of flavour.

Put a large pot of water onto boil, and cook some pasta - whatever you have to hand really. Heat a large chopped garlic and chilli in a glug of olive oil. Add a couple of sliced sausages and fry until golden brown and caramelised. Pour in a can of chopped tomatoes, season well, perhaps add a pinch of sugar and simmer for 10mins or so until it's reduced and full of flavour. Add your cooked pasta to the sauce, mix well and throw in some shredded basil if you have it.


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Roasted Red Pepper Pesto

Mmmmm, I can't begin to describe how good this pesto is, I just had some leftovers for my lunch and its even better than yesterday.

For some reason we ended up with 4 red peppers in the fridge, I decided to roast them as I'm a bit fussy about raw peppers, in that I'm not really a fan and like them diced really small. Anyway, I cut the peppers in half, deseeded them, and lay them skin side up on a baking tray, I drizzled with a little oil and left them under a hot grill until they were really black and blistered, I then turned them over and grilled the underside a bit too, just because I like my roasted peppers to be really soft. Then its into a sealed tupperware to steam of the skin until cool.

Once cooled, I peeled the peppers and blitzed them with about a small bunch of basil, stems and all. We've got a basil plant in one of our window boxes that has just gone crazy, so I was pretty happy about being able to cull it a bit, also, check out our wormery in the background! I also added a small handful of toasted pine nuts and the same of cheese and a splash of balsamic vinegar. I didn't add any oil as the peppers are moist enough to lubricate the pesto. I must admit that in the absence of parmesan, I cheated and added mature cheddar too (you can't taste the difference).


Red pepper and almonds go particularly well and I have a feeling toasted almonds would be delightful in this pesto, but I have loads of pine nuts (always a nice position to be in) so pine nuts in was.

Either way, you end up with a slightly sweet and smoky pesto from the chargilled peppers. We had it on homemade gnocchi, it would be great on pasta, or with fish or chicken. I'm thinking now that chilli and perhaps coriander instead of basil would be good. Either way, make this and make it soon! Read more...

Courgette Caponata

With the bounty from my weekend doing Farmer's Markets, I decided to try making caponata for when my friends came over. This is a very loose version garnered from reading several recipes and then making it up! The general premise is that you cook onions, peppers and aubergine sloowly and then add some vinegar, tomatoes, capers and olives and continue to cook into a delicious stew, sweet from the peppers and onions and a bit sour from the capers and vinegar. Eat topped with pine nuts and basil. We had our slathered on toast, but I'm thinking you could have it with couscous or mixed into pasta. Any carb vehicle would do really.

I made mine with fabulous yellow courgettes, instead of the usual aubergine. So for a more authentic recipe, click here. I also made mine the night before to allow the flavours to develop and in fact you could keep a tub in the fridge for a few days, the flavours will just get better. We also found that it tastes better when cooled to room temperature rather than hot.

I'm pretty pleased that I got to use some basil from the bush we have growing in a window box. We got some other herbs at the farmers' market, so we'll see how they do. Including orange thyme, any suggestions on how to use it? I'm thinking perhaps with fish...

Ingredients

Serves 4

2 onions, sliced
3 peppers, sliced into long strips
2 courgettes, halved and sliced diagonally
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
½ red chilli, finely chopped
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp capers
2 tbsp olives, sliced
200g cherry tomatoes, halved

To serve:
basil and toasted pine nuts

Cook the onions, courgette and peppers in a liberal slug of olive oil for 10mins until softened and catching in places. Add the garlic and chilli and cook for a few more minutes. Now add the rest of the ingredients, and cook slowly for 20mins more until the tomatoes have broken down and you have a thick stew. Season and serve at room temperature with the basil and pine nuts sprinkled on top. Read more...

Pizza

I don't normally go in for homemade pizza, I would much rather make flatbread pizzas, so much quicker! But, dinner was left up to Pete and this is what he came up with. Very impressed I was too. He used the Jamie Oliver recipe for pizza dough (he prefers Delia's though) and we got 4 decent sized pizzas out of it with half the quantities.

Now the topping, invented by us is where this really comes into its own. We roasted cherry tomatoes with the usual garlic and dried thyme, then chucked some basil on them and mashed them with a fork (watch out for the boiling liquid that squirts everywhere!) . Two 250g packs of cherry tomatoes should be enough to cover 4 pizzas (Use this recipe to roast them).


And there you have a delicious pizza sauce that's pretty good on its own with some mozzarella strewn on top and some black pepper. Bake at 200C for about 20mins until bubbling and golden and the base is cooked. Once out, drizzle with some good olive oil, and sprinkle over some more chopped basil. A few slices of creamy avocado would be nice on top, a handful of rocket or some toasted pine nuts....

The toppings for pizza are endless, the only rule I would say with home made pizza is to avoid the temptation to overload with toppings as it can make the pizza soggy and its best to instead make a few different pizzas and be able to actually taste the individual toppings.

To really avoid the soggy bottom of homemade pizzas, you need to get a pizza stone, to achieve a really crispy base, that's if you're really serious. Or, like Pete you could use an old kitchen tile....

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Simple Tomato Sauce with Basil Oil

This was another staring in the fridge moment, or rather my friend Rose was, we decided to make a fresh tomato sauce, I suggested a raw one but she didn't agree. Anyway, with some lazy chopping we decided to try blending it and came up with lovely sauce. Some red pepper that needed to be used up added some sweetness and I made the basil oil to utilise some limp basil I had. We also threw some capers in a the end, just because we love them.

This is really good for using up tomatoes that have past their best. Make as much of this as you can and you can keep the leftover sauce in a jar in the fridge.

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
250g tomatoes, roughly chopped
1tbsp capers
Couple sprigs of thyme

Basil Oil
1 small bunch basil
1 clove garlic
3 tbsp olive oil

Blend all the ingredients for the basil oil and set aside. Fry the onion and pepper in olive oil for 5mins until softened, add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Add the tomatoes and thyme and season well. turn the heat down and leave for 15-20mins until the water has evaporated and the sauce has thickened. Take off the heat and blend (carefully! Make sure the sauce doesn't splash everywhere...). Serve with pasta and drizzle the basil oil over. Read more...

Broad Bean Pesto

Mmm... more broad beans in my veg box and this is the perfect way to use them, as usual you can always substitute frozen broad beans.

This is a lighter version of your classic pesto, I didn't use pine nuts, but some toasted and sprinkled on top would be a welcome addition. I also had some lovely tomatoes that I chopped up and added to the tomato for my lunch the next day, making it even lighter (and marginally more healthy.)

Ingredients

Serves 2

200g penne
150g cooked broad beans (remove the skins for a brighter green colour)
½ bunch basil
50g grated parmesan (I cheated and used strong cheddar)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling water. Meanwhile, blend all the pesto ingredients and season to taste. Stir through the cooked pasta and add a cooking water to loosen up the pesto if necessary. Read more...

Easy Peasy Pizza

With a little inspiration from BBC Good Food and driven by hunger, wine and the lack of food in Tesco Metro, we came up with these little babies when my friends Brid and Jenny came to visit from oxford. Possibly the easiest pizzas ever (apart from the ones that get delivered to your door)

We used Turkish wholemeal flatbreads, but I think even tortillas would do the job as long as you don't put too much topping on otherwise they'll probably go soggy. Spread them with pesto, the better quality the better, and top with halved cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and pepper. Put them in the oven until the cheese melts and is golden, about 15minutes and top with the avocado and maybe some olive oil. Simple as that and honestly, soo tasty.

Since then, I've been thinking of other possibilities... spread onion marmalade on the flatbread and top with goats cheese and some walnuts or pesto, thinly sliced pear, gorgonzola and pine nuts, both topped with some rocket or watercress. Chargilled aubergine, sliced tomatoes, oregano, pine nuts and mozzarella. Anything with anchovies, capers and olives always works well...

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Pasta with Tomato and Creamy Pesto

This is a summery fresh dish dreamt up by using what was in my friend Jen's fridge, and pretty good it came out too. We fried some muhrooms and garlic, added them to pasta with pesto and a dollop of yoghurt, then we added fresh tomato at the end. We used vine tomatoes, but cherry tomatoes would be particularly lovely here, use the best quality you can, preferably local.

Pasta with Tomato and Creamy Pesto

Ingredients

Serves 4

400g penne or any other short pasta
250g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
250g tomatoes, chopped
250g
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp pine nuts
4 tbsp pesto, preferably homemade
4 tbsp yoghurt, any will do
Parmesan and fresh basil to serve

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water. Meanwhile fry the mushrooms in a little oil, after a few mins add the garlic anf pine nuts, continue cooking until the mushroom are cooked and the pine nuts are toasty brown. Add to thhe drained pasta along with the rest of the ingredients. Stir well and season, leave covered for a minute or two to allow everything to warm up and the flavours to mingle. Read more...

Pasta with Peas, Basil and Pumpkin Seeds

I hate to say it, but another recipe from Nigel Slater. Once again the combination sounds a bit weird, but I love peas and I love basil, so I thought I'd give it a go. The toasted pumpkin seeds are delicious and go perfectly with the garlicky, oily peas. I never know what pasta to have with peas as they're so pesky and roll all over the plate, I guess you just have to go with it and have whatever you fancy. I think something little fettucine or parpadelle would go well here. I also couldn't resist grating over a little cheese...

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Herby Pasta

This was borne out of post pub hunger and trying to assemble something out of what was in the fridge. Thankfully you can't really go wrong with garlic, capers, anchovies, olives and herbs (we had oregano and parsley). For some reason, we decided to stir in a bit of creme fraiche at the end, but it was actually really tasty. Certainly soothed our boozed filled tummies...

Herby Pasta

Ingredients

Serves 2

Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 anchovy fillets, chopped
2tbsp capers
2tbsp olives, chopped
200g pasta
1 bunch chopped herbs (any combination)
2tbsp creme fraiche

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water. Meanwhile cook the garlic and anchovy in a slug of olive oil slowly until the anchovy dissolves. Add the pasta to the pan with the rest of the ingredients and season to taste. Read more...

Spaghetti with tomato and almond pesto

This is based on a recipe from Jamie's Italy, its a delicous variation on pesto using almond instead of pine nuts and squishing the mixture into lovely ripe tomatoes to make a fresh and tasty sauce. Make sure you use good quality tomatoes, definitely not cold from the fridge, I used cherry tomatoes because they look prettier.

Ingredients

100g almonds
1 bunch basil
1 clove garlic
100g grated parmesan (I also cheated and used strong cheddar instead)
200g tomatoes, cut into small pieces
200g linguine or spaghetti

Blitz the almonds in a food processor and put them in a bowl with the tomatoes. Blend the basil and the garlic, add to the bowl along with the cheese. Add a generous slug of oil to moisten, season and stir. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in plenty of boiling water. Drain, return to the pan, add the pesto and stir to coat. Cover with a lid and leave for a few mins to allow everything to warm up. Read more...