Courgette and Pistachio Bulghar Wheat Salad

A zingy bulghar wheat salad packed full of parsley and coriander, pistachios and orange. I also chopped some courgette into small pieces, fried in a little olive oil and added it to the salad, finishing off with a squeeze of orange juice to freshen things up. Pistachios are fast becoming a new favourite, mixed with orange juice, its an exotic combination.

As with most salads, this is a chop and assemble job. As ever, bulghar wheat holds up quite well, so make plenty for lunch and snacks later. Try adding some shredded roast chicken for a more substantial meal maybe eating with a simple tomato salad.


Ingredients

200g bulghar wheat, cooked
2 courgettes
3tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 bunch coriander, chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 orange, zest and juice of 1/2
75g pistachios, chopped

• Top and tail the courgettes, slice into 4 lengthways and slice into chunks.
• Heat a frying pan with 2tbsp olive oil and fry the courgettes for 5 mins or so until golden brown and cooked through. Season well and a splash of orange juice.
• Mix with the bulghar wheat and add the rest of the ingredients saving some pistachios to sprinkle over later.
• Serve with a spoon of yoghurt and sprinkled with the reserved pistachios.

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Simple Egg Fried Rice

A simple recipe, perfect for using up leftovers and shoehorning in extra vegetables.This recipe works best with cold rice, so next time you cook rice, cook a bit more for the next day! (Although we use freshly cooked rice as often as not). Top with whatever interesting bits and bobs you have, toasted cashew nuts, coriander, sliced spring onions, extra chilli...

Oh, and a little tip. I normally buy a massive chunk of ginger, grate it all up and freeze in ice cubes to use for stirfrys and curries.


Serves 4

Ingredients

3tbsp sunflower oil
1 red chilli, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, grated

Optional: approx 300g cooked and shredded chicken or ham

Approx 500g vegetables, cut into similar sized pieces, e.g.
*carrots, sliced or cut into batons
*peppers or courgettes, sliced into strips
*mushrooms, sliced
*peas
*sweetcorn
*beansprouts

350g cooked rice
4-6 eggs, whisked and seasoned
2tbsp soy sauce

To serve:
100g cashew nuts or peanuts, toasted and chopped
1 small bunch coriander or spring onions, chopped
sweet chilli sauce

• You need a really large wok to cook this all at once, if you don't have one, try making it in 2 batches.
• Make sure all your vegetables are prepared before you start cooking.
• Heat a wok until its as smoking and as hot as possible. If you're using nuts, you can toast them in the pan whilst it warms up, but make sure they don't burn!
• Add the sunflower oil, allow to heat up for a few minutes then throw in the garlic, chilli and ginger, stirring furiously, you don't want them to burn.
• Now add the vegetables and cook for 3-5mins until beginning to brown.
• Throw in the meat in using a stir for a few more minutes.
• Now tip in your rice and continue to fry for another minute or so.
• Make a well in the centre and tip in the eggs, keep stirring and frying until the eggs are completely cooked.
• Finish with a splash of soy sauce.
  

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Easy Lentil Curry with pilaf

I love lentils, so cheap, tasy, filling and a portion of your 5-a-day, what's not to love? This is a really easy, one pot curry, you can make it days in advance and it actually gets better with age. The pilaf is mellow and fragrant, and also really easy to make. I turned the leftovers into a rice salad for my lunch the next day, proper credit crunch cooking...


Ingredients

Lentil Curry
250g green lentils (red lentils work just as well)
½tsp turmeric
½ can coconut milk
½tsp salt
2 onions, finely chopped
1tbsp cumin seeds
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped

• Wash the lentils well in a sieve and tip into a large saucepan. Cover with 600ml water and add to the turmeric. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20-30mins until completely soft.
• Add the coconut milk and salt and stir well.
• Meanwhile, fry the onions in oil until completely soft, add the garlic, chilli and cumin seeds and fry for a minute or two more.
• Stir your onion mixture into the lentils and enjoy!
• Serve with rice and plenty of yoghurt.

Pilaf
1 onion, finely chopped
1 cinnamon stick
3 cardamom pods, bruised
1 bay leaf
250g basmti rice
500ml vegetable stock
25g flaked almonds
small handful parsley, chopped

• Toast the almonds in a dry pan until golden and set aside.
  
• Fry the onion in a glug of oil for a few mins, add the cinnamon, cardamom and bay, fry for a second.
• Add the rice, stir to coat in the oniony oil.
• Pour in the vegetable stock and bring the pan to the boil, cover and turn to the lowest heat possible. Cook for 20mins.
• Fluff the rice, scatter with the parsley and almonds.

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Breakfast Muffins

Well, winter has arrived, we're all wrapped up in coats, scarves and gloves have been dusted off, we even had snow! Of course, this means that in the vegetable box there are a lots and lots of carrots, onions and potatoes. This is no bad thing, I love carrots. The thing is, they seem to be going limp disappointingly quickly, which again isn't exactly a disaster, carrots roast up so well, especially in a soup, maybe with some lentils?

This time though, I decided carrot cake was the way to go, I started off with this carrot cake recipe intending to make muffins, but then as I started, I kind of got carried away, adding some plump juicy raisins, walnuts and oats for texture, a grated apple because, well, why not? So, what came out of the oven wasn't exactly carrot cake, but still delicious in a plainer sense, more something I can carry out the door with me in the morning to munch on on the tube, feeling a teeny bit healthy, well... all those oats, walnuts, carrots and apples!


Makes 12-15 muffins

250g sugar
200g flour
100g oats
1tsp salt
2tsp cinnamon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250ml oil
4 eggs
3 medium carrots, grated
1 apple, grated
100g walnuts, chopped
100g raisins

• Boil the kettle and cover the raisins with the hot water in a bowl.
• Meanwhile measure out the sugar, flour, oats, salt, cinnamon and soda in a large bowl.
• Add the oil and whisk well to combine.
• Crack the eggs in and whisk.
• Drain the water off the now plump raisins, add to the batter along with the carrots, apple and walnuts. Stir well.
• Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases, bear in mind that the mixture doesn't rise an awful lot so you can fill the cases at least 2/3 full.
• Bake at 180C for about 20mins until golden and a skewer comes out clean.

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Couscous Salad

I went camping this weekend, no ordinary camping, to a tipi! Camping trips always conjure up thoughts of lovely local shops selling lovely local food and cosy pubs with lovely warm fires. In reality, depending where you are, it can be hard to find a good pub and even harder to find one with good food. So, as we arrived late on Friday and wanted to make the most of our tipi, I planned ahead. Out came some sausages from the freezer, some homemade bread, leftover haloumi and... busy trying to use as much things from the fridge that were on the turn as possible, I decided on couscous, the perfect snack for the journey.

In reality of course, the campsite was brilliant (another winner from The Cool Camping Guide), with a delightful cafe on site, selling delicious breakfast and several pubs all within walking distant selling grat pub food, mostly mussels, which were literally caught over the road. Still... being the country, by the time we arrived on Friday, nowhere was selling food so I glad of my pack lunch (and the bottle of wine I thought to pack).


I love couscous, its such a pleasing vehicle for so many things - roasted carrots, smoked mackerel and brocolli.. I like it fresh and zingy as below with feta, parsley and lots of lemon juice, or with roasted vegetables and flaked almonds. The recipe below is obviously just a starting point, use whatever you have handy - peppers always nice, as are olives, anything you'd put into a salad really... Hummus is another great partner, or some leaves packed into the top of the box so they don't get soggy.



Serves 2

150g couscous
225ml hot vegetable stock
1/2 can chickpeas
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cucumber, cut in half, the middle scooped out and sliced
100g feta, crumbled
1 medium carrot, grated
bunch parsley(and some mint too if you have it), chopped
juice 1/2 lemon
3tbsp olive oil
1/2 red onion, diced
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
1 small handful toasted sunflower seeds or pine nuts

This is really just an assembly job...

• wiegh the couscous out in a large bowl, pour over the hot stock, cover a with a large plate and leave to steep for about 5mins.
• Once all the stock has been absorbed, fluff up using a fork. Pile all the ingredients into the bowl and mix thoroughly.
• Squeeze the lemon juice over and pour in the olive. Mix really well and taste, it'll probably need some salt and pepper.

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Kale and Mushroom Stir fry

I was pretty excited when I saw the dark green leaves bursting out of the top of my vegetable box this week, but then quickly I was lost. I felt like kale would be delicious but what to do with it? I've already made this, delicious by the way, but I wanted something else... Internet searching proved fruitless, so I changed tactic and figured that kale is really just a winter green so searched for 'greens' recipes. Many were a take on stir fry and I soon had my heat set on a big bowl of intensely flavoured stir fry on some steaming white rice.

I had planned on using oyster sauce, but checking the list of ingredients on a bottle in the supermarket, I decided to do my own thing. A simple stir fry, using mushrooms for a bit of oomph (I didn't want to just eat a plate of greens!) and some toasted cashews nuts for crunch.

Ingredients
Serves 2 generously

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 chilli, finely chopped
1tbsp ginger, grated
250g mushrooms, sliced
100g kale, tough stalks removed and finely sliced
1 carrots, sliced lengthways and sliced
100g cashews
½ cup vegetable stock
3tbsp soy sauce
2tbsp sesame oil
Rice to serve

• Stirfrys are all about preparation, so sharpen you knife and make sure everything is ready beforehand.
• Heat a wok or large saucepan, toss in the cashews and move them around until golden and toasty. Remove.
• Continue heating the wok as hot as you can bear, glug in a little sunflower oil (or vegetable) and heat until smoking.
• Throw in the garlic, chilli and ginger, stirring frantically for a minute.
• Next add the mushrooms and carrots and fry hard for a few mins until starting to brown around the edges.
• Next add the kale, stir around and pour in the stock watching the pan spit and splutter, allow to bubble away for a few mins until the kale is cooked through and the stock reduced.
• Next stir in the sesame oil and soy sauce. Taste and add more of each to if you prefer.
• Serve with the rice and sprinkle over the cashew nuts.

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Moroccan Mackerel and Citrus Couscous

I'm rather proud of this one. Whilst I was supposed to be working, I naturally began thinking of what I was going to cook for the rest of the week. I've been thinking about the delicious Mackerel superfood salad from Leon for a while- its all Moroccan sweet and spice with dried apricots, hazelnuts and lemon zest. I couldn't glean much from the menu so did a little recipe investigation online and came up with the recipe below.

Happily, it turned out exactly as planned, I used orange zest and juice, which goes perfectly with the oily fish. Some toasted almonds add texture and parsley for freshness along with ground coriander and ginger for spicy depth. I was also unsure about using the broccoli, it seemed such a strange combination to me, but it works perfectly adding some welcome crunch.

Next time, I'm keen to try other variations...Fennel and black olive with dried apricots or cucumber instead of the broccoli, rocket for added punch. Either way, try this and let me know your thoughts/variations.

Ps: yes, more mackerel. This time, we used a mixture of smoked mackerel and tinned, purely because that's what we had. I've never eaten tinned mackerel before, it actually tasted pretty good and works perfectly fine in this recipe. Given the choice, I would use smoked mackerel next time though for extra flavour. In other news...I'm also mourning the addition of anchovies to the fish to avoid list (you can still buy them from sustainable sources though).

Ingredients

Serves 4
350g couscous
2tsp ground ginger
2tsp ground coriander
½tsp salt
350ml vegetable stock
1 head brocolli
75ml orange juice - about ½ large orange
zest 1 orange
4tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
½ red chilli, finely chopped
100g flaked almonds, toasted in a dry pan until golden
1 small red onion
250g smoked mackerel

• Toss the cous cous with the ground ginger, ground coriander and salt. Pour over the stock, cover and allow to steep.
• Cut the broccoli into small chunks, I did mine as small as possible but you might like it chunkier. Either steam or boil for a few mins until cooked but still with a little bite. To maintain the vibrant green of broccoli when boiling, mak sure its tipped into boiling water, not cold.
• Once the couscous has soaked up all the stock, fluff with a fork and add the garlic, chilli,red onion, orange juice and zest and olive oil.
• Once the broccoli is cooked, drain and add to the cous cous with the smoked mackerel, parsley and flaked almonds. Stir well and taste, you may need a little more orange juice or olive oil to lubricate, it should be zinging with flavour.
  
• Pile onto a plate to serve and top with some parsley, flaked almonds and extra orange zest.
  

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Carrot, Orange and Pistachio Cake

Carrot cake freshened with orange zest and a little texture from pistachio nibs comes together to make an altogether grown up carrot cake. Taken from the excellent Dan Lepard, I find his recipes tend to err on the side of complicated, so I’ve tweaked this to make it a little more user friendly whilst maintaining the seductive ... By all means use his recipe and look at others too, they are not your run of the mill cake recipes and all the better for it too.


Cakes come into the realm of true indulgence when iced, and look particularly pleasing a top a cake stand, I used a very simple cream cheese icing, with a little lime juice and icing sugar. The other day, my friend Kat brought me some carrot cake she made with cinnamon cream cheese icing, something I’ve never thought to do but delicious! I’ve lined this up to try with my next carrot cake.

I normally have some tahini knocking around to make hummus, it also make a very good sauce in its own right that’s perfect for roasted vegetables; here are some other recipe ideas. I'm sure no else is as silly as me, but a word of warning, do not keep tahini in the fridge. According the jar, it should be stored at room temperature and gets hard and difficult to use when kept in the fridge!

Whilst aimlessly browsing in Waitrose today, I saw a beetroot and tahini dip, I’m going to do some research, give it a try and get back to you, its always good to have new beetroot recipes...

Ingredients
75g tahini
125ml sunflower oil
Zest of 2 oranges, and 100ml juice (about ½ orange)
200g caster sugar
3 eggs
3 medium carrots (about 200g) grated finely
100g chopped pistachios
175g wholemeal flour (plain will do fine)
2½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg

• Grease and line the base of 2 sandwich tins and preheat the oven to 180C.
• Whisk the tahini, oil zest and sugar until smooth, next whisk in the eggs.
• Add the carrots and mix to distribute evenly, your mixture should now be a vivid orange colour! Add the orange juice and stir thoroughly.
• Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg into a separate bowl and mix together. Combine with the carrot mixture and fold together.
• Finally, fold in the pistachios and transfer to the cake tins. Bake for 20-25mins until the tops are golden and firm to the touch and a cake tester comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before icing.

Icing
100g cream cheese
25g icing sugar
Juice and zest of half a lime.

• Beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until softened, add the lime juice and beat until smooth.
• Sift in the icing together and stir until dissolved.

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Mushroom and Walnut Pasta

This dish evolved from hunger more than anything, adding things to the pan until it looked good,
I like to fry mushrooms in a very hot pan but with no oil as they just slurp it all up. Be patient. Mushrooms tend to leak all their juices readily, but given time soak them back up again, its important to season them as soon as they hit the pan so they can absorb that too, once they get going add a few sprigs of thyme and garlic too. Plump with seared edges in what you're going for, not soggy and limp. Finish with some lemon juice and your laughing.

I added a luxurious dollop of creme fraiche and some walnuts for texture, stirred into pasta, this is the way to eat mushrooms. I'm becoming a fan of using walnuts and almonds instead of the ubiquitous pine nuts with pasta, cheap and they add a much mellower flavour than the (admittedly delicious) pine nuts. I've also taken throwing chopped parsley onto everything, I love the freshness it adds, it would work particularly well here to cut through the richness of the sauce.


Ingredients

Serves 2

1 onion, finely chopped
200g short pasta (we used rigatoni)
200g mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
a few sprigs thyme
4tbsp creme fraiche (or double cream)
squeeze lemon juice
100g walnuts, chopped
parmesan and parsley to serve (optional)

Begin by cooking the pasta in plenty of boiling water. Once cooked, drain the pasta, but reserve a little of the water.
Meanwhile, cook the onion in a little oil on a low heat in a large frying pan until softened, then remove from the pan. Turn up the heat and add the mushrooms along with some seasoning and the thyme. Fry for about 5mins until the mushrooms are tinged brown.
Return the onions to the pan along with the garlic, give it a stir and add the creme fraiche, the creamy white turning a grey on contact with mushrooms. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and taste to see if it needs for seasoning.
Add the pasta to the sauce and stir well to coat in the sauce, add a little cooking water if the sauce seems too thick, sprinkle over the walnuts and tuck in immediately. Read more...

Broad Bean Pilaf

I made this with fresh broad beans, but they are another vegetable like the pea that freeze well, so this is just as good with frozen broad beans. I had this with the Mackerel Salad below, but this would be good with curry too.

Ingredients

1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1tsp cumin seeds
1tsp ground coriander
300g broad beans
1 mugful basmati rice
2 mugfuls stock
50g toasted flaked almonds

Fry the onion in a little oil until soft. Add the garlic, cumin and coriander, fry for 1min. Add the broad beans and rice, stir to coat in the spices. Add the stock, bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for 10mins until the stock is absorbed. Turn of the heat, cover and leave to stand for 10mins. Sprinkle over the flaked almonds to serve. Read more...

Pasta with Spiced Chickpeas

A somewhat unorthodox flavour combination of chickpeas spiced with cumin, cinnamon and turmeric, combined with tomato, flaked almonds, parsley and er... pasta, but it works all the same. Don't skip any of the ingredients in this, they're all pretty essential. This is based on a recipe from Accidental Vegetarian, a fabulous book by Simon Rimmer, incidentally, if you're ever in Manchester, you must go to his amazing restaurant Greens (ignore the terrible website, but remember to book), possibly my favourite restaurant of all time.

Ingredients
Serves 2
3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
½ red chilli, finely chopped
4 tomatoes chopped
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground cumin
½tsp ground coriander
pinch turmeric
3tbsp flaked almonds
½ can chickpeas
bunch fresh parsley chopped
200g spaghetti

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water. Meanwhile toast the almonds in a large frying pan until golden (be careful they don't burn!). Remove the almonds and add the oil, fry the onions, garlic and chilli until softened, add the chickpeas and spices, stir thorughly and fry for a minute or so more, add the tomatoes, turn the heat down and cook for 15-20mins until the tomatoes have broken down, you may need to add a little water as they cook. This is all down to personal preference, cook the sauce for less time if you'd like a fresher tomato taste.
Add the pasta, flaked almonds and parsley (possibly reserving some almonds and parsley for garnish), stir throuoghly and eat! Read more...

Pistou

All the tastiest things (olives, anchovies, capers, garlic, parsley) blended into a paste and eaten with pasta. What could be tastier?

This will keep for a few weeks in the fridge, if you cover it with a layer of oil.

Ingredients

200g spaghetti
grated rind and of 1 lemon and juice of ½
small bunch fresh flat leaf parsley
1 tbsp capers
large handful black olives
pinch crushed chilli flakes
4tbsp olive oil
1 large garlic clove
3 anchovy fillets
salt and freshly ground black pepper
parmesan cheese, to serve

Blend everything apart from the parmesan and stir through pasta.

The first night I made this, I had it on its own with spaghetti. The next night, I had lots of things to use up in the fridge. I chopped some tomatoes, added a couple of tablespoons of the pistou, some creme fraiche (my new favourite ingredient), basil and pine nuts. Delicious with pasta.

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The Best Chocolate Brownies

It was only a matter of time before these came up... These are based on Nigella's recipe, (how can you go wrong with Nigella?) and give you everything you could want in a brownie, rich, intense, chocolatey, gooey perfection. All I've done is scale down Nigella's recipe so that you get a more manageable mixture that can fit into a smaller tin, which makes it a lot easier to cook.

The key to a good brownie is to use good quality ingredients, the best chocolate you can get and good butter and eggs. The only sticking points might be melting chocolate (see below) and knowing how long to cook the brownies for, its difficult to give exact instructions as all ovens vary, you're looking for the top to have dried to a paler brown and for the middle to be firm but still squidgy. Remember they will continue to cook as they cool. I would always rather an undercooked brownie than an overcooked and its amazing what a few hours in a fridge can do to firm brownies up.

Variations
This recipe is a fantastic base to add any number of ingredients to, below are a few ideas, I've not tried all of them, so it would be interesting to know if they are good...

• Add 150g chopped walnuts or macadamia nuts
• Substitute 1tbsp Baileys for the vanilla
• Add the grated zest of 1 orange instead of the vanilla for chocolate orange brownies
• Add 150g chopped white chocolate just before baking
• Add 100g peanut butter just before baking
• Substitute either all or ½ of the flour for ground almonds
• Add 1tbsp espresso instead of the vanilla for chocolate and coffee brownies
  

Melting Chocolate
I always melt my chocolate in the microwave and have never had a problem. Now I am not the most patient or careful person, so I thought this technique must be pretty foolproof but, having spoken to friends, it turns out they have problems with chocolate burning, so, I found this website that gives pretty comprehensive tips on melting chocolate. Also, it turns out, you might be able to rescue burnt chocolate by carefully whisking in a little vegetable oil, I've never tried though, so let me know if it works.

Ingredients
190g dark chocolate, broken up
190g butter, cubed
250g caster sugar
3 eggs
2tsp vanilla extract
110g plain flour
½tsp salt

Melt the chocolate and butter together. Meanwhile whisk the eggs and sugar together well until pale. Whisk in the melted chocolate and vanilla, and stir in the flour, salt and any extra ingredients. Transfer to a greased 9in square tin. Bake at 180°C for approx 20mins, keep checking the brownies after about 15mins to see if they're done, a minute can make all the difference between a dry brownie and a squishy one. Read more...

Pasta with blue cheese and walnuts

This is a seriously easy pasta sauce. Basically just stir some blue cheese, a little chopped garlic and some chopped walnuts into (hot) cooked pasta. The cheese melts and forms a silky sauce for the pasta. This is amazing if you REALLY love blue cheese otherwise, it can be a bit strong, in which case, add a spoonful or two of creme fraiche to dilute the effect. Read more...

Whte Chocolate Brownies

You must seriously make these, they're a revelation, sweet and gooey. The first time I tried them, I loved them so much I pretty much baked them continuously until they made me feel a bit sick. Now don't do that, but do bake them. They are about a million calories in each brownie, but why eat a brownie that doesn't? It pretty much guarantees it will be tasty.

Ingredients

500g white chocolate
75g butter
175g sugar
3 eggs
175g selfraising flour
1tsp salt
2tsp vanilla
175g chopped hazelnuts

Melt 100g white chocolate with the butter. Meanwhile, whisk the sugar and eggs, next whisk in the butter chocolate mixture and vanilla and fold in the flour. Chop the rest of the chocolate, add this to the mixture with the hazelnuts. Pour into a 20cm tin and bake at 180°C for 30mins until firm on top, but still al little squidgy, the brownie will carry on cooking whilst it cools. This makes enough for about 16 squares. Read more...

Apple and Walnut Cake

In an attempt to broaden my cake horizons, I decided to make this cake. When it came out of the oven, I was a bit unconvinced, it looked a bit like one of those dry fruit cakes, a day later and its really come into its own. Hence I ate about 3 slices too many as an afternoon 'snack'.

I used pear, but only because we had lots left in the house. Obviously, apple is the natural choice.

Apple and Walnut Cake

150ml oil
200g sugar
2 eggs
350g flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 ½tsp bicarb
½ tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp salt
450g apples, peeled and cut into small cubes
zest of 1 lemon
100g walnuts, chopped

Beat the oil and sugar until very thick and creamy, an electric whisk works best here. Whisk in the eggs in one at a time, fold in the flour, salt, cream of tartar, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon. Finally add the apples and walnuts. Bake in a greased and lined loaf tin at 180°C for 50mins. Read more...

Pasta with Anchovy and Tomato Sauce

More pasta and more anchovies. You may be forgiven for thinking I'm obsessed, which is partly true, but you can't can't really go wrong with pasta can you? And anchovies are the perfect storecupboard ingredient.

Having spent most of the Bank holiday watching Jamie Oliver on BBC Food, I had a hankering for pasta, I found this in his Jamie's Italy book. You basically cook down some garlic, pine nuts and anchovies, add some red wine and tomatoe puree and stir through some breadcrumbs at the end. It sounds a bit strange, but I made it because it was the only recipe I had any ingredients for. Anyway, as you can probably guess, it turned out pretty damn tasty. I've specified less anchovies than I actually used to give a salty depth of flavour, rather than anything overpowering. If you love anchovies as much as me, use more!

Pasta with Anchovy and Tomato Sauce

Serves 1

Ingredients
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
2 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
1tbsp pine nuts
1tbsp tomato puree
60ml red wine, or a slug of red wine
1tbsp breadcrumbs
100g pasta (linguine works best)
cheese to serve

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water. Cook the anchovy and garlic slowly in 1tbsp olive oil. As the anchovy dissolves, add the pine nuts, cook until they start to brown. Add the wine and tomato and cook for a few more mins until the alcohol had bubbled off. Add the cooked pasta, stir to coat and sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and cheese. 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...