Pasta, prawns, peppers

Pasta is boring. It's what you eat at home when there's nobody else around. Its not something you serve to guests (unless you actually made the pasta yourself) and its not something you choose when eating out. It is lazy cooking. But it can be damn tasty.

If pasta recipes are as easy to write as they are to cook I may be about to enter an extremely prolific blogging phase.

Pasta with prawns and peppers (OK, plus a few more ingredients) 

• 2 small portions fusili pasta (wholewheat or tricolore)
• I bag raw king prawns
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1/2 yellow pepper
• 1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes
• 4 sundried tomatoes
• 1 bag rocket
• Chilli oil
• Unwaxed lemon, rind only

How to make pasta with prawns and a few other ingredients

 

1. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan.
2. Cut the peppers into very thin strips and fry gently in the oil until they start to blacken a little at the edges -- about 5 minutes.
3. Add the pasta to a pan of boiling, salted water and set the timer for 3  minutes shorter than the cooking time given on the packet.
4. Chop the sundried tomatoes into very small pieces.
5. Cut the cherry tomatoes into a mixture of halves and quarters.
6. Add the prawns to the pan with the peppers and stir fry till pink and cooked through (about 4 minutes).
7. Drain the pasta and blanch with boiling water, reserving a tiny amount of the cooking water in a cup.
8. Put the pasta back in the saucepan, mix together with the peppers, prawns and tomatoes; season.
9. Add a little chilli oil, a little reserved cooking liquid and the rocket.
10. Toss until the rocket has wilted.
11. Serve with a little lemon rind grated over.

More pasta recipes:

Spag bol

Macaroni cheese

Macaroni cheese

Believe it or not, macaroni cheese is O’s desert island meal. I normally refuse to make it at weekends when I have time to cook something that takes more than 20 minutes. Today, however, I have relented. The addition of cauliflower and broccoli bumps up your vegetable intake for the day, but you can leave these out if you want.

This version is perfect for a quick weekday supper, and if you make a little extra you have tomorrow’s lunch for free sorted too. It is lower fat than most versions as it uses 0% fat Greek yoghurt for the sauce. To stop the macaroni cheese from drying out when you reheat it in the microwave add a little more olive oil and a couple more cherry tomatoes before reheating.

Macaroni cheese ingredients

I have no idea about precise quantities but the rough quantities given below will work as is or scaled up.

Serves 2 generously, with enough left over for a free lunch at work the next day.

• Dried macaroni – measure about one third dried pasta of the bowl you want to fill. Penne works too but not as well as short pasta such as macaroni. 
• About half a cauliflower and the same quantity broccoli
• A 170g tub 0% Greek yoghurt
• A handful grated mature cheddar
• About 1/3 teaspoon English mustard
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced
• 2 or 3 rasher streaky bacon, cut into small pieces (omit for a veggie version)
• A small handful breadcrumbs
• Linseeds, a scattering
• Parmesan
• Cherry or pomodorino tomatoes – a small punnet

How to make macaroni cheese

1. Boil the kettle, then empty into a large saucepan. I don’t understand people who boil water for pasta in the saucepan; it takes forever and I am convinced a kettle is more energy-efficient.
2. Add a pinch of salt to the water then add the pasta. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to a simmer.
3. Dry-fry the bacon in a frying pan till crisp.
4. Cut the cauliflower and broccoli into small florets.
5. Tip the Greek yoghurt into a shallow dish. Add the mustard and stir to mix.
   Mustard enhances the flavour of cheese, so you don’t need to use quite as much.
6. Add the grated cheese to the dish and mix with the yoghurt.
7. About 8 minutes before the pasta is ready, put a bamboo steamer over the pan and add the cauliflower to the steamer. Cover with the steamer lid.
8. About 5 minutes before the pasta is ready, add the broccoli to the steamer.
9. Put the kettle on to boil.
10. Heat the grill to high (about 230C)
11. About 3 minutes before the pasta is ready according to the packet instructions, remove the pan from the heat.
12. Drain the pasta, reserving some of the cooking liquid in a cup.
13. Pour boiling water over the pasta and shake any excess off.
14. Mix the pasta with the yoghurt and cheese.
15. Add a little of the reserved cooking liquid to give a loose sauce.
16. Add the fried bacon, chopped spring onions and black pepper.
17. Place the cauliflower, broccoli and tomatoes over the pasta.
18. Grate over a little Parmesan, then sprinkle with the linseeds and breadcrumbs. This will make a crunchy topping.
19. Whack under the grill for about 5 minutes, till the top is golden brown and the tomatoes have burst.

Plum chutney

Polish fruit picker (Stasio)

Yesterday Barnaby and Stasio helped Ollie harvest the cherry plums from our tree and so today is chutney making day. This year we have a bumper crop, so I'm quadrupling the recipe. I'm also mixing and matching several recipes as I want to include plums, cooking apples, Spanish onions and raisins. This means that, according to one recipe, I have accidentally added double the amount of sugar I need, although, according to another recipe, I should be OK. I am also slightly dubious about the amount of vinegar I am supposed to use, so have reduced this. I may end up with burnt, sour toffee. Ollie asked what I'd do if it turned out wrong. My response was that Kerry will eat it anyway.

Hubble bubble

Plum chutney ingredients

• 4kg plums, de-stoned
• 1.4 kg cooking apples
• 1.1kg Spanish onions
• 1.4kg raisins
• 1.4kg soft brown sugar
• 1.25 litres cider vinegar

Chutney spice mix ingredients

2 cinnamon sticks
6 dried red chillies

6 teaspoons allspice berries

2 teaspoons cloves

6 teaspoons coriander seeds

4 teaspoons black peppercorns

How to make plum chutney

1. As you de-stone the plums, chop them roughly.
   This is an extremely tedious job that takes forever. I have tried leaving the stones in and removing after the chutney is cooked, but, on balance, I think de-stoning before cooking is quicker. At least you can do this while you sit in front of the TV.
2. Put the stoned plums in a very large preserving pan. 
3. Peel, core and chop the apples and add to the pan. Don't worry if they go brown before they get in the pan as everything will turn to a brown mush as it cooks anyway.
4. Peel and roughly chop the onions and add to the pan.
5. Add the dried chilies and cinnamon sticks to the pan.
6. Place the rest of the spices in a piece of muslin and tie together. Add this to the pan.
7. Bring everything to the boil, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning.
8. Reduce to a gentle simmer, and cook till thick, stirring regularly to prevent burning. 
9. BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN STIRRING! The chutney will be very hot and have a tendency to bubble. It’s actually a bit like stirring a cauldron. I usually reduce the temperature right down before giving it a stir to avoid getting splashed with the boiling goo.
10. Once the chutney is thick, leave it to cool and pot into sterilized jars while still warm, remembering to fish out the cinnamon sticks and dried chilies.
    Sterilizing jars is easy - if you have a dishwasher then just put them through a cycle and leave in the dishwasher till dry. If you don't, like me, just wash in very hot soapy water, rinse in hot water and then place upside down in a cold oven. Switch it on and heat to 100 degrees, then switch off. Leave the jars in the oven till you are ready to use them. Wash lids in hot soapy water, rinse, and leave on a rack to dry.

Toil and trouble

The chutney should take about 3 or 4 hours to reach the right consistency. However, I started cooking mine at about 1pm today and it is still not ready at 6.30pm. In fact, I don't think it has reduced at all in the last hour. Maybe it was a mistake to add that extra 250ml vinegar halfway through. I think I need to increase the temperature or I will be up all night. 



I still have 2 large bowls of stoned fruit to use up and another bowl yet to be stoned. I think the jam I intend to make will have to wait for tomorrow night. I found a recipe which involves sprinkling the sugar over the plums and leaving overnight. I have no idea what this is supposed to do but think I will give it a go.

Potting chutney is a sticky business that takes longer than you think. Invariably some dribbles down the site of the jars which need wiping clean before labelling and storing. Leave the chutney for at least a month, longer if possible, before eating. I actually don't give out unmature chutney anymore as some people don't wait till its ready before they eat it (you know who you are).

Rhubarb chutney

I went up North for the first half of the Jubilee weekend to see my family, and came back with a big bag of rhubarb someone from my mum’s school gives her every week. She already has a freezer full of the stuff and is getting pretty sick of it so asked if I had any ideas of what to use it for. I took some off her hands to make into chutney.

Rhubarb

Having trawled recipe sites for about an hour I’ve decided to come up with my own version of rhubarb chutney.

I’ve never made rhubarb chutney before but imagine it will be just to my taste, since I love the tartness of this fruit in a crumble. Some pieces look beautiful – like sweeties – but stripping off the vivid pinky-red string leaves most of them looking pale green and uninteresting. An hour or so in the chutney pan does even more damage – the result is a brown mush that looks completely unappetising. Despite this I have great hopes for this chutney, but will have to wait at least a month to find out if I’m right.

Rhubarb chutney

Rhubarb chutney ingredients

• 1.15kg rhubarb
• 500g raisins
• 3 medium onions
• 500ml cider vinegar
• 450g soft brown sugar (I ran out and used about 75g demerara sugar with the rest soft brown
• This much ginger (butter for comparison)

Ginger, about the length of a packet of butter

OK, if you insist, it was about 25g

• 5 cloves
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns

How to make rhubarb chutney

  

1. Chop the rhubarb into short pieces 

 

2. Roughly chop the onions

3. Put everything in a very large pan - preferably a preserving pan
4. Bring to the boil then simmer for about 3 hours, till the chutney is thick
5. Turn off the heat and allow the chutney to cool slightly
5. Pot into sterilized jars while still warm

 

Salmon noodle salad

We've moved offices to the middle of the A4 and there's nowhere to go for lunch except the on-site cafe and the World's Biggest Tescos. Now lunch for free at work is not just a philosophy but a necessity. 

I've become Salad Director for our newly formed Salad Club. Even though I hate the use of capital letters in job titles I take this role very seriously.

Salad club: Kate, Peggy, Courtney, Yuki, Danielle, me. Not in the photo: Leanne (taking the photo), Erik

 

Its amazing how many contraindications there are with just eight people: onions, Kosher, coriander (afflicts a surprisingly high proportion of Salad Club members), salad-intolerence...

We settled on salmon noodle salad with coriander as an optional garnish. 

Salmon noodle salad ingredients

Serves 8

• Salmon fillets, x6, marinaded and cooked (see below)
• 1 cucumber thinly sliced
• Grated carrots
• Red and orange peppers, thinly sliced
• Cashew nuts
• Beansprouts
• Spinach, 1 bag
• Vermicelli rice noodles 
• Salad dressing (see below)

Salmon marinade ingredients 

Marinade the salmon in the following for 20-30 mins

• 1.5 JOT* (ginger, peeled and grated)
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce (I used dark, as this was all I had, though light would be better)
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
• Juice 2 limes

*Jamie Oliver's thum, the IM unit for ginger. 

How to cook the salmon 

1. Heat the oven to the Magic Number (190C fan assisted). Bake the salmon for 10-12 minutes.
2. I'm a bit fussy about slimy fish. After 10 minutes I thought the salmon was a little too opaque so gave it a couple more minutes.
   Bear in mind though that it will cook a little more once out of the oven, and also in the lime dressing. 
3. Once cool enough to handle, gently break the salmon up and flake into pieces.
4. Store in a tupperware container overnight.

Salad dressing ingredients

Add the following to a screw-cap jar and shake well. You will need to give it another vigorous shake before serving.

• Juice 2 limes
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon chilli jam or sweet chilli sauce
• Dash fish sauce*

*only needed if it tastes a bit too sweet 

How to make salmon noodle salad

1. Tell everyone to assemble at the allocated time with their ingredients already prepared. 
2. Help yourself to everything, add a little dressing, and eat at a communal table. 

NOTES:

• It is every member of Salad Club's responsibility to bring and prepare their own ingredient. 
• The Director and Deputy Director of Salad Club are happy to give prep advice if needed up to 5 minutes before the arranged salad club time. 

Hummus and pesto – tastes of summer

 

Two things I never buy are hummus and pesto. Why? Because supermarket hummus is a slushy gloop and pesto in a jar tastes of watery chemicals. Admittedly the stuff you buy in delis is usually good, but also expensive. Homemade versions outshine every time, and are so easy and cheap to make. Making your own also means you can adapt the flavours to suit your own tastes. 

It’s difficult to give exact measurements for these recipes – you will need to tinker to get the flavour and texture you want. The added bonus is that the dish will be unique each time you make it.

Give it a go – really, the hardest part is washing up the food processor. 

Hummus ingredients

• 1 can chickpeas, or equivalent cooked chickpeas.
• 1 small clove garlic, finely chopped. One of the cloves you find in the centre of a bulb is about the right size.
• 1 tablespoon tahini paste. There really is no need to explain what tahini is these days. If you can buy it in Sains, no need to explain.
• Juice of half a lemon.
• Olive or rapeseed oil and a little water, enough to make the hummus the consistency you like.
• Pinch paprika (optional).

A note on oil

What oil you use will greatly affect the flavour of your hummus. I like a subtle little kick to my hummus and so add a tiny amount of chilli oil (homemade of course) to the Spanish extra virgin olive oil I normally use.

This time, though, I used my new favourite ingredient – rapeseed oil. This produced a deliciously creamy hummus with a deep golden colour. It almost made up for the lack of sunshine outside on this soggy June day.

How to make hummus

1. Put the chickpeas, garlic and tahini, lemon juice and a large drizzle of oil into the food processor then switch it on.
2. When the mixture turns to a pulp, add a little water (or the juice from the chickpea tin/cooking juice) and process again.
3. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in more oil.
4. Stop and taste – season.
5. Add the paprika if using.
6. Switch on the processor again and continue drizzling in oil till you have the consistency and flavour you want – you may want to add more seasoning or lemon juice, or, if you think it’s too oily, add more water.

That’s it. It takes seconds.

And now you have a tasty snack in the fridge and a couple of free lunches.

Hummus for lunch

Hummus is great as a snack with raw veg such as carrots, sugar snaps and celery. Have you seen how much tiny tubs of these sell for in sandwich shops? Go on, whizz up some homemade stuff and take it to work – it will keep in the fridge for a few days in a plastic tub.

One of my favourite lunches is toasted pita bread spread with hummus and stuffed with salad. It even makes something as boring as lettuce and tomato taste interesting.

Hummus is actually quite filling, and so works well as part of a mezze with other salads or veg. Yesterday for lunch I had a green salad with a small amount of leftover roast chicken and toasted seeds, some homemade coleslaw and a dollop of hummus.

Or try some with a grilled lamb chop and green salad for your evening meal.

Pesto

Traditionally pesto is made with basil and pine nuts, but there are lots of variations, such as coriander and pine nuts, basil and cashew nuts, or rocket and walnuts. Here is the recipe for the traditional basil and pine nut pesto.

Pesto ingredients

• 1 handful pine nuts
• 1 large bunch basil
• 1 very small clove garlic, or half a normal clove
• 1 handful grated Parmesan
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Lemon juice, salt & pepper to taste

How to make pesto

I never fart around with the ‘bash using a pestle and mortar, slowly fold in the Parmesan’ school of pesto making.

Simply toast the pine nuts very lightly, rip the basil leaves a little, crush the clove of garlic, with the flat blade of a large knife, finely grate the Parmesan, and put the whole lot in the food processor, then add some olive oil and switch it on.

Turn off the motor, taste, and season with the lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Add more olive oil till the pesto is the consistency you like.

Done. Go on, Claire Ashtaker, give it a go.

What to do with pesto

Traditionally you use pesto as a light coating for pasta with a large surface area such as fusili or spaghetti. I like to stir it through some pasta then add smoked salmon or hot smoked trout with some cherry tomatoes. Roasted vegetables also work well. For a creamier (ie higher fat) version mix equal quantities (say 1 tablespoon) of pesto with mayonnaise.

But pesto works with any number of flavours and food types. Here are some of my favourites.

Fish

Spread some pesto over a fillet of white fish or salmon before oven-roasting for about 10 minutes at 190⁰C (the Magic Cooking Number).

Or poach the fish in water for 10 minutes and serve with a spoonful of pesto on the side.

Chicken

A dollop of pesto is a brilliant accompaniment to roast chicken, especially when served with roasted vegetables or salad and bread warm bread.

Mozzarella salad

For tomato and mozzarella salad you need to use really good tomatoes (or, as we used to call them, tomatoes). Flecked with pesto, a plate of white, red and deep green salad can sometimes be more inviting to the eye than it is to the palate.

Ripe, juicy peaches make a delightful partner to buffalo mozzarella, roughly torn into pieces. A little basil pesto on the side is just the saucy little wink this dish needs.

Stuffed peppers

It’s blazing hot weather, the Olympics start tomorrow, and I want an accompaniment for hot smoked trout and salad.

The idea of stuffed peppers probably draws a sigh from most vegetarians, but as a non-vegetarian I actually quite like this dish once in a while.

 

The recipe below assumes the dish is part of selection of salads.

Stuffed peppers ingredients

• 1 yellow or orange pepper. Go on then, use red if you insist.
• A handful of cooked Puy lentils
• Slightly larger quantity of cooked giant couscous
• An even larger quantity of cooked bulgur wheat
• 2 spring onions
• 1 small garlic clove, crushed
• A few chopped nuts – I used cashews today but pine nuts or mixed nuts would also work
• About 3 sundried tomatoes (optional), chopped into really very small pieces
• A few chopped herbs – I used a few thyme leaves tonight but oregano or Greek basil would also be good

How to make stuffed peppers

1. Finely shop the spring onions and lightly fry for a few minutes in a little olive oil till soft.
2. Add the crushed garlic clove and fry for another minute or so.
3. Mix together with all the other ingredients
4. Slice the peppers in half and remove the stalk and seeds
5. Fill the pepper halves with the stuffing
6. Bake for about half an hour to 40 minutes at the Magic Cooking Number (fan 190)