First pasta in the new flat

Most of the boxes are emptied, kitchen arrangment is almost sorted out. Living in a top floor flat is always an advantage but moving the heavy boxes up 3 flights of stairs is hard work. We realised how much stuff we have accummulated. The new flat is great, the kitchen is much bigger than the old one. Two days without the internet was a little annoying and my google reader was bursting once it had been connected. The flat has loads of window sills, I am already pondering what to grow. The Veg Box delivery guy found us OK on Wednesday. This week we had:

• Broad beans
• Kohl Rabi
• Courgette
• Tomatoes
• Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Onion
• Carrots
• Potatoes

When Andrew and I were undergrads we used to make a sausage pasta dish. Being poor students this was literally pasta, tomato sauce and some grilled sausages stirred in. I remember seeing on Jamie @ Home a posh version of this. I substituted the peas for broad beans and courgettes.



Prepare a tomato pasta sauce.

Boil the beans for a couple of mins. Remove their skins and put to the side.

Add some olive oil into a frying pan and heat. Split the skins of the sausages. Squeeze the meat out into small meatballs directly into the fying pan. Fry until golden brown then add some sliced courgette to the pan and cook until soft.

Add the broad beans to the frying pan with the pasta and sauce. Toss to coat and serve.

It was lovely and the little meatballs were great. This dish was quick to make too.

I am entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights. This week is hosted by Michelle at the Greedy Gourmet. Make sure you check out the round up.

Ketchup

When I went to the Farmer's Market, the weekend before last, I bought 2 kilos of soup tomatoes to make tomato ketchup with. They had been sat in our kitchen for a week before I had to chance to make the ketchup.

I decided to use Jamie Oliver's recipe from Jamie at Home. The first stage is to cook the aromatics in olive oil, these included fennel, red onions, coriander seeds, 1 red chilli, 4 cloves and ginger.


I then added the 2 kilos of tomatoes, which I had chopped, to the pan.


I also added some water. This was brought to the boil and left to simmer until it had reduced by half.

I then pureed this with my stick blender and passed it through a sieve twice. Red wine vinegar and sugar was added and it was then reduced it until it looked like ketchup. This was then poured into sterilised jars.

We will let it mellow for a while and then we will be eating our own ketchup. Andrew wants to try and make Hugh's ketchup. So he might be making some rival ketchup. Watch this space . . .

Thanks to Stonehead and Thumper

Well this weekend has to go down in history - Serena relinquished her vice like grip on the kitchen and I cooked dinner on both Saturday and Sunday night! After an afternoon rock climbing at the local crag at Dumbarton we returned home and I made Jamie Olivers sweet cherry tomato and sausage bake. I've made this several times now and it lovely, just the sort of cooking that I enjoy - one pot simple cooking with loads of favour. We got the both red and yellow tomatoes from the Partick farmers market as well as a large circular veal sausage. This was British veal produced in a very ethical way.
Just as we were leaving the farmers market we stopped to look at a venison stall. To our joy we found that the bloke was also selling rabbit. We have been looking for a source rabbit for ages. We both first tried rabbit in a recent trip to France and loved it, but haven't seen it on sale anywhere over here. So we headed home with a portioned up rabbit trying to think what to do with it? Serena, being the blog reading fiend that she is remember that there was a recipe on Musing of a Stonehead. So after a day pottering around (I'm sure Serena will post about this later) I made an unprecedented second night return to the kitchen.
Both of us were constantly drooling over the pan the rabbit was cooking. It smelt and looked fantastic.
Thinking the bunny might have been a bit long in the tooth as the meat was difficult to get off the bone, but then I guess that's a risk to take with wild game. Still the taste was great. I think rabbit will be hopping into our bag again. Thankyou Mr Stonehead.

Summer finally arrives

On Bank Holiday Monday we got out of the city and went and spend some time outside. So we went for a walk up Ben A'an. It was so hot and there were some great views on the top. Before we left I got some bacon out of the freezer in preparation for purple sprouting broccoli pasta. However, on the way back we passed Gartartan Farm Shop. So we went and bought some beef, more specifically steak.

I only had one recipe in mind. It was Jamie's again, seared carpaccio of beef with roasted beets, creamed horseradish, watercress and Parmesan. It meant that I could use some of beetroots from the veg box.


This salad is great and means I can use my Le Creuset griddle pan, which makes me happy. We had it with ciabatta that I made the other day. It may not have been what was planned but it was wonderful.

Thanks to Jamie and Hugh

I have to say that I love Jamie Oliver, I have most of his books. There is actually one missing from my collection which I am sure with be remedied at some point. When we went to the Farmer's Market I bought some lamb neck fillet, which was only destined for one recipe: Jamie's grilled lamb kofta kebabs from Jamie at Home. I have made this quite a few times now and its lovely. So thats what was for dinner on Sunday.

There was a difference this time as I also made my own tortilla breads for the kebabs. I used a recipe from Hugh's River Cottage Year. He says its basically a pizza base recipe. I left it to rise for an hour before dividing the dough into 8. I then rolled them into what should have been round flatbreads but they were a bit mis-shapen or rustic. All you do is cook them in a dry frying pan for 2-3 mins the first side, popping any air bubbles and for 1 min the other side.


The kebabs are served with salad, onion which has been seasoned and slighty "pickled" in lemon juice. It was served with homemade chips and washed down with a nice red. Thank you Hugh and Jamie.