Pumpkin Ravioli

I think I have mastered making pasta dough. We use 100 g of pasta flour and 1 egg for one person. So I thought I would have a go at making my own ravioli.

The filling was pumpkin (450g) which I roasted for about 25-30 mins at 200 degree C. I then mashed this and added two crushed amaretti biscuits, grated parmesan and some breadcrumbs.


I rolled the pasta out to the thinnest setting. Andrew's mum had given a me a ravioli maker which I used. I don't think that I floured the tray enough as the first batch stuck a bit.

The pasta was cooked for four minutes and served with a sage butter. Butter was melted in frying pan until foaming, sage leaves were added and cooked for a few seconds. This was finished with a squeeze of lemon juice and this was poured over the pasta. We had some steamed chard with the pasta.

All in all I think that my first ravioli making experience went well and I am sure like making the dough, I will get better at it with practice. I am entering this recipe into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights which is being hosted by Nilmandra of Soy and Pepper. Make sure you check out the round up.

Beef ragu and homemade pasta

When Andrew's parents visited for the weekend they brought some goodies with them, these included a pasta machine. I have told Andrew that I really wanted a pasta machine but he has never been very convinced that I would use it that much. So as a compromise we borrowed Andrew's parents one.

Last weekend seemed to really signal the beginning of autumnal eating which means the start of stews and toad in the hole! For Sundays dinner I decided to make my version of a ragu. I knew somewhere in my vast collection of books I had a recipe for a ragu and pasta but I couldn't find it. So I had an idea of what I wanted it have in it. It was a bit of a cross of beef bourginon with some of the ingredients I would use to make spag bol.

• Olive oil


• 500g of stewing beef, cubed


• 3-4 tbsps of seasoned flour


• 1 large onion, chopped


• 2 cloves of garlic crushed


• 1 swede, chopped


• 3 carrots, chopped


• 250g of pumpkin chopped


• Tomato paste


• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes


• 1/2 bottle of red wine


• Handful of olives

Preheat oven to 150 degree c.Toss the beef in the seasoned flour. Heat the olive oil in a large casserole dish and brown the beef in batches.

Fry the onion until soft. Add the garlic, swede and carrots stir for a couple of minutes. Then add the tomato paste and cook for 2 more minutes. Return the meat to the pan. Add the olives.

Add the red wine, scraping the bottom of the pan to make sure that the crusty bits a incorporated. Then add the tin of tomatoes. If this doesn't cover the meat and veg top up with water.

Put in the oven and cook for 1 hour then stir in the pumpkin. Then cook for another 1-1 and a half hours until meat is tender and sauce has reduced.

Serve with pasta.

Whilst the ragu was cooking, I made my pasta. I used Jamie's 100g and 1 large egg per person recipe.

I think my pasta making will be a bit like bread making at first it took me while to get to grips with but now I can knock up the dough in five minutes. As this is my first attempt it took a while.

Once it had combined into a dough I kneaded it for a few minutes before starting the rolling!

This part was quite tricky but I think that's because I tried to roll too much of the dough at once. This meant we had long pieces of pasta which made it hard to handle. Also the dough likes to stick to itself so you really need to dust it with quite a bit of flour.

We did get the hang of it at the end it was great to see the sheets of pasta gradually getting thinner and thinner. I wanted to make pappardelle, so we rolled up the pasta and cut it into wide strips.I have to say that it was great to make are own pasta. I know that I will get better at it with time. I think that I rolled the pasta a bit too thin as well. But I will know better next time.

The ragu/stew was great the meat was tender and the liquid had reduced to make a wonderful sauce. I'm entering this recipe into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights roundup which this week is hosted by Ruth at Once Upon A Feast. Make sure you check out the roundup.

A ray of sunshine

Andrew and I are deep into the thesis writing. This means I was in the flat for two and a half days before I ventured outside. Very depressing. The weather has been awful this week, which has made my time spent indoors more bearable. When my veg box arrived it had a suprise vegetable, a pumpkin.

I know that a lot people in the UK don't eat pumpkins, just carve them for halloween. But I love them. When it arrived, I knew what we were going to have for dinner, pasta with roasted pumpkin. We first had this dish when we were staying at Andrew's parents house in Ireland. Thankfully, this is our last year of our PhDs and we will definitely be make a trip there next year.

Pumpkin, caramelised onion and feta pasta:

• 1 Onion, cut into thin wedges
• Pumpkin, peeled and diced
• Olives
• Feta
• Pasta
• 1 Lemon, zested and halved
  
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Dried chilli flakes
  

Put the diced pumpkin into a roasting dish. Coat with olive oil, salt, pepper and some dried chilli flakes. Place the lemon in a corner of the dish and cook at 200 degrees C for 30 mins until soft.

Meanwhile cook the onion in saucepan with some oil, on a low heat until caramelised (about 30 mins)

Stir the pasta and lemon zest into the onions. Then add the pumpkin, olives and feta. Squeeze in the lemon juice.

I am entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights which is hosted by Kitchenetta at Got No Milk. Make sure you have a look at this weeks roundup.

This week in the veg box we got:

• Pumpkin
• Courgettes
• Beetroot
• Kohl Rabi
• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Onions
• Potatoes
  

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.

Banana chocolate chip muffins

When I saw the photo for this month's sweet and simple bakes I was so happy. I love muffins. But when I saw the what was in the muffins the excitement slowly disappeared. Why? Because, they contained bananas. I am reliably informed by my mum that I loved bananas when I was younger. I have a feeling that overdosed on them as a child and now I don't like them.

But since retrying and liking broad and runner beans. I thought I should give them a go. All this week I have been writing a scientific paper and last night was not going well. I needed a break. The muffins were a perfect break. Muffins never take too long to make.


The recipe was great as it used mashed bananas where you would usually use milk. The presence of chocolate chips reassured me that if I didn't like the banana taste at least it would be broken by the taste of the chocolate.


Andrew and I made the mixture within 5 mins. The recipe actually made more than 12 muffins it was supposed to. I actually made 18. Enough to give to work colleagues without Andrew and I missing out.


Yet again the recipe was easy to follow and these were super quick to make. I think these could be a regular. Probably changing the chocolate chips for dried fruit, like cranberries.

The taste of the bananas was fine. Maybe this is the first step in me regaining my taste for bananas? Who knows! Check out the roundup on Sweet and Simple Bakes.

Green veg cannelloni

One of my favourite pasta dishes is spinach and ricotta cannelloni. On Monday we still had a lot of green vegetables leftover from our box. So I decided to substitute the spinach for the other veg we had. We used cannelloni tubes but these could easily be substituted with fresh lasagne sheets, which you could roll with the filling to make tubes.

Green veg cannelloni
(Serves 2 greedy people or four with some bread and salad)

• Broad beans
• 1 Courgette, grated
• Broccoli
• Ricotta cheese, 250g
• Pecorino cheese, 3 tbsps
• Cannelloni tubes
• Tomato pasta sauce (we made our own, but you could use shop bought)
  
• Cheddar cheese
  

For the filling: boil the broccoli for 5 mins and beans for about 3 mins. Remove the beans from their skins. In a boil mash up the broccoli. To the broccoli add the beans, courgette, ricotta, pecorino cheese, salt and pepper.

Fill the tubes with the mixture.

Put a tablespoon or so of the tomato sauce on the base of a oven proof dish, they place the tubes in the dish. Cover the tubes with the rest of the sauce. Top with the cheddar cheese.

Bake at gas mark 6 for 20-30 mins, until cheese is golden and tubes are soft.

This dish made a great alternative to the spinach and ricotta classic and helped us use up the green veg left. The change also meant that we packed roughly 4 portions of veg into one meal (counting the tomatoes in the sauce, which do count by the way).

I am entering this into this week Presto Pasta Nights which this week is held by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast, make sure you check out the round up.

Broccoli Pesto

I went to Paperinos for dinner last night with some work collegues. I had a bowl of pasta but it was awful, greasy and not at all nice. So tonight I thought I would have a decent bowl of pasta. After the success of the cabbage pesto, I thought that I would try another green veg based pesto. So when broccoli was in our veg box this week I thought I would give it ago.

The first thing I noticed was it wasn't as dark green as the cabbage pesto, a much lighter green. The pesto was very light almost like mousse. The best thing about making pesto that it is so quick. I have a little handblender which has a small processor attachment, which is great for making pastes. I think next time I would like try using almonds instead of pinenuts. I always see so many different pestos, some using rocket, others using lime.

Broccoli pesto:
Boil the broccoli for 4 mins, drain and rinse with cool water to stop it cooking any further. Into my blender, I put the broccoli and a couple of handfuls of toasted pinenuts, 1 tbsp grated pecorino, zest of 1 lemon, lemon juice (to taste) and olive oil. I then blitzed until it was smoothish! This was stirred into cooked pasta, with some chopped tomatoes and olives. It was topped with a few toasted pinenuts and more pecorino.


I'm entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights which this week is being held by Katie @ Thyme for Cooking . Make sure you have a look at her blog on Friday when the roundup should be up!

This week in the box we got:

• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Broad beans
• Courgettes
• Lettuce
• Turnips
• Potatoes
• Onions
  
• Carrots
  

Take one packet of mince . . .

Whilst going through the freezer I noticed that we had a packet of pork mince. So I started to thinking about what I could do with it. I decided to try and make it last two dinners.

The first dish was little pork and apricot patties served with tumeric rice. All I did was fry half an onion and some garlic until soft. I left this cool for a bit and then added it to 250g of pork mince. I then chopped some dried apricots (about 6) added it to the pork. I then stirred and then shaped them into four little patties which were grilled. For the tumeric rice, I just added a small amount of tumeric to the water. This was served with some yoghurt which was flavoured with some lemon juice. Yum yum.


For the second night I decided to make some meatballs. These were flavoured with lemon zest and had some finely diced onion and chopped parsley added. Again I used 250 g of pork mince. These were baked in the oven for 25 mins at gas mark 6. In another roasting tin I added some paris brown and button mushrooms, sliced courgette and thinly sliced garlic. I added some olive oil and roasted them in the oven for 10-15 min. To make a sauce I put the roasting tin with the mushrooms in on the hob and added some marsala (about 3tbsp). I allowed this simmer for a minute before adding a couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt. The meatballs were added to this sauce. This was served with spaghetti which was dressed with some olive oil, lemon juice and parsley.

I am entering the pasta recipe into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights. Which this week is being hosted by Ruth @ Once Upon a Feast. Check out the round up which will be on her website on Friday.

I broke the rules . .

I have a silly rule, I think it comes from my Mum. We never have the same carbohydrate for dinner twice in a row. But this week I broke the rules. Andrew is away working this week, so I have spent most of my time writing up. And cooking is just the excuse I need to leave my thesis for long periods of time, so I have been cooking quick and easy things to resist temptation. Which means for the last two days pasta! In my defence they were at least different shaped pasta.

On Monday, another person in the lab passed their viva. We had a nice spread of food and champagne to celebrate. There were loads of leftover olives, so we all took some home.

On Tuesday I made a tapenade (olives, capers and olive oil) and then stir this into pasta put it into an ovenproof dish. I then added some tomatoes, topped with grated pecorino and pine nuts. I cooked it on gas mark 6 for 20 mins, until the cheese had melted.

Today I had spaghetti. Again with olives, there were quite a lot. I still have some left. So whilst the pasta was cooking. I heated some olive oil in a frying added some sliced garlic, then add some chopped tomatoes, capers, olives, pinch of dried chilli flakes, couple of spoonfuls of the pasta cooking water and a splash of red wine vinegar. When the pasta is cooked and to the sauce. I topped this with grated pecorino and griddled courgettes.

I am entering this pasta dish into this week's Presto Pasta Nights roundup, which this week is hosted by Gay at A Scientist in the Kitchen. The roundup should be up on Friday.

Eating our greens

The veg box arrived this week bursting with greens, this week:

• Courgettes
• Broad beans
• Broccoli
• Spring cabbage
• Kohl Rabi
  
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Carrots

I seem to cook pasta on the day of the box arrival. I am not sure why but again we had pasta today. Once I saw the courgettes, beans and broccoli. I wanted to make a creamy lemon pasta with these veg.

So I blanched the beans in boiling water for a few minutes, for the last minute I added the broccoli. I fried a sliced garlic clove on a medium heat for a few seconds before adding one sliced courgette. After a couple of mins I added the broccoli and cooked for a minute. I then added the beans, lemon zest and lemon juice. I added some of the pasta cooking water, creme fraiche and pecorino cheese. I then stirred in the pasta. This topped with a bit more pecorino and toasted pine nuts. The lemon worked really well with the green veg and the pine nuts added a nice crunch.

We are starting to get a lot of tomatoes in our box now. So I expect that next weeks pasta dish will have a tomato based sauce.

Again this will be entered into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights will be hosted by Ruth @ Once Upon A Feast. The round up will be posted on Ruth's blog on Thursday.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

My mouth started drooling as soon as I saw this month's recipe for Sweet and Simple Bakes. Andrew has a bit of an issue at the moment. He is getting more and more patriotic. He has now taken to calling pain au chocolate, chocolate bread. As he doesn't see why we should have to use the French words for things that can be translated into English. I think his PhD has effected his brain too. So when I told him that this months challenge was cookies, he pulled a face and said that we should call them biscuits!!! You would think that there were bigger issues in the world, but I think this is important to him! I do agree that we seem to put some cuisines on a peddlestool, especially French cuisine. As good as it is, we do have food to be proud of in Britain. Anyway I digress back to the cookies, oops I mean biscuits.


I owed my friend after she read 2 of my chapters, in fact I owed her big time. So I thought I could pay her back with the cookies.


After saying that I don't like white chocolate I decided to add dark and white chocolate. So I suppose these were triple chocolate, instead of double. I used chopped chocolate rather than chocolate chips.


I made them quite big. They were lovely and chewy. They seemed to go down well. I think that I have paid off my debt.

I asked Andrew to let me take a photo so I could show someone enjoying these lovely cookies but he couldn't stop laughing. You can't get the models these days . . .

Check out the round up which will be posted on the sweet and simple bakes website and the recipe can be found here

Cabbage Pesto

I have been wanting to make pesto for ages, but with amount of Basil needed for a traditional pesto made it quite pricey. The last time we were visiting Andrew's folks we were given 3 basil seedlings. As you can see for the photo they are doing well but not well enough to make pesto from.


I have seen loads of recipes for pesto made with rocket, spinach and watercress. So with spring cabbage in our box this week I decided to give a cabbage pesto a go.

I suppose pesto is a bit like Thai Green Curry paste everyone has there own recipe with different ratios of ingredients. SoI gave it a go. I used 2 tbsp of pecorino cheese, a handful of pine kernels, 1 garlic cloves, lemon zest, juice of half a lemon, cabbage leaves which had been cooked for 4 mins in boiling water and olive oil to loosen.

Andrew had gone climbing so I prepared everything beforehand. Its the scientist in me!


So when Andrew came back, I fried a courgette. I then added the tomatoes until they had soften slightly. The pesto was added, as was a pinch of chilli flakes. Finally cooked penne and a handful of black olives was added.

I didn't tell Andrew what the pesto was made with and he thought that it was made from parsley, so the cabbage taste obviously wasn't over-powering. I did put a lot of cheese in it though.

For the third week in row I will be entering this into this weeks Presto Pasta Night which this week is hosted by Hillary of Chew On That. Have a look at the round, which should on Hillary's site on Friday.

Broad Beans

After the runner beans in last weeks box, this week we had broad beans. I wanted to put them with some pasta, so I started hunting around my book collection. I came across a recipe for broad bean and ricotta pasta in Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. I only made a couple of changes.

I podded the beans and boiled them until they were cooked about 8 mins. I then skinned the beans. I then gently fried some sliced garlic cloves, without browning, in some olive oil. After a minute, I added the beans and a handful of spinach. Then I added 25o g of ricotta and the juice of a lemon. The cooked pasta was added to this mixture.


Then pasta was dished with a drizzle of olive oil and some grated pecorino.

I am entering this into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights, which this week is hosted by Ruth @ Once Up A Feast. Make sure you have a look at the round up.

With the decent weather we have been having the veg box is getting a bit more exciting:

• Purple Kohl Rabi
• Spring Cabbage
• Spinach
• Broad Beans
• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes

Pancetta and Bean Pasta

As a kid I never like any kinds of beans. Luckily things have changed and I have really started to enjoy them. I still don't like Heinz baked beans, but I don't think think thats the beans fault. With some runner beans and pancetta in the fridge, I decided to use them in pasta.

Whilst the fusilli was cooking. I fried two sliced garlic cloves and runner beans in olive oil for a couple of minutes. I then seasoned this and added a splash of vermouth and some of the water from the pasta pan. I then added a couple of spoonfuls of creme fraiche and grated in some pecorino cheese. Meanwhile in a dry frying pan, I cooked the pancetta until golden and crispy. I then drained and stirred the pasta into the sauce. I served this with some more grated pecorino and topped with the pancetta. I am sorry there aren't any exact amounts but I am not sure how much I used. If you were using chunks of pancetta rather than slices, I would have fry them in the same pan as the garlic and beans but before they were added.

I am entering this into this weeks roundup of Presto Pasta Nights. This week its hosted by Kevin at Closet Cooking. I love his recipes and can relate as our kitchen is also small. Which can make things challenging! Have a look on his blog for the round up for this week.

Cranberry and White Chocolate Flapjacks

On Thursday night I made cranberry and white chocolate flapjacks as part of the Sweet and Simple Bakes Event.

I attempted to make some flapjacks a couple of weeks ago but I tried to mix to recipes together and also cooked it a little too long. It resembled granola rather than flapjacks.

I have to say that these flapjacks were dead easy to make. Even if I did end up going to bed a bit later, as I waited for them to cool enough to put the white chocolate on top. Why do I always do these things at the last minute? I used Green and Black's white chocolate. I was a bit upset when they were taken over by Cadbury's but they are still a readily available organic chocolate. I am not a great fan of white chocolate. I much prefer the more bitter 70% chocolate. I find white chocolate a bit too sweet for my palate. I have to say that I am much more of a starter person than a dessert person.


I took the flapjacks into work for a tasting and I have to say they went down very well. Andrew looked a bit upset when I started to pack them up to take to work.

I look forward to next month's recipe and I am sure so are my work colleagues.

By the skin of my teeth . . .

I have been meaning to do my submission of Pixie's Putting Up event for ages but the thesis keeps getting in the way! So anyway here it is, onion and chilli marmalade. A while ago I made Jamie's pepper and chilli chutney from Jamie at Home which was wonderful. So I decided to make an onion marmalade with a bit a kick.

(Based on a Rachel Allen recipe)

Ingredients:

• 25 g butter
• 675 g onions
• 150 g caster sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 100 ml balsamic vinegar
• 250 ml red wine
• 6 red chillis

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add onions, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir, then cover and cook for 30 mins over a gentle heat stirring from time to time to prevent it sticking.


Char the chillies ( I do this on my gas hob). Then put them in a bowl and cover them with clingfilm. Scrap off most of the charred skin. Remove the seeds and slice the chillies.



Remove lid, add vinegar, wine and chillies and cook uncovered for 30 mins. Stirring every now and then. Pour into sterilised jars and cover while hot.



I used the marmalade for a fancy cheese on toast for lunch after a frustrating morning of thesis writing.


I just spread the onion marmalade on the toast and then covered with cheese and grilled. Yum yum.


I would say that there was probably just a tad too much chilli for me. Next time I will put just four in. My mum would love it. Maybe she might get the other jar. I am sure that she will thank Pixie for that. For my birthday, in March, I got a lovely chutney pan and I look forward to using it for the next event.