Archives for 2019

Category:

Plenty of bang for your buck

Check out Rag Noodles with Fresh Walnuts (below). This is a super-simple dish to make, and the perfect home for a first attempt at making pasta. You can use all the raggedy pieces and make them look like you meant them to look this way!

Fresh pasta versus dried

The texture of quality dried pasta is like worn suede, if you can imagine that, not smooth, not furry but somewhere in between.

101 Making Pasta

Don’t despair if your first attempts produce holey shredded dough (mine did!) because with a little practice you’ll soon be turning out silky smooth sheets of pasta like a pro.

Bolognese Sauce with Pappardelle

The crimes committed under the recipe name Bolognese! Tsk. Tsk. It takes time to chop vegetables finely, to cook them slowly to extract flavour and to cook everything down to a rich and pulpy sauce. Give it time and you’ll be rewarded with a delicious sauce.

Rag Noodles with Fresh Walnuts

This sauce is made in less time than it takes to cook pasta!

Semolina

Make semolina your friend when rolling out fresh pasta.

Parmesan cheese, grana cheese and grana padano

Those Italians! How can you not love a cheese whose recipe remains unchanged since at least the thirteenth century?

Home is where the heart is

Home-cooked meals. Don’t you love them? It’s something most of us think about, dream about, reminisce about. If you were lucky, a mother, grandmother, or an auntie, or someone who emanated cheerfulness, warmth, caring and love (they were all women when I grew up, but don’t take offence, slip in whoever it was, or whoever you wanted it to be), stood by the stove, stirring pots of gorgeousness (yep, that’s a word), food that smelled so good you couldn’t wait to eat it, food that tasted so good you licked the plate clean (well, as a kid …), and food that spread such a wonderful feeling of happiness deep in the pit of your stomach. Read more …

Swiss Chard with Parmesan & Pine Nuts

Toot Toot! Bright as traffic lights!

Sausages & Mash with Cavolo Nero & Onion Gravy

Couldn’t you just wolf this down! Oh Yeah! Vegetarian? Use vego sossies.

Onion Gravy

Onion gravy based on slowly sizzled sweet onions makes everything taste better.

How to make lump-free gravy

Give a shout-out for glossy lump-free gravy. Yay!

Ever wondered how to make a fluffy, light potato purée?

You’ll find all the answers on how to make a soft fluffy pillow of gorgeousness right here.

Chives – to chop or snip, that is the question

Chives are easy enough to grow from seed … don’t be surprised if you grow enough to start a market stall!

L’affogato al caffé – coffee & ice cream in a cup!

Mid-afternoon miseries? Talk about a wicked pick-me-up …

Baked Butternut with Thyme

Buttery, nutty and gorgeously sweet.

Butternut Pumpkin

Sweet as …

Smoked Fish Pasties

The Cornish Pasty Association has decreed a traditional pasty should only contain beef, usually skirt steak, onion, potatoes, swede and seasonings. The pastry should be shaped in a D and crimped on the side. God knows what they would think of my effort! Yum, though.