Posts

Posted on

Pasta in Tomato Sauce

This is a very quick and easy dish with a lovely piquant tomato sauce.

Pasta in Tomato Sauce

In a large frying pan, cook off some pancetta, then in the same pan soften a finely chopped onion and red pepper.

When the pancetta, onions and pepper are nearly cooked, add a good splash of balsamic vinegar, then as this boils add a blended tin of tomatoes (or you could use passata if you want to). Add some tomato puree and sliced mushrooms. Leave to simmer for at least twenty minutes and preferably a little longer. Towards the end add some chopped fresh parsley.

When you are nearly ready to eat, cook the pasta. With a tomato sauce I much prefer to use a dried pasta (and use fresh pasta with a cream based sauce). With this recipe I used De Cecco Fusilli.

When the pasta is cooked, drain and toss the pasta in the sauce.

Serve with freshly grated parmesan and ground black pepper.

If you like to you could add some black olives or anchovies to the sauce, I prefer not to due to the saltiness of these ingredients.

Posted on

Curly Wurly

After my Wispa fascination I seem to be searching out the chocolate bars I had when I was a child.

My most recent rediscovery is the Curly Wurly.

Something very satisfying about the sticky chewy caramel covered in chocolate most of which goes either on the floor or over your trousers as you bit into the bar.

Delicious.

Posted on

Christmas in Pastry

The Guardian has posted a Christmas Pie recipe.

In the last of our exclusive baking recipes, Martin Dewey, founder of Square Pie, explains how you can recreate their hearty festive pastry in your own kitchen.

Posted on

Ugh

Have just been watching Rick Stein on BBC Two and to be honest nothing I saw was remotely appetising!

Maybe it was where he was, but most of the dishes I saw I didn’t like the look of, so much so I turned it off!

Posted on

Do you like Truffles?

To be honest I don’t think I have eaten truffles or used truffle oil, but with the news this week that a huge €140,000 white truffle was found in Italy, it has brought to the fore the question, are truffles worth the money?

Black Truffle

The Guardian’s Jay Rayner asks this question:

So the question is, without the flavour burst of truffle oil do truffles really taste of anything? Or, to be more exact, do they taste of enough given their price?

A good article to read with some interesting responses. Personally I would quite like to try something made with truffles, black or white.

Photo source.

Posted on

Tasty Cake

Today the Guardian published a very nice cake recipe as part of a week long baking frenzy,

All this week, as part of Guardian food month, we will be running exclusive baking recipes from some of Britain’s favourite food names. To begin, a treat – top cake-makers Konditor & Cook’s bestselling Curly Whirly chocolate sponge with vanilla-bean frosting 

Today it’s Konditor & Cook’s Curly Whirly cake.

Posted on

Avoid Christmas Food Poisoning

Every year across the UK hundreds (if not thousands) of people suffer a miserable Christmas as they go down with food poisoning, with a lot of these down to badly cooked roasted turkeys.

Roast Turkeys

With less than a month to go the Food Standards Agency has published a Safer Christmas Eating guide which should help you avoid making yourself and others ill through badly cooked food.

Whether you’re cooking for one or thirty-one, our Christmas poultry advice – plus our cooking and defrosting calculators – can help protect you and your family and friends from food poisoning.

Well worth reading, more so if you have never cooked a really big turkey before.

Photo Source

Posted on

Which coffee do you drink?

coffeeSo which coffee do you drink on a regular basis?

Personally I stopped drinking instant coffee a few years ago, and now only drink “proper” coffee. I either use my espresso machine or the cafetiere.

I use Percol’s Fairtrade Organic Percol which is quite a strong coffee.

Dark and full with upfront flavours of bitter chocolate and hazelnut with a smooth and rounded finish.

I enjoy this first thing in the morning and often have a second cup mid-morning if I am at home.

So which coffee do you drink and enjoy?

Posted on

Guide to Baking

The Guardian have published an informative and substantial guide to baking, everything from cakes to bread.

Whether you are a novice pastry roller or an expert icer, our scrumptious new guide will take your enjoyment of baking to a whole new level. 

Check out the Guardian’s Guide to Baking.