Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

Whore's spaghetti.

There are plenty of stories as to how this rich tomatoey sauce got its name. The most recent version I heard was that it is so named because the Italian housewives could knock it up pronto as their husbands walked in the front door fresh from the fields while their lovers hot-footed it out the back door. Nothing to do with ladies of the night needing to keep their strength up, which was what I'd previously understood.

Since the excitement of Monday night, half term has been a fairly low key affair. The Husband had to go back to our camp site and recover the remains of our gear, Blue has gradually progressed from sitting on the sofa in his PJs watching TV and dribbling, to making paper aeroplanes, chucking them onto various hard to recover places, watching Minecraft videos on Youtube (who actually IS Stumpy Longhead???), and dribbling, and Pink has generally been very accomodating - biding her time, obviously. 

Food-wise, Blue has been on liquids. Smoothies and soup. I did make the tomato and potato soup that he started off with, but really, honestly, the thought of slaving over pots and pots of soup defeated me. I thought back to the time when he was on steroids and I was known to be up making meatballs at 7 a.m. because that's what he fancied, and gave in to common sense. 

Yes, part of me wanted to create beautiful smooth nutritious soups that would make him forget that he couldn't tuck into toad in the hole. It's a thing isn't it - providing food is such a basic act for the people you love, especially when they are ill or hurt and there is little else practically you can do. It certainly is for me, and I've written about this in the context of his leukaemia. But this time - well, I didn't as someone suggested, liquidise 'MaccyDs' (shudder), but as part of the camping gear recovery trip, the Husband made a trip to the supermarket and came back with various tins. And I'm fine with that. 

So he's been eating tinned soup for the last few days, and feeling pretty sore about it. Not sore that I haven't lovingly cooked up delicious broths for him, but sore that he can't eat proper food. 10 year old boys do not thrive well on soup and smoothies, but I didn't want to push him into trying something a little more solid until he wanted to. The breakthrough came last night as he sat with his lentil & bacon soup (which we'd had to liquidise) and we chomped through toad in the hole. "Tomorrow, can I just have what you have but liquidised?" he asked.

So whore's pasta it is, although I won't tell the kids that's what it translates as. I got the recipe from a wonderful chef who lead a pasta making course I went on recently. Of course we didn't just learn how to make pasta, but various sauces and pasta fillings, and this was one of them. It was also she who relayed the story above about how it got its name. She had plenty of other stories too, having cooked in private homes in LA for the last 25 years - but she swore us all to secrecy... I've been dying to cook up one of the sauces I learned, but just haven't got round to it - partly due to the fact that I haven't actually got a pasta machine, so the dough I came home with is sitting in the freezer just waiting. My intention has been to produce the whole caboodle - fresh pasta, glorious sauce - and bask in the glow of achievement...

Still, dried pasta is perfectly acceptable (after all it's what I normally serve up), so tonight's the night. 

Full of flavour, I hope it tastes as nice liquidised as it does in 'whole' form - I'll leave that to Blue to assess.

Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca

serves 4

2 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3 anchovy fillets, wipe of salt and roughly chopped
1 tbsp of capers with juice
100g pitted black olives, roughly chopped
2 tins peeled plum tomatoes
salt & pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large frying pan then gently cook the garlic for a couple of minutes taking care not to let it burn.

Add the anchovies, capers, and olives, cook for a minute or so more, then add the tomatoes, crushing them in your hands as you go. Use a little water to swill out the tins into the pan, then simmer till rich and thickened.

Serve with spaghetti and plenty of parmesan.

Pasta Ratatouille

This could be called desperate veg growers' dinner, but I prefer to call it 'pasta ratatouille'. It sounds much smarter, doesn't it?

Easy, undemanding, a great way to disappear some of the glut of tomatoes and courgettes that you might be lucky enough to have (yes, still, even in October) into a healthy and tasty dinner.

This is definitely one to take as a guide rather than a defintive recipe. Use whatever you have.

Pasta Ratatouille
(serves 2 aduts & 2 children)

300g pasta
3 medium sized courgettes (I had 2 green ones and a yellow ball one)
2 green peppers
5 large beef tomatoes
4-5 small onions
3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 tablespoon capers
grana padano cheese

Heat the oven to 200C, and when it is to temperature, put in a roasting tray with a good slosh of olive oil in the bottom of it to heat up for 5 minutes.


While the oven is heating, top and tail the courgettes and chop into bite sized pieces; deseed the papers and similarly chop up.

Peel the onions and quarter them; peel the garlic cloves and finely slice them.

Halve the tomatoes and cut out the woody bit where the fruit was attached to the vine - you don't need ti be fussy about removing too much of the seeds or anything.

Once the oil has had the chance to heat up, take the tin ot of the oven and chuck everything in, and roast for a good 45 minutes, shaking the tin every now and again to make sure it's all getting cooked.

While the veg is roasting, cook the pasta according to packet instructions, drain, and if the veg still needs to roast for a little, stir through a little olive oil to stop it sticking together.

When the veg is roasted, mix it in with the pasta and stir through the capers. Put it all back into the roasting tin and grate over some of the grana padano cheese, then pop the tin back into the oven for 10 minutes tilll the cheese is melted and everything's really hot again (you coud put it under the grill if you prefer).

Serve - with extra grated cheese, and chilli sauce - if needed

Inspired by the Scouts & a little deception - yes really - Courgette Pesto Pasta Bake

Well we're back on the courgettes I'm afraid, after a brief respite over the weekend. Courgettes and weetabix, would you believe.

I'm in school holiday fug, now that scout camp is over and the kids are back home having spent a week at my mum's - trying to juggle work and make sure the kids have a good time as well as getting their dreaded 'holiday scrapbooks' slowly filled up so that they have something to take back with them in September. While I'd like to stand back and just let them get on with it (or not), I know that Blue in particular would leave it all till the last minute and then want to do it all at once, find the task impossible and collapse, sobbing, about how he can't possibly go back to school because he hasn't done his scrapbook. All nonsense of course, but I can't get away from the need to gently (and frequently) remind him that little and often is probably the way to go. Beyond that, of course it's up to them. I am (mostly) way passed the point of it being 'my' holiday homework. 

But back to the courgettes.

I had 3 sneak up on my over the weekend, so took inspiration from a recent Good Food recipe which I saw in the mag, but looking online now, it has 2 fairly damning comments after it. Good job I'd already fiddled with the ingredients and added parmesan into the mix. Garlic would probably be good too, possibly some chilli.It's very, very easy and the kids ate it, which for now, makes it a winner.

The smoke and mirrors involved was rather impressive. "What are we having for supper?" "Pesto Pasta Bake" "??" "Mmm well you like pesto, it's got basil and pine nuts and parmesan in it " (I can rather smugly report that Pink gets very excited about high end ingredients like this). "Ooo goody". Come the actual meal - "Has this got ... COURGETTE in it?" (adopts outraged tone at possible deception) "Ah but it's grated - you like grated courgette." "Oh yes." Eats food. 

The mind boggles.


I didn't have any bread in the house and no breadcrumbs in the freezer so I had to improvise for the crunchy topping. Eventually I was inspired by the scouts. Yes really. One of the activities we run on camp is a 'patrol' Ready Steady Cook night where we give each patrol (that's about 6 scouts) them some basic ingredients, and then a small sum of money (and a trip to the supermarket) to supplement and cook an original recipe which will feed them all. We judge on things like it actually all being cooked and tasting reasonable - nothing higher than that, but we get some really great results. This year, the standard was particularly high (stop sniggering will you) and the overall winner really surprised us by stepping away from the usual stir fry/chilli type meals and making turkey nuggets and chips with a tomato dipping sauce. They were brilliant. The killer ingredient was crushed up cornflakes mixed with some fajita mix to coat the pieces of turkey. Inspired.

I didn't have cornflakes or fajita mix, but I did have some 'whole wheat biscuits' in the cupboard. Great for breakfast and when you're out of superglue, it turns out crushed up, they also make a passable crunchy topping for a pasta bake.

Courgette Pasta Bake

serves 4 hungry people - you coould probably get away with 300g of pasta

400g pasta
250g courgettes, grated
150-200ml half fat creme fraiche
150g pesto
2 'whole wheat biscuits'
25g parmesan or other hard cheese
olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 180

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling water till al dente, reserve a ladleful or so of the cooking water and drain.

While the pasta is cooking, grate the courgette, and mix it with the pesto and creme fraiche and plenty of salt and pepper. Stir it all into the pasta with the cooking water, and add a little more creme fraich if you think  it needs it.

Tip into a baking dish, crush the while wheat biscuits over the top, finely grate the cheese over that (or you could crush the cereal into a bowl, stir the grated cheese through and then sprinkle that over the top - hindsight is a wonderful thing)

Drizzle with some olive oil and bake for 20-30 minutes till crunchy on top.

Pork Fillet & Coriander - and some Ginger Wine

So the veg box arrived on Tuesday and I checked out the contents and my list of likely meals culled from various sources in order to put together a meal plan and finalise the rest of the shopping requirements. I was still feeling uninspired and I won't lie that it was a chore, despite being faced with the kind of fresh and delicious vegetables that would normally make my heart sing.

Among other things, there was a small bunch of asparagus - such a treat, but not more than one serving's worth, so I supplemented with the final spears poking up from the garden and made a quiche on Wednesday.

A huge bag of spinach. Always tricky - I love it, kids don't.

A big bag of a herb that I knew I knew, but I couldn't identify.  How embarrassing.

Turned out it was coriander. Aromatic and fresh, but loads of it and I wasn't fancying carrot and coriander soup, despite the bunch of carrots. Curry? No. Pesto? No.


In the end I reached for Sarah Raven (she of the velvet gardening coat and close personal friendship with Emma Bridgewater - not that I'm jealous or anything). Her Garden Cookbook is a real winner if you have more than a passing relationship with vegetables. The book isn't a vegetarian cook book, but there are loads of good recipes, divided loosely into seasons and by different veggies, which is a Godsend when you have a glut - or a lack of inner inspiration.

 
One thing, they can often be quite fiddly, so that even 'simple' meals turn out to be quite task intensive. She also often uses some less common additional ingredients. Thanks to my foray into the pages earlier in the week, I am now the proud owner of a bottle of ginger wine. I suspect that sherry or marsala (for all Nigella fans) would work equally well here.

Pork Fillet with Coriander

Serves 4

450g piece of pork tenderloin, cut into 2-3 cm thick medallions
1 red onion, finely sliced
30g unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
3 large mushrooms, quite thickly sliced
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
70ml ginger wine
2 heaped teaspoon soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
200ml creme fraiche
large bunch of fresh coriander, finely chopped


Melt the butter with the oil in a frying pan, then add the sliced onion and crushed coriander seeds, and cook gently for a few minutes till the onion is soft. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the mushrooms & garlic to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes then add to the onions.

Add a little more oil to the pan if necessary and then turn the pork slices in the butter and oil in the pan for 3-4 minutes, before putting the onions and mushrooms back in the pan.

Add the ginger wine, sugar and lemon juice to the pan, turn up the heat a little and allow everything to cook and bubble to become syrupy.

Add the creme fraiche, salt and pepper and then stir in the chopped coriander and serve.

As Sarah suggested, it was delicious with her Spinach with Puy Lentils (my way), thus killing the spinach bird at the same time, but I have to confess that I also cooked some pasta for the kids. The creamy sauce went down very well whether it was lentils or pasta - and to give them their due, both kids ate the small amount of the lentils & spinach I gave them. 

I can feel my mojo very slowly returning...

Linking up to Herbs on Saturday hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage with the beautiful coriander that went into the dish.

Everything tastes better with bacon - sausage casserole, pasta bake and the promise of soup

So, we're well into Austerity January, and so far, so good. The freezer has lots of stock in it - good for soups, and also lots of left overs from pre-Christmas bulk cooking: I know there is a venison casserole in there waiting to liven up a Sunday sometime soon. There's some ham and turkey, and a whole load of lamb, but I'm also trying to use up as much as I have accumulated in the cupboards in my subconscious hibernation/'what if there's a nuclear winter' strategy that I seem to have inherited from my mum. Shelves are there to be filled, and while it's nearly all in date (bar a tin of pineapple slices that I can't bring myself to either open or throw away), the cupboards are groaning. There are lots of pulses and tinned tomatoes, and I have jars of olives that I forgot I'd bought - plenty of stuff to make good meals out of, and to keep the post-Christmas shopping bills down.  Even more exciting, this week things have been livened up by the last pack of streaky bacon which has been lurking in the back of the fridge since Christmas, and was just about to go over.

The thing about bacon is that it's just so tasty. The Husband is of the 'there are only 2 food groups: bacon and everything else' school of eating, and I have to say that he has a point: Bacon always comes at the top - or near the top - of things most likely to make a vegetarian falter. For me, it's not a camping trip without a bacon sandwich to wake up to - preferably with a cup of a coffee and a blinding view, but even without the coffee (packing fail) and when the rain's sheeting down (or, more soul destroying, when faced with persistent drizzle), there's nothing more likely to lift the spirits. I went to school with a lot of kids from the Jewish community in Leeds, and they were always off to Macdonalds for Bacon Double Cheeseburgers (ssssh! Don't tell anyone). There is just something about bacon.


We had a sausage, bacon and split pea casserole which I managed to get in the slow cooker one lunch time, and by bulking up a pack of sausages with some bacon, along with the pulses and veg, I made enough casserole to feed us for 2 meals. I can't now recall exactly what I did, and I didn't take any photos of it (to be honest it didn't look very interesting), but it was mighty tasty. I did have to plan ahead and soak the peas over night, but that used up the end of a bag that would otherwise have leaked all over the cupboard until the next time I want to make pea & ham soup. It was also dead easy, and you could cook it on the stove top - or in the oven - if you didn't have a slow cooker: I sweated some chopped onion, celery and carrots before adding them to the slow cooker, and tipping the split peas (these had been soaked over night then boiled rapidly for 10 minutes) on top. I cut the bacon into pieces and each sausage into 3 (I find they go further cut up - if you leave them whole, people know for sure how many sausages they've had, and one is never enough), then fried these off and drained off excess fat. Chucked all that into the slow cooker with a bunch of thyme, then deglazed the frying pan with a slosh of red wine, a can of chopped tomatoes and some stock - probably about 2 tsp of stock powder made up in the tomato can to swill out the last bits of tomato. Poured into the slow cooker, stirred around and cooked on high for 4 hours. Perfect with rice for tea.

Yesterday, we had bacon and leek pasta bake which is one of my regular meals. It is very quick to make, and by baking it at the end, it gives you the option to make it in advance - otherwise it's just cold pasta, isn't it, and frankly, who wants to eat that? This way, if you want, you can make it earlier in the day, then put in the oven with some cheese on the top at teatime and bingo - delicious and comforting. I should 'fess up and say that Blue is ambivalent about it, mainly because he doesn't like the 'crunchy bits' (strange child) but everyone else loves it and it's one of the few meals that Pink will ask for seconds of.  Last night it was extra specially good because there was some left over double cream in the fridge that needed using up. Marvellous. When I made it last night, I actually concentrated on what I was doing and how much I was using, so I can share a recipe with you.

Creamy Bacon & Leek Pasta Bake - serves 4

woops! nearly all gone before I took a pic!

300g pasta
15-20g butter
3 leeks, cleaned and sliced fairly finely
200g streaky bacon, derinded & chopped into fairly small pieces
2 tbsps plain flour
2tsp stock powder
approx 30ml double cream (optional but lovely)
salt & pepper
grated cheese (I failed to weigh out how much I used, sorry - but you  know, you just need enough)

Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. While you are doing this, melt the butter in a pan, and add the leeks and bacon and cook for 5 minutes or so till the leeks have softened and the bacon is looking like it's on the way to being cooked. Chuck in the flour and stir in so that you can't see any left. Cook it out for a minute or so. If necessary remove from the heat till the pasta is cooked. When you drain the pasta, reserve the cooking water and mix approx 400ml with the stock powder. Put your leeks & bacon back in the heat and slowly stir in the pasta water/stock till you get a smooth, thickish sauce. 

Depending on how thick or thin you like sauces in these kinds of dishes, you may want to use less than the 400ml or more to make a thinner sauce. Pour in the cream if using, and grind in some salt and pepper, then allow to cook for a couple of minutes. Tip the pasta into an appropriately sized oven proof dish and stir the sauce through it.

Cover the top with grated cheese and bake at 180C for approx 20-30 minutes (depending whether you need to avoid 'crunchy bits' or not - in a rare display of patience, last night I actually left a corner of the dish un-cheesed to reduce crunchy bits, but I'm not often that tolerant of foodie foibles!) 

The last of the bacon then, will go into what I hope will be a particularly satisfying soup for this evening. I was on one of my rare forays to a supermarket the other day and walking down the soup aisle, noticed a pot proclaiming bacon, red pepper and lentil. Mmmmm. In an uncommon display of harmony, the kids both chose today for their school lunch this week. As I know they are both having a hot meal (fish and chips) I can be a bit more relaxed about what to give them for tea, although the Husband has only had sandwiches.... We have lots of red lentils knocking around, and there's most of a red pepper needing eating up, so bacon, red pepper and lentil soup it is.This soup (in my head at least) seems to be a good solution to how to feed everyone this evening. We'll see!

I'm linking this up to a new blog event 'Credit Crunch Munch' hosted by  Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food For All. This is all about creating delicious food for less, and I think both the casserole and the pasta bake fit in with that idea. And I'm liking the logo a lot!