Spaghetti with Fresh Pea Pesto

19 May ~ Page 146

This spaghetti with pea pesto was delish! The ingredients were harder to find than I expected. It required fresh shelled peas and broad beans, neither of which I could find. I thought maybe it was because they're out of season, but peas don't REALLY go out of season, and even if they did, the current season is still the tail end of when they're at their best. So I've put it down to the supermarkets. Neither of my local chains stocked fresh peas, or broad beans. I suspect I could find them at a market, where the range is better, but I didn't have time for that. So my recipe uses the frozen version of both of these items, and I can attest that it still tastes good!

The prep/cook times are pretty accurate. Having used broad beans before I knew how long they take to shell, which I don't think they really account for in the timing structure of the recipe. So I only let them cool for a minute before beginning to peel them and was still doing this until the last minute.

I work with an electric stove top, so I also put both saucepans of water on first thing because they take ages to heat up.

The only tip I can say, which is really a preference thing, is that I should have processed the pesto for longer. Mine had a bit too much crunch from the almonds, but some people might like it extra crunchy. The pesto was VERY yummy. It was a bit too garlicky when I tasted it, but once it was in the pasta it was totally fine. It was a bit hard to stir through the pasta too. Could put a dash more olive oil.

It was slightly bland (and for me to say that, it means it was), and could be improved with some chicken or something. Perhaps as a side, or on a table with lots of dishes, it would be extra great. It's meant to serve 4, but I put it into a large bowl for people to serve themselves and there was easily enough for 6 people.

~

4 stars

Big bowl of pasta

19 May
Spaghetti with Fresh Pea Pesto

Serves 4-6
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: About 15 mins

Ingredients:
250g/9oz shelled broad beans
500g/1lb 2 oz dried spaghetti
salt and pepper

300g/10.5oz fresh shelled peas
75ml/2.5fl oz extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
100g/3.5 oz freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra, shaved, to serve.
100g/3.5 oz blanched almonds, chopped
pinch of sugar

1.  To make the pea pesto, cook the peas in a saucepan of boiling water for 2-3 minutes until just tender. Drain and transfer to a food processor. Add the oil, garlic and grated Parmesan cheese and process to a course paste. Add the almonds and process again. Add the sugar and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Blanch the broad beans in a saucepan of lightly salted boiling water until just tender. Drain and leave to cool. Peel off the dull skins.
3. Bring a large, heavy-based saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil. Add the spaghetti, bring back to the boil and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until just tender but still firm to the bite. Drain, stir in the broad beans and toss with the pesto. Add a good coarse grinding of pepper and serve with Parmesan cheese shavings.

Toasted Muffins with Blueberries & Bacon

The first recipe from my new book!
This was a very simple recipe that I chose because I had some blueberries in the fridge.

26 May ~ Page 152

The instructions are easy, as is making it. If I made it again I would probably just toast the English muffins in my toaster instead of in the pan, but that would only be to make room in the pan. Also the recipe says the maple syrup is optional, but I would highly recommend using it, because it's a bit bland otherwise.

The time frame it gives is pretty accurate. The only instruction that confused me was the browning of the bacon in step 3. Having just inverted it onto the blueberries the side that was against the pan to begin with is now facing up, so the bacon was already browning. I just ignored that and left it for another two minutes.

Finished product

The combination was nice, but could have done with more bacon. The only recommendation I would make is to not do what I did and try to pick it up to eat like a sandwich, because all the blueberries fell out! Oops!

3 stars.

~

26 May
Toasted Muffins with Blueberries & Bacon

Serves 2
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 5 mins

Ingredients:
2 muffins (in Australia we call them English muffins)
2 lean bacon rashers
100g/3.5oz fresh blueberries
2 tsp maple syrup

1. Preheat the grill to medium-high. Slice the muffins horizontally and place them, cut side down, on the rack in the grill pan.
2. Lay the bacon rashers on the rack and cook until the tops of the muffins are toasted and the bacon is lightly cooked on one side.
3. Turn the muffins and divide the blueberries between the bottom halves. Invert the bacon onto the blueberries, covering them completely. Cook for a further 2 minutes, removing the top halves as soon as they are toasted and the bottom when the bacon is browned and crisp.
4. Place the muffin bases on serving plates, drizzle with maple syrup, and add the muffin tops. Serve.

A Year Full Of Recipes

I've always loved the idea of cooking every recipe in a cook book. Recently I was given a new cook book for my birthday that looked like just the right book to use!

The Cookable Book!

It's called A Year Full Of Recipes: 365 recipes, one for every day of the year plus 1 for a leap year.

It's published by Parragon Books Ltd in the United Kingdom, and I'm based in Melbourne, Australia. I often find when using cook books from other countries that it's difficult to find certain ingredients, but I'm hoping that since the UK has more similar products to Australia than the United States do that I won't have too many problems. The ingredients are listed in metric AND imperial though, so all readers will be able to use it.

The cook book is set up by dates. It runs from January 1st to December 31st. It's pretty tempting to cook through it by date and make it a full year project, but unfortunately it's not possible for me for the reasons listed below.

An example of how the book is set out using dates

Firstly, I live alone, and a lot of these recipes are for 4, which means that I'll be having them for lunches and dinners and probably two days in a row, so it's just not practical. Secondly, because the book is from the UK the seasons are opposite. The book is very cleverly organised so that winter foods are used in winter months, and the recipes reflect the need for hearty warm foods; the summer months have more salads and light foods for that period. I could, in theory, just cook the June foods in January and follow it on from there, but instead I am going to just cook the items when I can and blog about them afterwards. It will be a slower process, but I'm excited about it nevertheless.

Each month has pretty pictures too