All purpose red pepper cream sauce…

This is a classic standby of mine…you can have it over chicken, pork, fish, or just simply over a good bowl of fresh pasta. This is a red pepper chopped and pan fried with a chopped clove of garlic in olive oil until the red pepper starts to brown a little. Then add a sprinkle or two of rosemary and a grind of black pepper and sea salt. Add a slice or two of prosciutto cut torn into pieces. Fry for about 30 seconds more. The peppers should be soft. Add a small pot of fresh single cream. Heat through for another minute or two, then pour over the dish of your choice…
marvellous, cheap and simple.

Monday night magic…a pasta dish to pacify the beast

This is one of those dishes that just comes together like a dream and furnishes your taste buds with more flavours than you could shake a wooden spoon at. It is a dish that possibly every household has a version of – well this is mine and I am still in a miasma of pasta perfection.

I will do my best to give you the recipe!

Chicken, Spinach and Pine Nut Cream Pasta

For 4

2 chicken breasts sliced in to strips
2 cloves of garlic chopped
250 ml chicken stock
250 ml single cream
4 or 5 good handfuls of spinach
5 strips of smoked bacon chopped
6 sundried tomatoes chopped
Handful of basil
Black pepper
100 gm toasted pine nuts

Pan fry the chicken for 5 minutes with the garlic. Add the stock. Simmer for 5 minutes then add the sun dried tomatoes.
Put the pasta on – I used fusilli but tagliatelle would work too. I used 400 gm for 4.

Add the cream and the torn basil to the chicken and a good grind or two of black pepper. In a separate pan fry the bacon til just crisping. Put to one side. Add the spinach to the chicken and stir on a low light until the spinach is wilting and the cream sauce starting to bubble gently. Add the bacon and stir again gently.

Drain the pasta and share between four bowls. Add a portion of the sauce to each and then top with the pine nuts.

I drank a full bodied dark shiraz with this and it was a marriage that will last.

A dish to play with too – certainly – you could add even more bacon – or dried chilli flakes – whatever grabs your fancy!

A pasta for every passing Popeye to drool over!

Snowed in? You need a warming fish dish…!

And they do not come better, or more warming, than…

Smoked Mackerel Dauphinoise!

When I saw this latest painting by Bonnie Lalley – she has been enduring arctic temperatures and blizzards over where she lives in the States, poor thing! – I was put in mind of one of my favourite comfort fish dishes – one to curl up by the fire with and watch the snow fall outside – or in my case the pouring rain – and savour for its benevolence.

For 4

600 gm potatoes peeled and sliced – not too thinly!
250 gm smoked mackerel – skin removed and flaked
2 bay leaves
200 ml milk
300 gm double cream
Black pepper
1 tbsp grain mustard

Arrange the potatoes in a shallow baking dish. Mix in the mackerel. Add te bay leaves and a good grind or two of black pepper.

Mix together the milk and cream and pour over the potatoes and mackerel.

Bake in a preheated oven – 190c – for about 50 minutes to an hour. The cream mixture should be bubbling and the potatoes pierced easily by a knife.

Serve with rocket and baby salad leaves with a swirl of balsamic over them and a little olive oil.

The picture below does not do the dish justice – but last night it warmed us to the core – it is a dish that brings an instant sense of well-being to all gathered around the supper table.

And there is a serene simplicity to this dish, just like the painting of the American farmstead snowed in.

Sausage Meat Balls in a mustard and cream sauce…

This is a recipe created by the marvellous Nigel Slater and it appears in his wonderful new book – Eat. Like all great meatball dishes you can play around with the idea – adjusting quantities, ingredients to suit your taste / mood. This was my attempt and I was pleased with the result – it is a different way to cook them – and simple yet succulently appealing to the senses.

For 4

6 good pork sausages – skins removed
Olive oil
500 ml beef stock – or you could use chickn stock for a lighter flavour
Tbsp Dijon mustard
A little chopped rosemary
A crushed clove of garlic
A little grated lemon zest
250 ml double cream

400 gm pappardelle

Put the sausage meat in a mixing bowl and stir in the rosemary, lemon zest and crushed garlic. Shape into small balls – I got 16 decent balls, slightly smaller than a table tennis ball. But you can make them smaller if you fancy.Cook the balls in the olive oil over a moderate heat until evenly browned.

Get rid of any excess fat, then pour in the stock. Bring to the boil and let it reduce a little. Add the cream and stir in, plus the mustard. Season with a little salt and a bit more pepper. Continue to cook for about 15 or 20 minutes, stirring gently every now and then.

Remove the balls to a warm plate with a slotted spoon.Turn the heat up under the sauce and let it reduce a little. It will not thicken though.

Pop the meatballs on a plate of warm pappardelle and pour over the velvety sauce.

You could miss out the cream and stock altogether and just pan fry the balls in olive oil then add butter and lemon juice to the pan juices at the end, pouring these over the balls and pasta. Tis up to you!

Simple Salmon says…eat this….!

Ok…a few quick fire posts…last night we had 4 gorgeous salmon fillets to deal with and my kids wanted pasta – so I did a version similar to another earlier dish on this blog but with a few differences. Firstly, it was fresh salmon which I wrapped in foil with a little unsalted butter and baked for 20 minutes at 160c. I then skinned it and flaked it. In a frying pan I popped a carton of crème fraîche and 50 gm of unsalted butter and stirred over a low heat until it melded together. I then added a teansy weansy dash of sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper and about a teaspoon or so of dried tarragon-fresh would have been better but forgot! I then added the flaked salmon and stirred it gently once more.

I left this to one side whilst the pasta cooked al dente, drained it and tipped the creamy unctuous salmon mix in and allowed it all to get very friendly.

Variations – well, you could first pan fry a small onion finely chopped until soft, then add a glass of dry white wine and let it bubble together, then add the crème fraîche or single cream if you prefer – no need for butter in this case. You could also add a cup of peeled prawns as well as the salmon. You could also plump for dill instead of tarragon.

Choices, choices!

Tarte aux pommes de Maman…

This was a rare voyage for me into the world of desserts – we had folk round last night for supper who I felt looked like they needed a pud. This is from a highly recommended tome called French Brasserie Cookbook by Daniel Galmiche – if you have not got it – buy it today. It is brilliant and simple to follow.

The resulting tart was fabulous – if not quite as artistically laid out as I would have wished!

Heat oven to 180c.

Ingredients

I used puff pastry ready made – cheating I know – but very good.
1 large egg
100 ml double cream
3 tbsp caster sugar
30 gm of ground almonds or crushed pecans
3 large apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges – I used bakers from my tree but Mr Gamiche recommends Cox or Braeburn.

Butter an oblong baking tray. Place pastry sheet on and pinch the edges. Sprinkle your choice of nuts over the base.
Then arrange the apple pieces as regularly as possible, overlapping each other. Crack the egg into a jug, add the sugar and cream and whisk with a hand blender until nice and frothy. Pour gently all over the apples ensuring you get into every nook and cranny and that you bless each apple slice with the mixture.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes until just golden. Leave the tray to cool on a rack. No need for any extra cream. Perfect served just warm.

Scrumptious!

OK, I forgot to take all the pics….

….so you will have to take it from me that tonight’s supper was a 3 course delight. Late, mind…leaves on the line, hurricanes, fences down, hair lightly ruffled etc all of which caused us to not begin supper until 8.30pm… but all worth it – and if Annie’s other half is tuning in, it was all healthy too, James!

Starter…as in the pic above…slices of fennel doused in lemon juice and olive oil wrapped in prosciutto crudo with cherry toms and fennel salami – finocchiona – with a drizzle of fig balsamic. Main course – and this was very good – really very good – tagliatelle with a creamy basil sauce. Into a blender – pop a big handful or two of basil, a clove of garlic peeled and sliced, two tablespoons of white wine vinegar, a teaspoon of dijon mustard, a teaspoon of capers and enough olive oil to give it a thick, just about runny, consistency. Blitz! Add to a bowl and add 2 or 3 dessert spoons of single cream. Cook your tagliatelle, drain it, stir in the sauce and serve – scattering over some toasted pine nuts if you will – they only take a minute or two in a dry frying pan. And of course we all grated over some parmesan.

I actually prefer this to my normal straight pesto sauce. It was simply unctuous.

OK – to finish off, I sliced a fabulous crisp Italian pear and placed a large piece on a small saucer to which I added a thin slice of creamy gorgonzola. This was all washed down with an amazing Malbec from Argentina called Alamos – purchased from those lovely people in Majestic in Winchester. Possibly a contributory factor as to why I forgot to photo the main course and the dessert! Hey – but it was all fab and each of the 3 dishes complimented each other marvellously.

Oh…and in the photo I was not just the only one drinking- the others just hadn’t arrived at the table yet!

Right – nearly 10.15 pm. Time to laze by the woodburner and dream about tomorrow’s supper….

Dreamy creamy zucchini pancetta pasta…

One of those cold damp nights that needed a solidly substantial yet velvety pasta dish to nourish the nerves, soften the stress and warm the marrow. I decided to cobble together two of my favourite pasta dishes – both on this blog – and it worked perfectly. The creamy tomato pasta with the lardons and courgette pasta. But instead of lardons I had some wonderfully fragrant strips of pancetta. Washed down with a rugged French wine this was a delight.

Ingredients

300 gm of rigatoni pasta – soaks up the creamy sauce
12 baby plum toms
I clove garlic finely chopped
8 strips of pancetta
1 courgette / zucchini cubed
100 ml of cream
Tbsp rosemary
Sprinkle of dried crushed chilli
Olive oil
Black pepper

Pan fry the courgette in the olive oil for about 5 minutes then add the garlic. Continue til the courgette begins to brown then add the tomatoes. Add the chilli and the rosemary.

Just to warn you at this point – the aroma is stunning!

Put the pasta on- takes 11 minutes normally.

Fry the courgette mix gently for around 8 minutes then add the pancetta. Once the pancetta starts to crisp, about two minutes, add the cream. After a minute add a grind of black pepper.

Drain the pasta and spoon over the creamy mixture.

A super autumnal dish.

Saturday Supper Part 1 – Grilled Crabocado!

Lazy Saturday early evening spent sipping mellow merlot and listening to the Latin station on Spotify. About 7pm we started thinking about supper and we began with this as the starter – deliciously, deliciously simple, with a little zing!

For 4
Mix together:
125 gm white crabmeat, 5 tbsp of double cream and 1 tsp of chilli powder. Cut 2 avocados in half, remove the stone – whoever leaves it in?! Fill the holes with the crab mixture. Top each with a good grating of parmesan and a sprinkling of white breadcrumbs. Pop under a HOT grill and keep an eye on it. When the topping starts to brown and bubble a tad…take it out and serve. Is that simple or is that simple?

I’m off for a top up of vino – will tell you what we had for the main course very soon! Cheers!

Monday magic… of the tomato variety…..

Tonight was one of those nights when an experiment worked, and worked so well, I wanted to freeze time. The flavours were simply exquisite. I used one of my favourite base dishes of pan fried plum toms with rosemary and cream…and added to it. You know by now, well I know that you know that I know, that I like to fiddle with recipes…so here we fiddly well go!

For 4 folk who may have been working in the garden all day…

Two decent punnets of baby plum tomatoes – mine were from Spain and as sweet as a smile from Marilyn Monroe.
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
250 ml of single cream
5 or 6 slices of serrano ham – or prosciutto would be fine
1 slice of smoked bacon
A good handful or more of baby spinach and rocket, chopped
Black pepper
Olive oil

400 gm of pasta – rigatoni or fusilli

Pop a good tablespoon or two of oil in a frying pan. Heat and then add the tomatoes. Add the garlic after a minute or so, then chop off with scissors quite a lot of rosemary into the pan and then add the sprigs too.

Let them cook for about 15 minutes or so on a low heat until they give when pressed with a spoon. Flatten them a little with a slotted spoon – but don’t break them open too much.

In a second pan, fry the smoked bacon finely chopped. When cooked, add in the serrano ham chopped and allow to crisp a little.

Cook the pasta – I always use rigatoni for this.

Add the bacon and ham to the tomato mixture, then add the cream. Heat gently and after two or three minutes, add in the spinach and rocket. Grind over some black pepper. Stir for about 5 minutes until it wilts into the cream sauce.

Drain the pasta and then pop a portion into each of the 4 bowls – then spoon over the tomato mixture.

I cannot express how wonderfully dreamy and gorgeous this dish is. It is…believe me…….no……don’t….make it for yourself!

I had been gardening all day today trying, as I mentioned in the last post, to get it tidied before this weekend’s belated birthday celebrations for my son and daughter. In the process, I discovered that there were lots of blackberries lurking wistfully below my sage plants and rosemary bushes. So, I picked them! And happily my rhubarb had coped with my absence and soldiered on, producing several fine stems which I duly cut…but with love. I poached the chopped rhubarb lightly and then popped them and the blackberries in a low gratin dish. I knocked up a crumble mix using plain flour, porridge oats, some crushed pecans, pumpkin seeds, butter and brown sugar. The result was stultifyngly superb though I say it myself!

I think part of the secret of the crispy buttery top was cooking it for 40 minutes on 180 degrees then switching the oven off, removing the crumble and after about 10 minutes returning it to the cooling oven whilst we ate the main course.

Anyway it was fruitastic and even better because it all cane from our garden. I drank a cold pinot noir from Alsace whilst cooking, and a lovely bottle of shiraz with the meal itself. I listened to Bob Marley on the record player, then the Pet Shop Boys ‘Disco’. I felt good… and I felt as if I was back where I belonged……in my kitchen!

And here was the mellow aftermath in Alfredo’s after our meal…my home from home…