Pea Sauce for Pasta or Gnocchi

With the weather turning and the nights drawing in I fancied something bright green, fresh tasting and spring like to keep the feeling of summer going just a little bit longer. So I came up with this pea puree to use as a sauce for pasta or gnocchi or even as a vegetable side dish. It is so quick and simple that is has become one of my quick go to supper dishes.  Plus I almost always have all the ingredients to hand.

Braised Fennel With White Wine & Pinenuts

I am relishing having all my cook books back. We kept them all in storage whilst we were in Singapore but now that I have got them all in the kitchen I am loving flicking through them and rediscovering old favourites. Even though I use the blogosphere and internet resources as inspiration for new recipes there is something reassuring about a good solid hardback cookbook to flick through. 

This recipe is one of those I have rediscovered since coming back to the UK. While I enjoy the fresh zingy taste of raw fennel this recipe is the one that made me fall in love with fennel. The flavour of the fennel  is mellow and sweet and the fennel bulb absorbs the wine to create a delicate & soft texture. I like to eat this as a vegetarian dish over brown rice but it also makes a great side dish with  roast chicken, lamb or pork or with fish. The original recipe I used from the Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook added a 1/4 cup of Parmesan at the end and butter instead of olive oil but I have made this dish dairy free and vegan and added pinenuts instead and it still tastes yummy. Feel free to substitute the cheese and butter back in if you prefer. 

Pinenut and Almond Cookies

These little cookies are sweet morsels with a crusty outside and soft and moist centre. This recipe is kind of a mix between an Italian style pinenut macaroon and Claudia Roden's Maronchinos from her 'The Book of Jewish Food '. I liked the sound of both recipes so combined the elements of each that I liked, the texture of the maronchinos and pinenut topping of the macaroon. They turned out yummy and would be great to serve with coffee. They are quite sweet and rich so you only need one or two to be satisfied which is why this recipe only makes around 15. They are best served the day they are made as they can lose their crunch after a day or two.

Saffron & Pea Risotto in Romano Peppers

Saffron and pea risotto was one of my favourite suppers when we lived in the UK. I would make a big pile of it just for myself and standing there and stirring it is a great way to wind down after a hard day at work. Rediscovering this dish as been great like meeting an old friend you haven't seen for a while and wondering why you lost touch in the first place. 

This dish was too stodgy for Singapore's climate not too mention that I could never find the right rice so it is great to be able to enjoy this recipe again. For this recipe I used Carnaroli rice which makes quite a creamy risotto but you could use Arborio  or even better use Vialone Nano instead. I used to throw in a handful of  cheese such as Parmesan at the end which you can do if you are dairy inclined.

A quick warning to those on a gluten free diet I have read that it is not always advisable to order risotto in Italy or traditional Italian restaurants as it is quite common to use pasta water to feed the risotto rice which will contaminate the whole dish with gluten. Not sure how widespread this practice is but worth being aware of as it is certainly not something I would have thought of.

The Cupboard Was Bare Balsamic Pasta

Everybody needs an emergency go to dish when you find that there is no fresh food in the house and you are hungry as hell. The lack of provisions may be the result of a hectic work life or a frenetic social life. Or, like me you may not have been able to face slogging around the supermarket with a blank look on your face as you desperately seek inspiration for dinner.

This is my go to dish calling for only an onion as its fresh vegetable, and there is always one of those lurking around at the bottom of the fridge- right? Ok, so this isn't going to help toward your five a day but it will fill a hungry tummy in about 10-15 minutes. You can throw in whatever veggies (e.g. frozen peas or spinach) you have or a slice of bacon or ham (real or fake) or some cheese to jazz this up.

In relation to balsamic vinegar, for those of you that are gluten free, from what I have read, if it is good quality vinegar with no other ingredients e.g caramel coloring derived from a gluten source is safe for celiacs and those that cannot tolerate gluten (University Chicago Celiac Disease Center). Check the label before you use but generally most distilled vinegars are safe, apart from malt vinegar which is not gluten free. 

Tasty Italian Style Beans

It is National Vegetarian Week in the UK (23rd -29th May) and I this got me thinking about recipes that epitomise a healthy and balanced vegetarian diet. I have been vegetarian for 18 years now (wow writing that makes me feel old!) and I am healthy and thoroughly enjoy the food options I eat and very rarely feel that I am missing out. When I first became veggie I was what I would class as an unhealthy vegetarian. I ate exactly what I used to eat except that I substituted real meat with fake meat e.g quorn, fake bacon and textured vegetable protein products. Now, I am not against these products at all, they are tasty, convenient and help ease some vegetarians and vegans into their chosen dietary regimes. In fact, I have had a few mock meat meals in Singapore that have been outstanding in terms of the effort that has gone into making these dishes look like the real thing (I mean who needs their fake prawn to have the exact colouring and pattern of a real prawn!). However, for me personally, my diet improved dramatically when I stopped trying to make my meals like those that I had had as a carnivore and started  using vegetables, beans and lentils as the starting point for dishes. After all, all heavily processed foods should really only feature ocassionally in our diet and fake meats are no exception. What's more lentils and beans are generally low GI, low in fat and a good source of dietary fibre, protein and vitamins and minerals.  Pulses are, for me, an important part of any diet but particularly a vegetarian diet and deserve to be used more and loved a lot. I will be trying to convert everyone to loving lentils and beans with my next few recipes. Have I won you over yet?

If you are not convinced about beans or lentils yet, here is a very easy and tasty recipe to hopefully get you into this wonderful and very useful food group. It is basically a grown up version of baked beans. It can also be used as a canape or appetiser spread on thin toasts or blitzed in the blender to make a tasty dip to serve with veggie crudites. 

Gluten Free Sweet Potato Gnocchi

I have wanted to make gnocchi for a long time but had heard that it was fiddly and as you can buy gnocchi in the chilled cabinet of most supermarkets in the UK I hadn't felt the need. But since coming to Singapore I haven't eaten gnocchi once. That was until we went to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Who would have thought that I would have the best gnocchi ever in Thailand! These little pillows of potato (if they were pillows they would be duck down ones) were heavenly with an asparagus and ricotta sauce and inspired me to create a recipe for gluten free gnocchi,which the whole family could have, a try. Now these are not as good as the ones I had at Pulcinella da Stefano, which I think had ricotta in to make them extra soft and delicate, but they really are nicer than the ready made ones and gluten free to boot. If gluten isn't an issue then I have provided amounts for using an all purpose wheat flour in the recipe.

These little dumpling are slightly sweet and can go with pretty much any sauce although punchy varieties might over power the delicate flavor. The classic sauce is to use butter melted with sage leaves fried until they are crispy and the butter has browned, then served with grated Parmesan. I made a dairy free version using spinach sauteed in olive oil with black pepper, grated lemon rind, fresh thyme and a squeeze of lemon juice as I am still working on a dairy free creamy asparagus sauce similar to the Chiang Mai one.

I think I will get better at these in time but I don't think they turned out too bad for a first attempt! I might try adding some potato flour instead of the cornflour next time to see if that is any better. The trick to gnocchi seems to be to add only as much flour as needed to keep the gnocchi together during cooking as too much will make it more akin to a bullet than a pillowy dumpling. You also need to use  floury potato varieties as you don't want the mixture too wet as you will have to add more flour to get a workable dough.

Brie, Pear and Balsamic Red Onion Pasta

It was lunchtime and I was famished. A quick look in fridge revealed a large asian pear languishing at the back which I couldn't think what to do with. I didn't want something sweet and I wanted to eat this raw to enjoy its crisp bite. This is what I came up with. It was tasty with just enough sweet and savoury. I might give it a try with some walnuts or feta instead of brie next time. Sorry no photos as I was so hungry I just ate it before I thought about it. Whoops!

Summer Vegetable Spaghetti Carbonara

I have been thinking all day about what I should cook as my first blog post. Should I do something exciting and original to start this off with a bang or maybe something wickedly decadent to pique people's interest? In the end I decided that I would turn to an old cupboard standby which has served me well and saved my bacon more than once when unexpected guests have arrived.  Mainly though, I just fancied a tasty supper of al dente pasta, smooth creamy pasta just waiting to be slurped up lady & the tramp style studded with sweet summery veg. Who could say no to such a simple and comforting dish!

As a teenager I used to make this dish with fake bacon but now I don't bother with fake meats and  frankly  this dish tastes better without it.  Most summer vegetables will work in this recipe so feel free to experiment with whatever is to hand or in season. Anything that will fry up and braise into a sweet nugget of vegetable heaven is a winner such as delicate asparagus spears, baby spinach, courgettes (zucchini), petite pois, young broad (fava) beans, leeks and tenderstem broccoli.

As my partner likes to eat meat , I normally make two portions of this and spilt it into two at the point of serving up by adding half the spaghetti and sauce to the fried bacon or pancetta pan and then stirring in all the bacony juices and fat to add flavour.