Magic Pasta!

The colours, in this, are just as gorgeous as the taste, and the textures too. Nothing that new here, just the red-green-white italian holy trinity of spinach & pesto, tomatoes (sundried & fresh) and mozzarella, with hot spaghetti.

I put the spinach and mozzarella in the bowl first so that the hot pasta went straight on top (to start wilting and melting) then tossed in the pesto, tomatoes and a grating of grana padano.

Rocket, watercress and/or fresh basil leaves would also be a superb idea.

Pretty Birthday Cake cooked by Brenda

Standard cake from recipe; adornments (maltesers, frosty fruits ..) from the deep crevices of the imagination.

And thankyou Tim, for sanding my table!

Egg & Chips

The chips were made by cutting taties into wedges, adding a little oil and then roasting in a very hot oven for about 30 minutes or so.

Even though my mum made chips in a proper chip pan when I was a kid, the oven method seems so much easier and the chips, sprinkled with a little sea salt, are just as delicious. And for the full retro effect: tinned processed peas. Yum!!!

Tasmanian Lemon Pie by Tamasin Day Lewis

Tamasin reckons she got this recipe from somewhere in West Ireland, when she was on holiday .. so what the connection with Tasmania is, I have no idea .....

It ends up with a soft, shuddery, spongy top, and a pool of lemon curd type sauce underneath.

Beat 4oz soft butter into 10oz sugar. Mix in 4 egg yolks. Then gradually add, beating well as you go, 400ml milk and 4 heaped tablespoons of plain flour (as much as you can get on the spoon, I mean). Then add the grated rind and juice of two lemons. Finally, in another bowl, whisk up the egg whites until stiff. Fold them into the mixture, then transfer it all into a 2 litre buttered ovenproof dish. Bake in the oven at 180c for 25-30 minutes.

Fish Pie

Poach smoked & unsmoked haddock, salmon and some king prawns in milk. Remove from the milk and put into dish. When cool enough, break up gently with fingers. Use the fishy milk to make a white sauce, with butter, wine, and salt & pepper.
If you feel like it, lay some naughty surprise eggs on top of the mixture!
Top with creamy mashed potatoes, and pattern the surface as you like. Add some cheese too.
Bake for about half an hour until its hot and the cheese is bubbly. Await surprised yelps of "hey there's an egg in here!" from your guests ..

Rock & Roll Pie

Cooking + listening to Metallica = ...

Samosas (sort of)

I based my recipe for these on instructions I found at www.samosa-recipe.com .. ingredients as follows:
2 potatoes, diced
2 carrots, grated or diced
2 onions, diced
2 cups peas
2 spoons curry paste (I used Pataks madras and it turned out really spicy!)
1 spoon sundried tomato paste
200ml stock
At the end - a generous squeeze of lemon, and plenty of salt.
I also added a sprinkle of fennel seeds and some mustard seeds too.
Soften the veg in a pan with 2 tbsp oil. Fry gently for a bit then add the curry paste, tomato paste and stock. Put the lid on and simmer it all until the veg is all cooked, and there is no excess liquid left.
Take a sheet of ready made puff pastry and divide it into 12 squares. Roll each one out until it is large enough to cut out a circle (I used a 4" diameter bowl to cut round). In goes a spoon of curry, fold it over and seal the edges. Place your little pasties onto a baking sheet - don't forget to grease it!! Bake at 220c for 15-20 minutes.