Spaghetti Bolognese

As a child, I never much liked spaghetti bolognese. My sister always loved it - I have a vivid memory of a trip to Disneyland Paris more than ten years ago, and her spilling bright sauce down her new white Disney princess dress. 

The issue for me was always the pasta - I swirled and swirled my fork but just ended up doing what Fraser dubbed the 'furtive spaghetti face', as I anxiously tried to ensure I wasn't getting pasta all over my chin. It took me much longer than I'd like to admit before I realised I could just cut the damn things (though Mum and Shannon mock!), and suddenly my resentment of the whole dish vanished.

Since being at university in particular, I've loved making this. Cook in bulk, pop the leftovers in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch or freeze for next week's tea. It's an all-round winner!

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 large carrot, grated
- 1 stick celery, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 300g Quorn mince
- 1tsp each of dried oregano and rosemary
- 400g chopped tomatoes
- 400g kidney beans
- 1 Oxo cube
- glass of red wine
- 1 bay leaf
- 1tbsp red pesto
- handful fresh basil, torn
- salt and pepper, to taste

Some chopped mushrooms would go really well in here too, though I'm personally not a fan.

1. Grab yourself a large saucepan, and throw in the onion, carrot, celery and garlic along with a knob of butter. Cook these gently for about 10 minutes, until softened.

 

2. Tip in the Quorn mince (no need to de-frost) and cook 'til it starts to brown, then crumble over the Oxo cube and add the dried herbs, chopped tomatoes, red wine, kidney beans, pesto and bay leaf.
3. Bring the sauce to a boil, then allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes. This is a good time to sort out your spaghetti, too - 75g per person.
4. Season your bolognese to taste, and scatter in the fresh basil. Mix in the pasta, sprinkle with cheddar and enjoy your fork-swirling (/surreptitious cutting).

Proper Gluten Free Pasta

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posting this month! General end of term stress combined with moving out of this year's house (and, in my case, carting my possessions 300 miles up the country) has left us fairly exhausted. But this one's awesome enough to make up for it - I promise.

Since watching it done on Masterchef and countless other BBC food programmes, I've wanted to make my own pasta. At some point Zosia happened to mention missing ravioli since having to cut out gluten, and that was that. GLUTEN FREE RAVIOLI.

And you know what? It wasn't difficult. I didn't have a pasta-maker. And it was the best gluten free recipe I've ever made. Usually gluten free baking makes everything sort of crumbly, but this was properly elastic and smooth and lovely and I was so pleased. It was based on this recipe and took a little bit of time (and some extra man-power with the rolling out - thanks Harry!), but I'll definitely be making it again.

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 300g gluten free plain flour
- 1tbsp xantham gum
- 1tsp salt
- 5 eggs
- 1½tbsp olive oil

Method:
1. Mix together all the dry ingredients, then add the eggs and oil and mix until it stops resembling breadcrumbs and starts to come together (ideally, this would be done in a food processor).

2. Remove from the food processor, if using, and knead for a few minutes until a smooth ball has formed.
3. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 15 minutes - or as long as you need to while you do other things (this is a good time to make your ravioli filling).
4. Remove from the fridge and divide the mixture into four (this makes it MUCH easier to work with), then sprinkle some flour onto your worktop and roll out one of the pieces of dough to about half a centimetre. Then, fold the dough 4 or 5 times and roll out again. Repeat this about 6-7 times, or until your arms give up!
5. Roll out your dough as thin as you can get it. Then, for ravioli, use a biscuit cutter (or a glass) to cut shapes.
6. Beat another egg in a bowl with a splash of milk (you can just use milk if you're all out of eggs). Take one pasta shape and put a teaspoon of your ravioli filling into the middle (I made a spinach and ricotta filling - half the amounts there served three of us, so adjust to what you need). Brush around the edges with a little of the beaten egg, then grab another shape and stick down firmly. If it's not properly stuck it'll burst in the pan, so get pressing!

7. Repeat the whole thing with the rest of the dough (I told you it was a bit time consuming).
8. Bring a big pan of salted water to the boil and drizzle in some olive oil. Carefully drop in the pasta and cook for 4-5 minutes (the cooking time depends on the thickness of the pasta: if it was tagliatelle or something without a filling it would be more like 3-4 minutes). The best way to take it out and make sure it doesn't break is to use a slotted spoon, though don't worry if you don't have one.

9. Serve up with a good sauce. I made this because it's one of my favourites, and it was great. Like, REALLY great. Go make it.

Alive and Cooking Ratatouille Pasta

So I'm still alive. Promise. And I'm still cooking, just about... 

For those newcomers to the blog, HI I'M ZOSIA. I'm the other half of the "we" that Bryony's always talking about when she talks about our blog, and this year I've been ridiculously busy. University work and students' union commitments have taken up all my time, which has meant that I haven't been able to cook anything more ambitious than tomato pasta sauce and a few risottos here and there. Being completely honest the majority of my eating has been done in the library. I'm THAT girl...

Eating one of Bryony's cupcakes in the library

But Bryony's been bugging me to blog. For a long time. A reaaaalllyyy loooooong time. Thing is though, when I do have time to cook, I don't have time to even take photographs, let alone write up a blog post afterwards... 

But now it's exam term, so I have time to think for once. Which means I've actually got time to de-stress by cooking. I was sat there in the library today thinking about cooking, and I went to the weekly fruit and veg market at the SU and bought all sorts of vegetables, and after I came home from my eight hour library session I made Ratatouille Pasta Sauce.

Serves three people, plus enough for lunch the next day, plus some for the freezer... Possibly about six people...

For the sauce:
1 Large Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
Splash of Olive Oil and a Knob of Butter
3  Courgettes
1 Medium Aubergine
1/2 a Large Red Pepper
3 Tins of Chopped Tomatoes
Red wine (I half filled one of the tins with wine, topped it up with water and added this)
2 Teaspoons of Chilli and Tomato Pesto (or just use red pesto with a dash of chilli powder instead)
1 Teaspoon of Herbs de Provence
1 Teaspoon of Italian mixed herbs
1 Oxo cube
Salt and Pepper to taste
Generic Chopped Fresh Herbs (I used some basil and some parsley, but use what you've got. Rosemary would work)
Grated Cheese to Serve.

Plus pasta, however much you fancy.

Here's what you do:
1.  Melt the butter in a pan with a splash of oil. Chop the onion nice and small. Chop the garlic too, then add this all to the butter and oil. Let it simmer for five to ten minutes while you're chopping the rest of your vegetables.
2. Chop your courgettes into round slices and add to the pan. Stir it all around and let it simmer for a few minutes while you chop your aubergine.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan, along with the wine and water. Mix in the aubergine, the herbs, the oxo cube and the chilli and tomato pesto.
4. Make sure everything is combined well, put a lid on the pan and let it all simmer for ten to fifteen minutes.
5. After ten minutes or so, put your pasta on. Season your ratatouille sauce with salt and peper, and about five minutes before the pasta is done, stir in the chopped fresh herbs.
6. Serve your sauce over your pasta, with some more basil and plenty of cheese. Unless your name is Harry. In which case you don't eat cheese. Because you're quite frankly a bit weird.

We served three people (Harry, Bryony and Me), and I had enough for tomorrow's lunch, plus a sizeable amount to put in the freezer.

Dinner with Hazzaaa

(Dear Bryony: I COOKED. I BLOGGED. Are you happy now?)

The most awesome macaroni cheese in the world ever.

This isn't really macaroni cheese because it's not made with macaroni. Just to get that out there now. But what else could you call it?

I never really liked macaroni cheese - to the point that when I told Mum I'd made this she was genuinely surprised. But I had an odd craving the other day, and I also had an awesome goats' cheese in the fridge I brought back to London from home. So I made this, loosely based on a recipe from Lorraine Pascale.

 

Ingredients: (serves 3)

- 9oz rigatoni or penne
- 4 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 30g bag curly parsley                          
- 30g plain flour
- 30g butter
- ½ nutmeg, grated
- 2tsp French mustard
- 300ml double cream
- 100ml milk
- 75g goats cheese
- 50g parmesan
- salt and pepper
- 100g breadcrumbs 

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Chop the garlic and spring onions, and put into a pan with a knob of butter and the thyme. Cook until soft and starting to colour - about 8 minutes.
2. Put the pasta on to cook. Do for 2 minutes or so less than the packet instructions, as it'll cook more in the oven.
3. Put the butter, flour, nutmeg and mustard into a saucepan, and cook on a medium heat until the butter has melted and it's formed a sort of paste.
4. Take off the heat and let cool for a couple of minutes, then add the milk and cream slowly, beating constantly to avoid it going lumpy or splitting. *IF IT DOES SPLIT* let it cool more, then grab some extra milk and whisk in a little at a time until the sauce comes together.
5. Put the pan back onto the heat and add the cheese, along with about two thirds of the parsley and some salt and pepper.
6. Tip the pasta and spring onion mixture into a dish, and pour the sauce over the top. Mix well and top with the breadcrumbs, then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and bubbling. 

 You can vary it however you fancy too - such as by adding leeks or pine nuts into the spring onion mix, or using a different kind of cheese. Whatever you have in your cupboard!

Actual Cannelloni

Got people coming over that you want to impress a bit? Then this is the one for you. It's named so to differentiate from my Aubergine Not-Cannelloni in October, and is a slightly longer post than normal because there are a few different bits to it, but I promise you it's worth it!

The only time I'd ever really had cannelloni was for school dinners (it was the best thing they did!), but generally speaking I was suspicious of it. Maybe because I couldn't see inside them, or maybe because I used to have a prejudice against spinach - I'm not sure, but I do know that all that changed when Fraser took me to Jamie's Italian for Valentine's last month. I had the 'Honeycomb Cannelloni 3 Ways', and it was like I'd stumbled across a whole new world of food. Last week we had people over for dinner, so I thought I'd get creative and see what I could do. This was the result.

I decided it was a bit much to try and have three different fillings, but I did do two - one was a spinach and ricotta, and the other was a butternut squash and sage. And they were pretty epic if I do say so myself.

Ingredients: (serves 6)
Spinach and Ricotta                                                         Butternut Squash
- 1 clove garlic                                                                 - 1 large squash
- large knob of butter                                                      - 1 onion   
- ¼ grated nutmeg                                                           - 1 clove garlic   
- 1tsp dried oregano                                                        - 2tbsp cream 

- 200g bag spinach                                                           - ¼ tsp grated nutmeg

- 250g pot ricotta cheese                                                - 1tbsp chopped sage leaves   

Tomato Sauce                                                                   Assembly/Topping
- 1 onion                                                                          - approx. 18 cannelloni tubes
- 1 clove garlic                                                                  - 200ml crème fraîche  
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes                                                - 100g freshly grated parmesan   
- 400ml water                                                                     
- 1 oxo cube                                                                       
- half jar of sun-dried tomatoes                                            
- handful chopped sage leaves                                           

I know it looks like a scarily long list of ingredients, but I promise if you look closely it's not as scary as you think. The majority of things are store-cupboard ingredients that even if you don't have, you can bet someone else in your flat will!

Method:

Butternut Squash

1. Start on this one first because it takes the longest, and can be cooking while you do other things. Peel and chop your squash into cubes - about the size of the last joint on your little finger if you can bear it, as the smaller they are the faster they'll cook. 

2. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the onion and garlic and cook for five minutes until softened.  

3. Add the cubes of squash and cook for about 30 minutes - adding the sage and nutmeg along with some seasoning after 20 minutes.  

4. Take off the heat and let cool a little, before adding the cream and mashing.

Spinach and Ricotta
1. Melt the butter in a fairly large saucepan, then add the garlic, nutmeg and oregano and cook for a couple of minutes until the garlic is soft.
2. Wash the spinach and add in a bit at a time - it shrinks down to almost nothing so I guarantee you'll need more than you think. Make sure you keep turning the spinach too, to make sure what's on the bottom doesn't burn and it's all cooked nicely.
3. After a few minutes, transfer the spinach to a bowl and let it cool down. DON'T throw away all the lovely liquid in the pan - it'll form the basis for the tomato sauce.

4. When the spinach is cool, squeeze out any excess liquid (don't throw away) and chop finely. Put it back in the bowl with the liquid, season, then mix with the ricotta.

Tomato Sauce
1. Grab the pan you cooked the spinach in, with the liquid still in the bottom, and add to it the onion and garlic. Cook for about 8 minutes until soft and starting to colour.
2. Chop up the sundried tomatoes and add those to the pan. You don't have to use them, but it gives such a beautiful intense flavour if you do! Cook for another 2 minutes.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes, water and oxo cube, and bring to a simmer. Cook until it's reduced by about a third, then add the sage leaves and season, and pour into the bottom of the dish you're baking your cannelloni in.

Assembly
1. Grab yourself two plastic sandwich bags, and fill with the mixtures for the filling. Twist around the top to keep it secure and cut a small hole in the tip: you now have a make-shift piping bag.
2. Use the piping bags to fill the cannelloni tubes. You can do half of them with one filling and half with the other, or mix it up - completely up to you.
3. Lay the tubes on top of the tomato sauce in the dish you're baking them in.

 4. Spoon the crème fraîche over the top and sprinkle over the parmesan, then bake at 180°C for about 30 minutes - until golden and bubbling. Serve with garlic bread.
  
Gluten Free: Either grab yourself some gluten-free lasagna sheets and use them to make your own cannelloni pasta, or just cook some penne and mix the fillings together with the tomato sauce to make a pasta bake. Top the same as the non-gluten-free version and bake for 5-10 minutes less.

The gluten free pasta bake version

Voila! It looks like a lot of work, but I promise you it isn't really - especially if you buy the cannelloni tubes you don't need to cook first, like I did. Please do leave any questions/results of your own in the comments, and good luck!

Cooking bombardment: week at the boyfriend's

This last couple of weeks has been very hectic, as I've been flicking in between staying at home and with the boyfriend, and working in between. I'm sure every blog post I ever write begins with an apology and an explanation of hectic-ness, but there you have it!

There has been a lot of cooking though. So in this post I'm bombarding you with it. Although this isn't even a real post as I didn't write all the recipes, but you should trust my foody-judgement anyway. Hopefully. ENJOY.

Fraser made us THIS courgette pasta bake which was pretty awesome. We used creme fraiche instead of fromage frais (not gonna lie, that sounds weird) and if you don't have passata then generic chopped tomatoes would be fine. Also we ate half and then took the next half on a walk up a fell/down a valley/to an old slate mine the next day and ate it with a spork. Packed lunch FTW.

A couple of days later, I experimented with baked sweet potatoes. Which were awesome. Recipe as follows:

- 2 sweet potatoes
- bunch spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- handful of fresh herbs - preferably parsley and chives
- 4 tablespoons creme fraiche
- salt and pepper
- handful grated cheddar.

Scrub the potatoes, prick them in several places with a fork, place on a baking tray lined with tin foil and bake at 200°C for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, use the last 10 minutes of the potato-baking-time to make your filling - chop the spring onions and garlic and lightly fry in a teensy bit of olive oil for 5 minutes. Then add the creme fraiche and the cheese and stir on a low heat for a few more minutes, so the cheese melts and you get a very lovely smelling, slightly messy-looking mixture.

Once the potatoes are cooked through, remove them from the oven, then scoop out most of the insides and put into the pan with the creme fraiche mixture. Mash it up a bit and make sure it's all stirred together, then add the herbs and season to taste, and put the mixture back into the potato skins. Add more grated cheese on top, because cheese is awesome.

Serve with something like salad or baked beans. Hungry as we were, we found that both together were a bit much.

Aaaand then yesterday we made a variation of THIS leek and parmesan risotto, which is stonkingly good and very very simple. We added a few more spring onions, some green beans (add a few minutes after the leeks and spring onions), some fresh parsley and a bit more cheese. And it was so very, very good. 

With it, I made baked asparagus, which is one of my favourite things in the world.

To recreate you will need:

- 1 pack/bunch of fine asparagus, or asparagus tips

- a couple of knobs of butter

- parmesan

- olive oil

- salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Chop the ends off the asparagus and give them a wash, then line them up in a baking dish. A non-metal one works best, but use whatever you have.

Place the knobs of butter over the asparagus. Tempting as it is to use loads I do try (despite often failing) to restrain myself, as it all melts and covers everything anyway. Next, grate enough parmesan over the asparagus to pretty much cover it. Season, drizzle with olive oil, and cook for around 20 minutes. BEST. THING. EVER.

Unfortunately I was so busy eating risotto and asparagus that I forgot to take pictures of them, but the risotto looked very similar to this and the asparagus should look like this.

It was a lovely, foody week. There was also apple pie, but I've decided that was so epic it gets its own post. So keep your eyes peeled folks.

What I did whilst queuing for olympic tickets.

My dear darling little brother (who just happens to be about a foot taller than me now...) has set me the task of attempting to find and buy last minute Olympic tickets online. 

Having spent most of this morning queuing for things and getting more and more and more and more annoyed with LOCOG's silly website, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna happen.

But I've been cooking to fill the time and I made this super simple rocket and goats cheese pasta during one fifteen minute queue for athletics or synchronised swimming or something.

(Needless to say, I really didn't get those tickets....)

What you need for one serving:

Pasta (as much or as little as you want)

2 teaspoons of cream cheese

1/2 a pack of goats cheese (the spreadable type)

A splash of milk

6 Basil leaves

2 spring onions, chopped.

Three handfuls of rocket (although I have quite small hands. So maybe put in however much you fancy..)

Salt and Pepper to taste

And what you gotta do:

1. Cook your pasta. Hot water etc. You know what to do.

2. Put the cream cheese, the goats cheese and the milk into a small pan over a low heat. Let the cheese melt into a sauce like consistency. 

3. Chop the basil and add it to the pan, along with salt and pepper.

4. Keep the sauce cooking until the pasta is nearly done, for about ten minutes. If the sauce gets too thick or sticky, add a little extra milk.

5. When the pasta is nearly ready, add the rocket leaves to the sauce pan. Let them wilt a little bit then stir them into the sauce.

6. Drain the pasta and pour the sauce over it, mixing thoroughly to coat it. 

7. Serve with the spring onions sprinkled over the top. One lunch, ready to go.

Simply simple pasta sauce. With a moustache.

Okay I lied. It doesn't aaaaactualllyyy have a moustache.

I just said that to get your attention.

Why do I need your attention?

Because I'm about to show you the simplest, quickest, easiest and probably the cheapest pasta sauce you can possibly make. It takes ten minutes and it's perfect for when you  need a proper meal in ten minutes. 

For instance, I've been painting kitchen cabinets this week. I needed food. Fast. This fit the bill.

Cabinets. Mid-painting.

 But here's the sauce recipe. This makes enough for one serving but it'd be super simple to just double it.

What you need:

1/2 a can of tomatoes

1/2 an oxo cube

About two tablespoons of water

A dash of dried mixed herbs

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Start with your pasta. The sauce should take about the same time to cook as the pasta does. Which is pretty gosh darn convenient really.

2. Put the tomatoes in a pan over a low heat. I tend to use a relatively large one because the sauce tends to spit a little bit too much for a frying pan to be practical...

3. Add the half-oxo cube, about two table spoons of water and the dried mixed herbs.

4. Let it simmer, stirring occasionally so the sauce doesn't stick to the pan.

5. Season with salt and pepper.

6. When the pasta's done, take the sauce off the heat, tip the pasta into the pan and stir through.

And you're all done.

Wonderful.

Green Pasta

I love pesto. Which is not surprising really, seeing as I love herbs and pesto is basically a herb sauce-thing with added pine nuts and cheese. What's not to love?

One day I will make my own pesto with my own herbs. For now I'm content with the Sacla variety (I really am a snob and am highly suspicious of Tesco's own brand), and to pesto lovers everywhere I present this recipe. I'm also going to add that when I came home in the Easter holidays I made it for my fussy sister and it's now one of her favourite things. Just saying.

For 2/3 people, you will need:
- a generous handful of pine nuts (depends how much you like them)
- a decent amount of french beans (ditto)
- 5/6 asparagus spears
- 1 large courgette
- Sacla 'classic basil' pesto. General rule = 1/4 of a jar per person.
- 75-100g tagliatelle per person
- parmesan, to serve (optional)

You can pretty much use any vegetables you like, so long as they're green. That's the rule. I don't usually bother with asparagus as it's so expensive and it's fine without it, but the last time I made this Jamie and I had gone to the street market in Staines and got two bunches of asparagus and 5 courgettes for £2.50. WIN.

1. Start by putting your pine nuts into a frying pan - no oil. Our uni hob takes forever to heat up and actually cook them so I tend to only start preparing vegetables once the nuts are already in, but if you have a gas hob (or a generally decent one) you should do the prep beforehand.

2. Wash and chop your beans (cut off the ends and then half) and do the same to the asparagus, only cut them into smaller bits and put the tips to one side. For the courgette, whap out your vegetable peeler and use it to make your courgette into courgette ribbons. This takes quite a while but is kind of fun and definitely worth it.

























3. Once the pine nuts have begun to colour, add some olive oil to the pan and then toss in the beans and all but the tips of the asparagus. They take less time to cook, so they go in later on. Cook these for about 5 minutes, and then begin to add the courgette ribbons. The way I do this is to push the rest of the veg to the side and lay as many ribbons in the pan as I can fit in, like so:

Side note: Zosia and I found that if you let the ribbons cook for long enough they turn all crunchy and are awesome. Sadly they wouldn't really work crunchy here, but I recommend you try it some time all the same

4. Cook the ribbons for about a minute, then move them over to the side and add more. Make sure the pan has plenty of oil in, and that you keep moving around the veg that's being pushed to the side so it doesn't burn. Once about a third of the ribbons are in, add the asparagus tips. This is also usually a good time to put the pasta on, depending on how long yours takes to cook (the stuff I use says 7-9 minutes). If it's done too soon you can always put it aside and run it under the hot tap to warm it up!

5. Once all the ribbons are done, transfer the contents of the frying pan over to the saucepan you cooked the pasta in (once you've drained it, obviously) along with the pesto. Stir in. Dish up to fellow hungry students along with the parmesan. 

Side note #2: I know this is not tagliatelle. This is because I photographed Zosia's, and she has wheat free pasta and there was only penne. Sorry.

Done. I challenge you not to make 'mmmmmmm' sounds when you eat it.

Vodka Time

So I'm half Polish. And naturally, this means I have quite an affinity with vodka.

Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka. TASTES LIKE SUMMER.

And most other people seem to as well. 

So long as its not Tesco value, people are generally quite content to knock back a few shots of the stuff, and it goes with almost any mixer under the sun.

Although not gonna lie, I've seen vodka and milk done before and that is NOT a good plan. 

Last night Vodka met my other very good friend, pasta. Apparently its supposed to clarify the flavour. And it tasted flipping good. So I guess it does...

Bryony wasn't convinced by the concept but it turned out pretty bloody well in the end...

SO. Tomato Vodka Pasta time.

(I got the start of my method from here... And then I started guessing...)

Here's what you need for 2 servings:

1 red onion.

3 cloves of garlic.

Butter.

1 cup of vodka. (I used Smirnoff, probably best not to use the fanciest stuff...)

1 can of chopped tomatoes.

1 oxo cube.

1 pinch of dried rosemary.

Splash of olive oil.

1 cup of cream.

Salt and pepper.

Fresh basil and grated parmesan to serve.

And here's what you do:

Cook your pasta. You know what to do. The sauce should take about the same time as the pasta so you need to multitask a bit...

1. Chop up the red onion and the garlic. Melt some butter in a pan then add the onion and garlic.

2. Fry until they start to discolour, then add the vodka. 

3. Leave to simmer for a minute then add the tomatoes and mix them in thoroughly.

4. Crumble in an oxo cube, add a pinch of rosemary and a splash of olive oil. 

5. Keep stirring the sauce as your pasta cooks.

6. Just before your pasta is ready, add the cream and stir in thoroughly.

7. Season with salt and pepper and add the fresh chopped basil.

8. Place pasta in bowls and split the sauce equally. Add parmesan and EAT. 

Potential new favourite recipe. 

We love herbs

And Americans don't get them.

At least, the Americans we lived with in the first term of uni didn't. But I LOVE HERBS, and hence on our kitchen window-sill there is a large plastic pot containing basil, parsley, mint and coriander.

The Hunny pot is our watering can.

It's a family trait I think. As well as making everything taste better there's a certain pride about cooking with something that you've looked after, if not grown from scratch because you're a student with no space/money/resources. I have such big plans for the garden in our house next year...

My favourite at the moment is parsley, which is why I have a GIANT pot of that. And also why I invented a new recipe a couple of weeks ago that uses shed-loads of it. It's basically my take on a cream and white wine pasta sauce, but it sure is yummy.

- 2/3 shallots or 1 onion
- 1 large clove of garlic (because garlic is amazing)
- 3/4 baby leeks, or 1 small normal-sized
- decent handful of french beans
- large glass of white wine (plus one to drink - chef's perk)
- half a stock pot*
- 150ml double cream, or to taste
- 1/2 handfuls of fresh parsley
- salt and pepper

*I like using half of one of those posh Knorr vegetable stock pots, which gives a lovely fresh flavour without being too strong. An OXO cube would be fine, but I'm lucky enough to have several boxes of these which my mum sent down in a food parcel. Thanks Mum :D

Stick some olive oil in a sauce pan and melt a knob of butter (adding the oil first will stop the butter from burning). Add your shallots, baby leeks and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes before adding the beans. Cook until they're starting to colour a little and smelling pretty good - about 8 minutes - then add the wine and let it simmer down a bit (about 5 minutes).

Next add your stock pot/cube, the cream and half the parsley so the flavours can infuse. This will take quite a little to reduce and thicken, so now's a good time to drink your own glass of wine and have a dance around the kitchen.

When you're happy with the consistency and the amount of sauce you have add your seasoning - I think it's important to taste with this recipe to get it spot on. Add the rest of the parsley, and voila!

I think this is best served with some sort of ravioli, and something bready like garlic dough balls to get all the sauce at the end. Parmesan (real cheese, not the weird pot stuff that claims to be vegan) finishes it off beautifully.

And a word to the wise, never leave your herbs unattended with Americans around. It's just not worth it.