Pasta with Asparagus & Pistachio Pesto

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs sees the introduction of a new event - our monthly "featured chef" event, where each month we will be given the opportunity to celebrate the recipes of one of our previous IHCC celebrity chefs.  In keeping with this being the inaugural celebration, our featured chef this month is Nigella Lawson who was our very first IHCC chef.

Unfortunately, I didn't know about the group way back when they were cooking with Nigella until it was almost too late - I actually discovered the group just as they were saying farewell on their last week of their culinary journey with Nigella.  I came to the party with these Chocolate Caramel Crispy Cakes, which is still one of my go-to treats when I need a crowd or kiddy pleaser, and which actually consistently ranks in the top 10 of my most viewed posts of all time.

Looking for inspiration for this week's dish, I decided to break my copy of Nigellissima down from the bookshelf.  I have to admit that although I've had this one in my collection for quite a while, I actually haven't used it very much - no particular reason (it's actually a great book), but there just seems to often be other books I turned to first.

I found my inspiration in Nigella's Green Beans with Pistachio Pesto.  It's asparagus season here right now, and I just can't get enough of it, so I knew I was going to sub asparagus in for the beans.  I made a couple of other changes too, replacing basil in the pesto with some watercress and spinach (because that's what I had on hand, and because basil is not really readily available here yet), and adding pasta to turn this into a main meal instead of a side dish.

If I'm honest, much as I love the flavour of basil, I often find that as a flavour base for pesto it can seem a little overpowering.  Here I loved the more delicate flavour of the cress and spinach in this pesto, which really enabled the flavour of the pistachios to shine through.  This pesto is beautiful for dressing any green vegetable or pasta, would be a great addition to an antipasto platter, or delicious condiment in sandwiches or wraps.  I think this is bound to become a real summer staple in my house.

Note:  This will actually make more pesto than is required for the quantity of pasta and asparagus given, but some leftover pesto ready to dollop on some eggs, alongside some fish, or spread in a sandwich can never be a bad thing.  Pesto also freezes really well so you can enjoy it all year round - it's great to freeze in ice cube trays or small zip lock bag portions - great for using in soups and casseroles.

Pasta with Asparagus & Pistachio Pesto
Serves two
Inspired by recipe from Nigellissima by Nigella Lawson

250g penne pasta
8-10 fresh asparagus spears

for the pesto
large bunch watercress
2x large handfuls baby spinach leaves
1x clove garlic, roughly chopped
generous pinch flaky sea salt
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
1/2 cup parmesan, freshly grated
3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

to serve
freshly ground black pepper
extra parmesan

Begin by making the pesto.  Put watercress, spinach leaves, garlic and sea salt into a food processor, and pulse until finely chopped.  Add pistachios and parmesan, and pulse again until the nuts have been roughly chopped.  Now with the motor running, add olive oil one tablespoon at a time until everything is chopped to a fine paste and fully amalgamated.  Remove from food processor and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salt the water liberally, and add pasta to the boiling water.  Remove the woody ends from the asparagus, and cut asparagus into pieces about the same length as the pasta.  Once the pasta is halfway through the recommended cooking time, remove and retain one cup of the pasta water, and add asparagus pieces to the boiling water.  Continue cooking until the pasta is cooked but still al dente.

Remove from heat, drain, and immediately return the pasta and asparagus to the pan.  Add a couple of generous dollops of the pesto, and stir through enough of the reserved pasta water to loosen the pesto and make a sauce.  Keep stirring until everything is well coated with the pesto, then serve immediately.  Finish with freshly ground black pepper to your liking and a sprinkling of extra grated parmesan.

If you would like to get to know Nigella Lawson a little better, and to see all the wonderful dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I'm also sharing this post at Cook Your Books, hosted by the lovely Joyce at Kitchen Flavours.

Broad Bean Pesto

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, we're whipping up Starters & Nibbles with Nigel Slater.  I knew immediately what I was going to make.  I had bookmarked Nigel's recipe in Tender Vol. I for "A green hummus" weeks ago, and this seemed like the perfect time to run with it.

I took inspiration from Nigel's recipe, but made a few changes to make more of a pesto out of it.  I didn't have the mint called for in the original recipe, so used parsley instead.  I also added in a bit of garlic, some freshly grated parmesan, and some toasted sunflower seeds.

The resulting pesto was delightfully fresh and "springlike" - quite a joy in the middle of winter.  It makes a great snack or pass around with some raw vegetable sticks, corn chips, or spread on toasted, crusty sourdough bread.  It was also a delicious accompaniment to leftover roast chicken, and tomorrow night it will be turned into sauce for pasta.

This made a great alternative to my regular go-to hummus that I frequently turn to when I have friends around for nibbles, and this will definitely become a regular in my repertoire.

Broad Bean Pesto Recipe
Inspired by recipe by Nigel Slater
from Tender, Vol. I
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

500g (18 oz) frozen broad beans
(if you're lucky enough to have fresh broad beans, even better)
large handful flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
1 cup freshly grated parmesan
1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds
extra virgin olive oil
juice of half a lemon
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Bring a medium sized pot of water to the boil.  Add broad beans to the pot, return to boiling, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.  (If you're using fresh broad beans, you will probably need to boil for a few more minutes.)  Drain, and refresh immediately in cold water.  Once beans are cooled, remove and discard the thick outer skins from the beans.

Place beans, parsley and garlic in food processor and blitz to a coarse paste.  Add parmesan and sunflower seeds, and blitz again.  Then with motor running, pour in extra virgin olive oil in a steady stream until you have a smooth paste consistency.

Remove from food processor, and stir in lemon juice, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

If you would like to get to know Nigel Slater a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links ...

... or check out Tender, Vol. 1 and Nigel's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the delightful Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollum.

         

Chorizo with Chickpeas & Tomatoes

Our current IHCC chef, Donna Hay, is the self-confessed queen of the well-stocked pantry and, by her own admission, if there's a short-cut to be found for delivering maximum freshness and flavour to the plate with minimum effort, she's found it.

She's a woman after my own heart like that.  As most of you will know by now (since I bang on about it often enough) I love to make most things from scratch, for many reasons ... I like to know what I'm eating, I reduce my environmental impact by consuming more homemade food and less packaged goods, and perhaps most importantly for the sheer joy of doing so.

Now, don't for one moment be misled into thinking that I spend hours every day slavishly toiling over one dish or another.  I don't - a well-stocked pantry is an absolute God-send to me, and means that very rarely do I spend more than 30 minutes over preparing a meal.  Even dishes which are more complicated might be broken down into two or three stages and prepped in advance.

How do I achieve that?  When produce is in season, I spend a bit of time on the weekends creating many of those pantry staples such as pesto, harissa paste, pasta sauce, preserved lemons, hummus, jams, pickles and chutneys.  These all get stashed in the freezer or pantry in meal-size quantities.  I also occasionally cook up big batches of chickpeas and dried beans, rice and quinoa, and store by the cupful in the freezer - but to be honest, I don't always get around to that, and I don't have a very big freezer either, so I do often resort to canned chickpeas, canellini beans, borlotti beans, and so on.  Canned or frozen chickpeas or beans are ideal for creating a quick and easy meal.

Other staples I always have on hand include: rice - basmati, brown, arborio (for risotto), sushi, and calasparra (for paella);  oils - olive (both virgin and extra virgin), rice bran, sesame, avocado, coconut and walnut;   vinegars - white (for adding to egg poaching liquid), balsamic, white balsamic, and my new favourite, apple cider;  pasta - dried (usually De Cecco brand) in a variety of shapes, lengths and sizes (nearly always at least 6 packets on hand), and fresh homemade fettucine and ravioli (stored in individual portions in the freezer);  spices - I keep a fairly extensive selection on hand - they're a great flavour booster - most commonly used in my house is probably smoky paprika;  miscellaneous - pomegranate molasses, olives (green and black), mustard (grainy and Dijon) and cheeses - parmesan, pecorino, feta, mozzarella, cheddar;  Asian influenced - soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, mirin, Chinese cooking wine, nori sheets, wasabi paste, pickled ginger, miso paste, assorted curry pastes, and noodles (soba, ramen, udon, rice).  It doesn't take much more than a bit of fresh vegetables or protein to turn a few of these ingredients into a meal.

In case you haven't guessed where this is all headed, our theme this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is Pantry Magic - sharing something delicious inspired by the ingredients in our pantries.

This recipe for chorizo with chickpeas and tomatoes was one of the first that I bookmarked when I got my copy of Donna Hay's "Fast, Fresh, Simple".  Right there in the "Fast" chapter, using just a few ingredients that I always have on hand, I knew it wouldn't be long before this dish found it's way onto my table.  Chorizo is nearly always on hand in my house, and ditto the chickpeas.  Fresh cherry tomatoes, I picked up at the vegetable market last week, and were a bit of a hothouse indulgence at this time of year, since we are still a couple of months away from tomato season, though I could just as easily have used here some of the slow roasted tomatoes I have stashed in my freezer.   Fresh basil called for in the recipe is not really in season yet either, but I substituted by drizzling with some basil pesto from the freezer.  This made a light and delicious lunch (two servings), which could easily be multiplied to feed more people.  You could ring any number of changes to this - some kalamata olives and/or feta cheese would be great additions;  a drizzle of pomegranate molasses and/or some finely sliced preserved lemon would be a great flavour booster;  or serving over grilled sourdough toast with a poached egg on top would turn this into a sensational breakfast/brunch dish.

I'd love to know ... what are some of the things you always have on hand in your pantry?

Chorizo with Chickpeas & Tomatoes Recipe

Adapted from recipe by Donna Hay

from Fast, Fresh, Simple

Serves 2

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1-1/2 cups cherry tomatoes

olive oil

150g chorizo sausage, thinly sliced

1-1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (or 1x 400g (14 oz) can)

1/4 cup basil pesto

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Working over a small bowl, squeeze cherry tomatoes between your fingers - just enough to split the skins and start the juices running.  Set aside.

Set a skillet over medium heat and add a little olive oil to the pan.  You won't need very much as there will be a certain amount of fat will come out of the chorizo - probably 1-1/2 teaspoons will be plenty.  Once the oil is heated, add chorizo to the pan and saute until browned on both sides.

Add chickpeas and tomatoes, along with any of their accumulated juices, to the pan, and continue to cook until the chickpeas are warmed through, the tomatoes have softened a little, and the tomato juices have mingled with the oils in the pan and turned "syrupy".  You'll end up with something rather like a warm dressing.

Remove from heat.  Taste and season to your liking with flaky sea salt and freshly ground pepper.  Finish with a generous drizzle of pesto.

Delicious served hot straight out of the pan, but just as good at room temperature the next day.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see what Pantry Magic everyone else has created, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links ...

... or check out Fast, Fresh, Simple and Donna's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

                   

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely, Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Cook Your Books hosted by Joyce at Kitchen Flavours, and at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads.

                       

How to Make Beetroot Pesto

Beetroot is one of our favourite vegetables and roasted with a bit of olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, and fresh thyme is hands down my favourite way to eat it.  Once so roasted, it finds its way into all kinds of delicious salads, such as this Salad of Roasted Beetroot, Pink Grapefruit & Pumpkin, or this Ruby Salad, or this Salad of Asparagus with Artichokes, Arugula, Pomegranate & Beetroot.

Roasted beetroot also often finds its way into a warm salad with lentils and walnuts, with a red wine vinaigrette dressing - a great accompaniment to good sausages.  But one of our favourites is my recreation of a salad we often used to enjoy when we lived in Christchurch at a cafe called Holy Smoke.  I never seem to get around to photographing this salad when I make it, so I don't have a picture to show you, but it's pretty simple and is best composed as individual servings - strategically place a few dollops of beetroot pesto and a few dollops of ricotta around each plate;  artistically arrange florets of steamed broccoli, wedges of roasted beetroot, wedges of sweet potato and shards of crispy bacon atop and around the pesto and ricotta;  drizzle over a simple vinaigrette sweetened with honey, and sprinkle over some pine nuts toasted in butter.   So good!

To make up for the fact that I don't have a photo of this salad to show you, I am going to share my recipe for beetroot pesto.  Not only is it great in this salad, its also a wonderful spread to add to an antipasto platter, and the best part of all is that you can pretty much make it all year round.

Beetroot Pesto Recipe

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

Note - quantities given here are approximate - you can adjust everything to suit your taste

4x medium sized beetroot

6x cloves garlic, unpeeled

generous handful walnuts, roasted

1 cup Pecorino cheese, freshly grated

(substitute with Parmesan if Pecorino is not available)

flaky sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (390 degrees F).

Wash beetroot, top and tail them, and cut into eighths.  Place a sheet of tinfoil on a baking sheet, and place the beetroot in a single layer on the foil.  Scatter over the whole garlic cloves, season generously with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and drizzle with olive oil.  Close up foil around the beetroot to make a package, and place it on the baking sheet into the preheated oven.  Cook until the beetroot is tender - will take around 50 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow beetroot and garlic to cool to room temperature.

Squeeze cooled garlic cloves out of their skins, and put the garlic and beetroot into the bowl of your food processor.  Add toasted walnuts and Pecorino cheese, and blitz up until a rough paste begins to form.  Now, with the motor running, pour olive oil through the tube until you reach a fairly smooth, spreadable consistency.  Give it a taste and then add salt and pepper to your liking, also adding more cheese or oil according to your taste.

Enjoy!

I'll be sharing this post at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely, and very amusing, Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, at Foodie Friday hosted by Designs by Gollam, at Hearth & Soul Blog Hop hosted by April at 21st Century Housewife, at My Meatless Mondays hosted by Chaya at My Sweet and Savory and at Food on Friday:Beetroot hosted by Carole at Carole's Chatter.

                  

"End of Spring" Ministrone with Rocket, Spinach & Walnut Pesto and Cookbook Sundays # 2

It's been a funny old week.  It may be the start of summer here but, with torrential rain and heavy flooding in many parts of Nelson, it's felt rather more like winter.  Many families in our city had to be evacuated from their homes, either because of flooding or because of danger from hillside slips.  Thankfully, we live high enough on a hill to escape flooding and were lucky enough not to be subjected to any slips either.  A special thanks also to so many of you for your kind thoughts and concerns for my safety - your thoughtfulness never ceases to warm my heart and is a constant reminder of the joys of belonging to this food blogging "family".

So, after all that rain something warming, nourishing and comforting seemed to be called for, but at the same time I wasn't wanting anything too heavy.  When I came across this recipe for Spring Ministrone in Super Natural Cooking (one of my favourite cookbooks) by Heidi Swanson it seemed to fit the bill perfectly.  I also knew that this would be perfect for my contribution this week to Cookbook Sundays (read more about that at the end of this post).

For this soup brown rice is cooked in a light vegetable broth, with spring vegetables (I used asparagus, zucchini, and peas) added right at the end, so that the vegetables are still bright green and crispy.  I made a pesto from some spinach and rocket (arugula) I'd harvested from my garden, and topped the soup with a generous dollop of that, along with some freshly grated lemon zest and shaved pecorino cheese.

I know that there are amongst you those who love soup and could eat it (or should that be drink it) just about every day of the week.  I am not such a person.  I don't mind a bowl of soup now and again, but you know maybe 6-8 bowls of soup in the whole year is probably about my fix.  It is not something I would ever order in a restaurant, unless of course it's an Asian restaurant of some sort, in which case there is a very strong possibility that I would order the noodle or wonton soup.  This doesn't count as one of the 6-8 bowls of soup previously mentioned, as I think of this as noodles, not soup - those are the rules!  My other soup rule is that I almost never have soup in summer.

Now, I've got to say this .... this soup just broke all of my soup rules.  This is quite possibly the best soup I've ever tasted - at least, the best one that I've ever made, and you know what?  This soup is definitely going to have me exceeding my annual soup quota - in fact there is a good chance I'll exceed that before the week is out.  This is a soup that I could really eat every single day - of course, things like asparagus and fresh peas won't be around for much longer, but I will be making the most of it while they're still here.

The nuttiness and chewiness of the brown rice gives that little bit of "comfort factor" and enough substance to be able to make a meal out of this.  The crisp, green vegetables provide a lovely textural balance to the rice, while the hit of fresh lemon and fragrant pesto keeps the spring-like freshness in this dish.

Of course, you could swap out the vegetables I used with all sorts of other alternatives:  green beans, snow peas, broad beans, artichoke hearts, edamame, cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy.  Just keep it green would be my mantra here - save the carrots, pumpkin, corn, etc, for something else.  I urge you to try it - I know you won't be disappointed.

"End of Spring" Ministrone with Rocket, Spinach & Walnut Pesto

Adapted from a recipe by Heidi Swanson from

Super Natural Cooking

Makes 4 generous servings

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

Vegetarian

For the soup:

2x tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2x shallots, thinly sliced

1x garlic clove, minced

1x cup brown rice, rinsed

6x cups vegetable stock

2x zucchini, thinly sliced

8x asparagus spears, cut on the diagonal into 2.5 cm (1 in) lengths

1x cup freshly shelled green peas (frozen is fine too)

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the pesto:

3x large handfuls of rocket (arugula) & spinach leaves

1x large handful of toasted walnut pieces

2x cloves garlic

extra virgin olive oil (about 1/3 cup)

1/2 cup freshly grated pecorino cheese

flaky sea salt

To serve:

freshly grated zest of 1x lemon

pecorino cheese, freshly shaved

Begin with the soup.  Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the shallots and garlic to the pan, and saute for a couple of minutes until the shallots have softened and the garlic is fragrant.  Add the rice, and cook for a minute, stirring constantly until every grain of rice is coated in the oil.  Now add the stock to the pan, bring up to the boil, then cover the pan with a lid, lower the heat to a simmer, and cook for 30 to 45 minutes until the rice is tender.

Meanwhile make the pesto.  Put the walnuts, rocket, spinach, garlic and salt into a food processor and pulse until the leaves and nuts start to break down. Then leaving the motor running, begin to add the oil in a steady stream until you have a smooth paste. Remove to a bowl, stir in the grated pecorino, taste and add a little more salt if necessary. Set aside.

Now back to the soup.  Once the rice is tender, add the vegetables and season generously with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Simmer for just 2 or 3 minutes, so that the vegetables are still bright green and crisp, add freshly grated lemon zest, and serve immediately.

Ladle into bowls, add some fresh shavings of pecorino cheese to each bowl, and top each with a generous dollop of the pesto.

 

Earlier I mentioned Cookbook Sundays.  What is that all about, you are perhaps wondering.  Well, if you're anything like me you have dozens of cookbooks gathering dust on your bookshelves, some of which have never even been cooked from.  Sure I spent hours browsing through them when I first bought them, marking all the recipes I was going to make with little post-it notes, and yet still those books languish in the bookcase and never make it to the kitchen.  There are others from which I have made but one recipe which was such a resounding success that I've made it over and over again, and yet somehow I've never made anything else from that book.  Sound a bit familiar?!

Take comfort - you are not alone, and now Cookbook Sundays is your opportunity to change that.  Every Sunday I'm going to share with you a recipe that I haven't made before from one of my ever expanding collection of cookbooks.  And, because I know that if you have read this far then you are guilty of this too, I'm inviting you to join in with me.  Each week my Cookbook Sundays post will have a linky for you to share something you've cooked from one of your cookbooks.

The rules for joining in are simple:

1. Your post must state the author and the title of the book your recipe has come from.
2. Your post must mention Cookbook Sundays and link back to this post.  Including the Cookbook Sundays badge is optional, but always appreciated.
3. You may submit as many entries as you like, and you may use the same cookbook as many times as you like.  Old posts are also welcome.
4. Lastly,  remember that what goes around, comes around - one of the reasons you are participating in this is because you want people to read your posts, so do the right thing and go and visit a few of the other participants. 

Now, go and dust off those cookbooks and get cooking!  Use the linky tool at the end of this post to submit your entry/entries - simply scroll down to where it says "You are next ... Click here to enter", and then follow the instructions.  The linky will be open for one week.

Lastly, if you would like to use the Cookbook Sundays badge in your post, simply copy the code in the box beside the badge below and paste it into your post.  Feel free to also use it in your sidebar if you wish.

<a href="http://couscous-consciousness.blogspot.com/p/cookbook-sundays.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa476/Susan_Busch/CookbookSundaysBadge.jpg" border="0" alt="CookbookSundays"></a>

I'm also sharing this post at Souper Sundays, hosted by the lovely Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, at My Meatless Mondays, hosted by Chaya at My Sweet & Savory; and at See Ya in the Gumbo hosted by Michelle at Ms. enPlace.

Spaghetti & Pesto with Potato & Green Beans Recipe - Cooking Italy 2

 

Let me begin by telling you, before you suddenly leave the page, that this tastes a whole lot better than it looks in this picture.  So here's the scenario:  dinner is piping hot and ready to serve, partner is starving and hanging out for dinner, but wait I need to photograph it first before we can eat - and, oh no, camera batteries are flat and so are the spares.  iPhone to the rescue thankfully to snap off a quick photo, but somehow it's just not the same.  Nevertheless, this tasted incredibly good (think comfort food that's still good enough to impress company) - so keep reading.

This was my second assignment for the Cooking Italy group (a group dedicated to learning to cook Italian food through the recipes of Marcella Hazan from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking), and turned out to be another one of those "prepare everything ahead, assemble at the last minute" dishes that you know I love so much - the pesto and potatoes were prepared earlier in the day, then spaghetti and beans cooked, and dish assembled just before serving - as I just mentioned this dish is easily good enough for guests, and you won't be spending all your time in the kitchen instead of with your guests.  I think this would also be good even with the pasta cooked early (maybe some of your favourite shapes, rather than spaghetti), and then everything assembled and served at room temperature as a salad.

Marcella says of this dish:  "When serving pesto on spaghetti or noodles, the full Genoese treatment calls for the addition of boiled new potatoes and green beans.  When all its components are right, there is no single dish more delicious in the entire Italian pasta repertory."  I think she's right.

As far as the pesto goes, I wrote about it not so long ago in this post, so you know my feelings on the subject.  Now I am certainly not going to go all "pesto-police" on you and tell you that you must make your own.  However, it seems that the whole point of this dish is the pesto, so if you are only ever going to make pesto once in your life I would urge you to make it now. As to which method you should use, I recommend the mortar and pestle method (I really believe the texture and taste is superior), but if the thought of doing it by hand is the only thing that gets between you and making your own pesto then go right ahead and blitz it up in the food processor - instructions are given here for both methods. Regardless of whether you buy a ready-made pesto, or follow the recipe here, there is one unique ingredient to Marcella's pesto and that is the addition of some butter at the end.  Sounds a bit weird I know, and I have to admit I was skeptical, but it works - it gave a lovely, velvety creaminess to the pesto, the magic of which I think is more apparent once it is actually incorporated in the dish, and it seemed to me also that once the butter was added the pesto somehow increased substantially in volume.  So even if you use a store bought pesto in this dish, take the time to add the butter before tossing it through the pasta and vegetables.

A note about quantities - Marcella's original recipe states that it serves 6.  To serve two people, I used exactly her recipe, but just cut down the quantity pasta.  So my ratio of vegetables and "sauce" to pasta was probably considerably more than would be traditional, but I was pleased with the results and you should feel free to adjust quantities to suit your own tastes.

Spaghetti & Pesto with Potato & Green Beans Recipe

Adapted from Marcella Hazan's

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Vegetarian

Click here for printable copy

For the pesto:

2 cups fresh basil leaves, tightly packed

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons pine nuts

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

coarse sea salt, large pinch

1/2 cup finely grated parmigiano-reggiano

2 tablespoons finely grated pecorino romano

3 tablespoons butter, room temperature soft

Wash basil leaves in cold water, and gently pat dry with paper towels.

If making in a mortar and pestle:  Put basil, garlic, pine nuts and salt into the mortar, and using the pestle grind everything into a paste.  Add both cheeses and grind evenly into the mixture.  Add the olive oil, pouring in a thin stream, beating into the mixture with a wooden spoon.  Once it has all been incorporated, beat in the butter until evenly distributed through the pesto.

If making in a food processor:  Put basil, olive oil, chopped garlic, pine nuts and salt  into the bowl of the processor, and process to a creamy consistency.  Remove from processor and transfer to a bowl, then mix the two cheeses in by hand.  Then mix in the softened butter and beat until everything is thoroughly amalgamated.

Set aside.

For the pasta (for 2 people):

3 small new potatoes

250g young green beans

pesto, as above

250g spaghetti (or pasta of your choice)

Boil the potatoes, skins on, until just tender.  Once cool enough to handle, peel and slice thinly.

Cut the ends off the beans and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salt liberally.  Add spaghetti to the rapidly boiling water to cook.  Approximately 3 minutes before the spaghetti finishes cooking, add the beans into the pasta pot.  Spaghetti should be al dente and beans cooked through, but neither too soft nor too hard.

Before draining the cooked pasta and beans, remove 2 tablespoons of the pasta water and stir into the pesto to loosen.

Drain, and toss the cooked pasta, beans and potatoes together with the pesto.

Serve immediately.  I also sprinkled some extra grated parmesan over the top.

Pappardelle with Chicken, Broccoli & Pesto Sauce

This is one of those great pasta dishes, that with a little bit of before-hand preparation (some of which can even be done the day before) comes together in just a few minutes at the end. This works really well for me with teaching in the evenings, as I can have everything prepped well in advance and then completion takes only as long as it takes to boil water and cook pasta - about 15 minutes max! It's also another one of those "everything in one bowl" dinners that I love.

Let's begin with the pesto. I have to be honest and say that for years I have always bought ready-made pesto and never bothered to make my own. That was until recently when I tried a store bought pesto that I hadn't used before - horror of horrors, it was so awful, it actually rendered the dinner I made inedible - it tasted incredibly sweet! Yes, sweet. "But how could this be?" I thought - there's no sugar in pesto. Imagine my horror when I then went and looked at the contents label on the pottle, and sure enough there was sugar in it. Determining, not to ever make that mistake again, I began to examine the contents labels of other pestos and that is when I discovered that many of them contain a whole lot of stuff (including often sugar) that in my opinion has no place being in pesto. I don't really know why I've never looked at that before, as I normally look at ingredients labels quite carefully on most things, but somehow pesto had slipped under my radar. Since then I have been making my own, and have been astounded to discover just how much better it tastes. What's more pesto can be frozen, so you can enjoy home-made pesto long after basil season has finished. I have been using this recipe by Lidia Bastianich and to begin with I was just using the "bung everything in the food processor" method - not that there's anything wrong with that. However, more recently I have begun using the mortar and pestle and doing it by hand and the results are just outstanding - the texture is far superior and every ingredient seems to retain its individual characteristics. Additional advantages of this method are, firstly, much less cleaning up, and secondly, the triceps get a good work-out - say goodbye to those "flappy" upper arms!

So this can easily be made the day before, or even several days before for that matter. If you have made it in advance, I recommend that you take it out of the fridge an hour or two before you want to use it to return to room temperature. Also if you are making it in advance, I suggest that you don't put all of the oil that is asked for into the pesto while you are mixing it up - just reserve a teaspoon or two. Then put your finished pesto into a small dish or bowl, and try to level out the top as much as possible. Then pour the reserved oil in a thin layer over the top, completely covering it - this helps to stop the pesto from turning brown on exposure to the air, and that oil can just be mixed into the pesto before you use it.

Now for the chicken. You could use chicken thighs or breasts for this, cut into pieces, tossed in a little bit of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary, and then sauteed. Personally, I always use free-range, organic chicken, but have found that buying individual pieces seems to be hellishly expensive. Solution - I buy a whole chicken, roast it, use half for this recipe, then use the other half for something else (often a chicken and seafood paella) the next night. I often also use this same method and make this Chicken Carbonara recipe by Giada de Laurentiis - certainly not a very traditional "carbonara" recipe, but a great dish nonetheless.

I like to butterfly my chicken and remove the backbone. (The backbone then goes into a large snaplock bag in the freezer - ditto any leftover chicken from a roast chicken dinner - and once the bag is full the whole lot gets made into chicken stock.) The chicken is then laid out flat, drizzled with a little olive oil and seasoned on the inside. Then flipped over, drizzled again with a little olive oil, and more salt and pepper. Then I might further season one half of the chicken with perhaps lemon juice and rosemary (for this recipe) and the other half with perhaps paprika and oregano for the paella, or some other seasoning that would be appropriate for its intended end purpose. So this is the beauty of butterflying - it is really easy to treat each half of the chicken separately. The chicken then gets roasted at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour depending on the size of the bird.

Once roasted and cooled enough to handle, I remove all the flesh from the chicken, putting each half into a separate container and into the fridge. This can be done several hours before you need it or even the day before. Once all the flesh has been removed from the carcass, and the carcass is completely cold, it then joins the backbone in the freezer bag for stock.

Not much to the broccoli really - this just gets cut into florets, and of course this could also be done well in advance. Actually, I often use broad beans (fresh or frozen) instead of broccoli in this recipe, and they too can be blanched and shelled well ahead of time.

My preferred pasta for this recipe is this gorgeous egg pappardelle that I get from the Mediterranean Food Warehouse but you could use any pasta that you like.

Pappardelle with Chicken, Broccoli & Pesto Sauce Recipe

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

For pesto:

approximately 2 cups of basil leaves

pinch of salt

2 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons pine nuts, lightly toasted

2 tablespoons pecorino cheese, grated finely

2 tablespoons parmesan, grated finely

3-4 tablespoons olive oil

(Note: if you don't have pecorino cheese, substitute with extra parmesan)

Put a few of the basil leaves in a mortar with the salt and begin to crush. Continue adding leaves, a few at a time. Once all the leaves have been added, add the garlic to the mortar, and continue to pound with the pestle until a paste forms.

Add the pine nuts, and crush them into the paste. Then add the cheese, work that in a little, and then add the olive oil one tablespoon at a time. Keep working until you have a creamy paste.

This will make about 1 cup of pesto.

For the pasta:

1 cup of pesto

100-125ml cream

2 cups of cooked chicken, shredded

2 cups of broccoli florets

250g pappardelle (or other pasta)

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

generous handful pine nuts, lightly toasted

freshly grated parmesan to serve

Mix pesto with cream, until you have a pourable, sauce-like consistency. Set aside.

Drop pasta into boiling salted water. About 4 minutes before the pasta has finished cooking, add the broccoli to the pan and allow it to cook with the pasta.

Once the pasta is cooked, set a colander over the serving bowl that you intend to use, and begin to drain the pasta into the colander - take care not to "overflow" the bowl - once the bowl is full, move the colander to the sink and continue to drain. This does two things - firstly, you now have a really nice hot bowl in which to serve your finished dish, and secondly, you have some reserved pasta water if you need it to "loosen" the sauce. Drizzle a little olive oil over the pasta, and shake gently to distribute.

Return the empty pasta pot to the heat, along with about 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add the chicken to the pan and heat through - about 1 minute. Then return the pasta and broccoli to the pan. Pour over the pesto and cream, and toss everything gently together over the heat, until the sauce is warmed through and coats everything well. Add some of that reserved pasta water if you need to. Taste and add some salt and pepper if necessary.

Drain water out of the warmed bowl. Add pasta to the bowl, sprinkle toasted pine nuts and grated parmesan over the top. Serve with extra parmesan.

This makes 3 very generous portions, or could easily feed 4 with some bread and salad on the side.

Buon Appetito!