Pasta with Mushrooms, Asparagus and Walnuts

One of those spontaneous flavour combinations that occurred to me, and, minutes later, was confirmed as a perfect balance of warm and nutty, rich and earthy, and green and grassy.

Ingredients

• pasta for two (200-300g)
• a generous handful of walnuts
• two king oyster mushrooms (or 10 chestnut mushrooms)
• a bunch of asparagus (about 8-10 stalks)
• a few stalks of curly parsley
• 4 tbsp sour cream
• 1/4 tsp mustard

Cook the pasta according to its packet instructions. Dry-toast the walnuts in a small frying pan until crisp and golden; remove and set aside. Cube the mushrooms and fry until golden; cut the asparagus into inch-long lengths and add to the pan; stir-fry until cooked. Finely chop the parsley and combine, turning the heat off. Drain the pasta, mix well with the sour cream and mustard, then tip in the fried vegetables and give a last toss about. Season to taste and serve.

Walnut and Parsley Pesto (with Beetroot Pasta)

We have soooo much parsley this week. I picked up a huge bag for just a dollar, and now we're eating it with everything :) This was a yum and cheaper version of the classic basil pesto. We used it to jazz up some cooked beetroot and al dente pasta.

Ingredients:

• A large handful of walnuts
• half a bunch of parsley
• 25-40g of Parmesan
• olive oil
• black pepper

Toast the walnuts either under the grill, or in a dry frying pan, until crisp and fragrant. Clean the parsley and discard any tough stems. Finely grate the Parmesan, then whiz it together with the parsley and walnuts in a blender. Drizzle in olive oil until it takes on a pesto-like consistency, and season well with black pepper.

Aubergine and Caramelised Onion Pasta

I tried another recipe from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries II, and overall I'd say it wasn't bad. After  agonising over the right pasta shape for a few paragraphs, before settling on one I've not seen for sale down under, he suggests basking the aubergine whole, then scraping out the cooked flesh, whipping it with olive oil to make a pasta sauce.

I found that compared to my usual method, this takes a very long time, and the insides get steamed instead of grilled, so are missing all of the lovely charcoal-y edgy bits that make cooked aubergine so extra delicious, on top of the meltingly soft, subtle flesh. Plus you have to throw away the skin, which is another flavour & texture combo I relish. I think his recipe would be much faster and tastier if you simply sliced the aubergines, brushed them lightly with olive oil, bbq'd them over a hot grill; meanwhile caramelise some onions, then tear the aubergines into pieces and toss everything together with basil, freshly cooked pasta, and a good squeeze of lemon. Punchier, faster, less greasy, and preserving all the best flavours of the aubergine. I'll report when I've had a go with my modifications.

Pasta with Meatballs

My last meal of Being Twenty-Nine Years Old: a big classic in our family, but we all have slightly different ways of making it. My mum drops pure-mince meatballs into the tomato sauce, letting them cook through as the sauce thickens on the stove; I use fried or baked meatballs containing bread (I love the crispy crust!). My sister likes to stir the spinach into the sauce and scatter feta over the top; I prefer it to combine cooked, wilted spinach with ricotta and leave little quinelles throughout the bake. However, I think we can all agree that penne is exactly the right pasta for this dish, and that it tastes even better the next day. Although maybe not in my case, what with my taste buds suddenly going over the hill...

Here's my version.

Ingredients

• 1kg of meatballs
• 500g tomato sauce (or double, if you like it very tomato-y)
• two large bunches of fresh spinach, wilted and chopped or 250g frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
• 250g of ricotta cheese
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 500g dried penne, cooked according to the packet instructions
• 100g Cheddar or Parmesan, grated

Combine the spinach, cheese, nutmeg and salt together in a bowl. Stir the pasta with the tomato sauce and meatballs and pour into a large baking dish. Using two large tablespoons, take scoops of the ricotta/spinach mixture and push little quinelles into the dish. Scatter over the grated cheese and bake for 25 minutes at 180 C, until golden brown on top and piping hot throughout.

Silverbeet Lasagne

It's one of those weekends where you haven't quite run down the fridge enough to justify buying a whole shop of new food, but at the same time you're a bit worried you might run out of food midway through the week. Planning to the rescue! One of our purchases last week was a huge bunch of silverbeet, and a fairly large bunch of beetroot. While we'd eaten the roots of the latter, the leaves and stalks were still hanging around, and we hadn't even made a dent in the silverbeet. So I googled around, and found this recipe, added the beetroot stalks, and it worked out remarkably well. In fact the beetroot stalks added a really nice purple colour. For perhaps the first time ever, I managed not to burn the top of the lasagne, by covering it in foil. Genius (/facepalm).

Ingredients:

• 2kg of silverbeet and/or beetroot stalks & leaves
• 1 large white or red onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 3 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
• 1 x 50g tin of tomato puree or paste
• 1/2 glass red wine
• 6 tsp dried mixed herbs, or a few handfuls of fresh
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 tsp sugar
• salt and black pepper
• 120g butter
• 100g plain flour
• 1 litre of milk
• 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• lemon juice
• 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese

Finely chop the onion and fry gently in olive oil until translucent and starting to colour. Crush in the garlic, fry for a further minute, then add the tins of tomatoes and puree, rinsing them out with some red wine and a little water. Add the herbs, bay leaves and sugar; stir, cover and cook for an hour, stirring occasionally, until thickened. If it stays too runny, remove the lid to reduce the water content. Taste and season.

While the sauce is cooking, melt the butter in the microwave and add the plain flour, then gently stir in the milk a little at a time. Microwave for a minute or two, stirring every thirty seconds, until it begins to thicken. Add the Parmesan cheese and nutmeg, then again season to taste.

Wash the beet plants thoroughly, then separate the stalks and leaves (you don't have to be exact). Finely chop the stalks and fry in a little olive oil, then cover and steam for a minute or two in their own juices. Meanwhile, roughly chop the leaves, then add to the stalks, cover and steam for a further minute or two until wilted. Drain the cooked beet plants into a colander and squeeze out the liquid with a spatula, or, after it cools, with your hands. The volume will reduce by about half to two-thirds! Squeeze over a little lemon and season well.

When the tomato, cheese and silverbeet are done, begin the lasagne assembly; I prefer the order: tomato, lasagne, tomato, silverbeet, lasagne, cheese, lasagne, tomato, silverbeet, lasagne, cheese; then top with cheddar and cover with foil. Bake at 175 C for an hour, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes to allow the cheese to turn golden. Rest of 10 minutes before slicing.

Massive Pasta Bake

My meatballs are great in a huge pasta bake. Nothing fancy, just a litre of tomato sauce, maybe 15 meatballs, and a 500g pack of penne cooked to al dente, all tossed together and baked in the oven. One day I will manage not to singe it!

Porterhouse Steak, Braised Fennel and Mustard Rollini

We take our weekly stroll to the butchers' and pick up a beautiful Porterhouse steak, which we plan to sear for 90 seconds each side and split between us. Enjoying the beautiful sunshine and pottering about the house, we leave the main grocery shop until Sunday. When I come to cook our lovely steaks, I find none of the accompaniments I'd usually use, not even potatoes! I still crave that sticky, carby counterpoint to the steak, so I take some inspiration from a 'nursery classic', and also try out a new kind of pasta hanging around the cupboard.

At the bottom of the vegetable drawer sits one folorn fennel, left 'til all of the easily-prepared vegetables are already eaten. I flick through Nigel's recipe books but find he's not really a fan of fennel, dedicating it a mere two paragraphs in his massive British vegetable compendium. However, there's plenty of ideas in those few sentences, one of which is exactly the way my dad prepares chicory. I give it a go, and it's absolutely amazing.

Ingredients:

• a large fennel
• 250g rollini, or other shaped pasta
• 4-6 tbsp crème fraiche
• 2 tbsp dijon mustard
• a seriously good steak, or two

Cut any discoloured parts from the fennel and slice off the toughest part of the root, but leaving most of the base intact so that the sheaves still hang together. Cut into large lengthwise wedges; a small fennel could be quartered, a large fennel cut into sixths or eighths. In a frying pan large enough that all the fennel can lie flat, melt a couple tbsp of butter and a little glug of olive oil. Add the fennel wedges and stir around gently until coated in fat. Set the heat to low, cover the pan and braise for 20-30 minutes, turning once or twice. You want the fennel to be gently caramelised where it touches the pan, but not burnt, and for the trapped steam to cook the vegetable through.

10 minutes before the fennel is done, set your pasta to cook in plenty of boiling water. Meanwhile, pan-fry the steak; 90 seconds each side will give a lovely rareness, but of course feel free to alter depending on your taste and the steak's thickness. Set aside to rest. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and return it to the pan, along with the crème fraiche and mustard; warm through over a low heat, stirring so that it doesn't stick. Taste and season, then serve with the steak and braised fennel.

Pasta e fagioli

We've been enduring a spot of cold weather recently; I even had to wear trousers when cycling to work for a couple of days! Actually I think I'm just a wimp after getting back from a nice week in Brisbane where it was 21C every day. I felt like something really homely and gorgeous, but not too meaty, after a week eating out. I googled around and found this lovely Italian 'peasant' dish which seemed perfect! There are many different versions around, but I started improvising from one that mostly included ingredients I had. (Sensible.) One thing that the recipes emphasised was that this varies massively region-to-region in Italy and it's ok to be more of a soup, or more of a sauce, or anywhere in between. So here's my take - and I will definitely be making this again as it was superb!

Ingredients:

• a medium onion
• a carrot
• 3 garlic cloves
• 425g tin of tomatoes
• 1 litre of vegetable stock
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 150g tubetti, macaroni or other small soup pasta
• 400g tin of borlotti beans
• grated Parmesan (omit if vegan, obviously!)
• fresh parsley

Finely chop the onion and fry it over a medium heat until translucent (about five minutes). Peel and dice the carrot and add to the pan; peel and crush in the garlic cloves. Toss around and fry for a further minute, until the garlic is fragrant and softened. Pour in the tin of tomatoes, half of the stock, and add the bay leaves and rosemary sprig. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

Remove a ladleful of the soup and blend with half of the beans (be careful to cool for a minute or so or use a large blender so as not to explode soup everywhere!). Return the paste to the pan along with the pasta and cook for another 10 minutes, until the pasta is soft. Add the last half of the beans to the pan, turn off the heat and allow to warm through. Divide into bowls and top with grated Parmesan and finely chopped parsley.

Beetroot and Feta on Cabbage & Pesto Pasta

This isn't going to inspire anyone to new heights of cooking, but it did come out rather prettily. I simmered a couple of peeled, cubed beetroot, toasted some feta and rosemary, and served over some al dente pasta stirred through with blanched, shredded Savoy and a very good tub of pesto from the deli. A nubbly conglomerate of odds and ends from the fridge.

Farfalle with Savoy and Pumpkin

Another wonderful vegetable that is coming into season is the Savoy cabbage. Not the sad pale white cabbage that falls to sock-smelling pieces as soon as it is cooked, but the delicious bouncy dark leaves that can be plunged into boiling water, or quickly fried, and still retain their savoury bite and nutty aroma. It also lasts forever, even out of the fridge... and it takes a long time to eat a whole head! Tonight's recipe was borrowed from Jamie Oliver, and then edited by the SO into his own version.

Ingredients:

• a quarter of a pumpkin
• a few rashers of bacon
• 1 clove of garlic
• a handful of thyme, leaves stripped
• 5-6 large leaves of Savoy cabbage
• 250g farfalle or other pasta
• a big chunk of Parmesan

Cube the pumpkin and roast for 30-40 minutes, until soft and golden. Shred the cabbage into fine strips. Slice the bacon thinly and fry for a few minutes until cooked; add the garlic and thyme, cook for a further minute, then add the shredded cabbage; cover and cook for five minutes, shaking or stirring every so often to prevent it sticking. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to its instructions, or until al dente. When the cabbage is tender (but not overcooked!) and the pasta is done, drain the latter and serve topped with the former, the pumpkin, grated Parmesan, black pepper and (as Jamie would have it) a glug of very nice olive oil.

Pasta with Tomatoes and Butternut Squash

This is a huge fallback recipe for us - in fact for my whole family. The basic flavours are all there: tomatoes - sharp, squash - sweet, bacon - umami, Parmesan - salt, and herbs for depth and I guess any bitterness that one might want in food! It's really easy to put together, especially if you have leftover sausages and/or roast butternut squash or pumpkin lying around in the fridge, as we frequently do. But I'll give the recipe 'from scratch' assuming no shortcuts.

Ingredients:

• one small, or half of a large butternut squash, or equivalent amount of tasty eating pumpkin
• a good handful of fresh rosemary or oregano, cleaned and chopped (or 1-2 tsp dried)
• a couple of sausages, or 5-6 rashers of bacon
• four ripe tomatoes, or a tin of chopped tomatoes
• five cloves of garlic
• a chunk of Parmesan cheese

Cube the butternut squash, and if you have time, roast it in a 180C oven for 40 minutes tossed in the herbs and a little vegetable oil, until golden and singed at the edges. If you don't have time, just cube it and toss with the herbs. Grill or fry the sausages or bacon until cooked, then cut into bite-size pieces.

Chop the tomatoes (remove the skins first if you're picky). Heat a little olive oil in a large frying pan and crush in the garlic; fry over a low heat for 30-50 seconds until golden and fragrant. Add the chopped tomatoes and stir. If you didn't roast the butternut squash, add it now, and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the tomatoes have softened and reduced into a sauce. This is also a good time to cook your pasta.

When the sauce is cooked, add the cooked sausages or bacon, and roasted butternut squash if you didn't add it earlier. Warm through, and serve over drained pasta, which you can toss with a little pesto or crème fraîche if you like.

Salmon and Runner Bean Pasta

This is the sort of crazy yet strangely delicious thing I create when I get home just twenty minutes before my evening telecon with Cambridge.

Ingredients:

• a generous handful of runner beans
• a couple of ripe tomatoes
• a handful of fresh oregano, finely chopped
• a cooked salmon fillet (I suppose tinned salmon might work!)
• a 75g--100g tub of really good pesto
• packet gnocchi

Slice the runner beans into cm-thick diagonal pieces and put on to steam. Chop the tomatoes and fry in a preferably non-non-stick frying pan. After  a minute or so, when they release some liquid, add the oregano. Set the gnocchi on to boil. When the runner beans are done and the tomatoes are well-softened and starting to dissolve, drain the beans and pop them in with the tomatoes. Turn off the heat and flake in the salmon. Season well with black pepper. Cover and allow the flavours to mingle. Meanwhile, drain the gnocchi, return to the pan and stir with the pesto. Serve the gnocchi topped with the sauce. I found it didn't even need parmesan!

Minestrone

Minestrone is one of those things I rarely get around to making, but when I do I always wonder why Iit's been so long since I made it! It's really easy, fast, you can make an absolute mountain of it, and it just tastes better and better after it rests in the fridge. The best thing is the way the spaghetti swells up and absorbs all the stock flavours, and then you have to add a bit more hot water to loosen it all up again. Love it!!

Ingredients:

• a large white or red onion
• a couple cloves of garlic
• a carrot or two
• a large handful of green beans or runner beans
• a sweet corn-on-the-cob (optional but I love it)
• a medium-sized bunch of parsley
• five ripe tomatoes
• a tin of chick peas
• 1.5 litres of vegetable stock
• a large handful of spaghetti
• parmesan cheese
• black pepper

Finely chop the onion and fry gently in olive oil for a few minutes, until it begins to soften. Meanwhile, crush the garlic cloves, chop the carrots and green beans, and slice the corn kernels from the cob. Add the vegetables to the pan and fry for a further minute or so, until the garlic starts to smell awesome. Chop the parsley and tomatoes and add to the pan, along with the chick peas and stock. Snap the spaghetti into short pieces into the pot, then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Meanwhile, grate an enormous bowl (...or, more healthily, a small bowl) of parmesan cheese. Serve the soup with the cheese ready to scatter and the black pepper ready to grind over the top.

10th Anniversary Dinner: Garlic and Butter Scallops with Pasta and Fennel and Orange Salad

They had an absolutely amazing fennel in the market at the weekend, and I'd been thinking about what to do with it all week. Following the success of our excellent peeler on the courgette salad earlier in the week, I decided to finely shave the finest bits of the fennel and slice the huge and beautiful fronds into a salad, while reserving the tougher stalks for a stew later in the week. Some sort of acidity would work well with the fennel, and also I wanted to serve seafood, so again I thought the flavours would marry very well. It all turned out totally yum!

I couldn't find the sort of large, quivering Scottish scallops I enjoyed so much in the UK - I had been planning to buy just ten, one for each of our years together. As the scallops were so much smaller, I bought ten each - still a hit to the wallet but worth it for the occasion :)

Ingredients

• One large fennel, preferably with lots of green frondy bits
• One large, ripe orange
• 1 tsp grain mustard
• 100g long pasta, like fettuccine
• very good olive oil
• 20 small or 10 large scallops
• four cloves of garlic
• 25g butter
• 1 tbsp honey
• a handful of basil leaves

Cut all the nice dark green frondy bits from the fennel and reserve. Cut off the tough stalks where they meet the bulb, and remove any really tough external layers. Wash the remaining parts, and then finely shave into a salad bowl. Save the tough heart, stalks and external layers for another meal.

Place the orange on a chopping board and cut off the top and bottom so that it is flat on each end. Place the bottom flat end on the board and, using a very sharp knife, cut the peel from the orange, following the curve around to the bottom. When you have worked your way all around the orange, turn it over and cut the last bits of pith from the bottom. Hold the orange in the palm of your hand, over the salad bowl. Slice as close as you can along the skin of each segment, letting each one drop into the salad bowl, working your way around the orange. When you have removed all of the juicy segments, squeeze the pithy core out over the salad, then discard. Stir through the mustard then chill while you prepare the scallops.

Set the pasta to cook according to its packet instructions. Finely slice the garlic into slivers. Heat the butter and a tbsp of olive oil in a large frying pan, until the butter begins to colour and froth. Add the scallops and sear on one side, then turn and add the garlic. Fry until the garlic is golden and the scallops are done, then turn off the heat and tear in the basil leaves, and stir in the honey. Serve the pasta and salad onto the plate, and top the former with the scallops and butter sauce, and the latter with a drizzle of olive oil.

Pasta with Mushroom Sauce

Only a small amount of
mushrooms...

After abandoning all domestic responsibility and gliding all weekend, I had to make the best of whatever shopping the cute one had done on Saturday. And it turns out that if you don't want a 2 kg bag of mushrooms in your fridge... you have to do the shopping yourself ;)

There's no way to make a heap of
fried mushrooms look attractive.

So I needed to use up a lot of wilting mushrooms... and pretty quickly, before my evening telecon. I found a recipe online which suggested frying mushrooms and then adding yoghurt to make a creamy sauce for pasta. Mine completely separated within seconds, even though I didn't heat it at all, so I had to take the fried mushrooms out, and reduce down a huge amount of extra liquid.  Another lesson learned: if you want a creamy mushroom sauce, you have to use cream.

Pasta Carbonara

Amazing. After a whole year blogging, I still haven't covered a recipe that I have always fallen back on when I can't think of anything else to eat. It's brilliant if you've been doing a bit of exercise, as it's basically a huge plate of carbs and protein, and it's also handy if you are running low on fresh vegetables, as traditionally it has none whatsoever! I also think of it as 'breakfast pasta', because of the eggs and bacon.

Ingredients

• a hand's grip of straight pasta, like spaghetti or fettuccine
• 6 rashers of streaky bacon, or more if you like
• 3 eggs
• 100g of parmesan, finely grated
• a small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
• a few tbsp crème fraiche

Take enough straight pasta out of the packet that you are holding it all in one hand, like a staff, with your thumb and fingers just meeting. This should be enough for two people. (Smaller people have smaller hands so need less pasta!) Drop it into a pan of salted boiling water and cook until a minute before the packet instructions say.

Grill or fry the bacon until crispy, then chop into small slivers. Break the eggs into a bowl and fork through a little, then season with pepper. When the pasta is done, drain it and return it to the pan over a low heat, adding in the eggs, bacon and half the parmesan. Stir occasionally until the eggs are cooked, scraping the bottom of the pan to get the good scruddly bits combined. Turn off the heat, add half of the parsley and the creme fraiche, stir through and serve, topped with the remaining parsley, parmesan and seasoned with black pepper.

Gnocchi, Asparagus, Tomatoes, Ricotta, and Pine Nuts

This meal needs a name! I call it... asparagus-fallback pasta! I make this all the time, just varying things a little each time. Tonight we use sun-dried instead of cherry tomatoes, gnocchi instead of fusilli, ricotta instead of creme fraiche, and top the lovely pasta-asparagus-loveliness with pine nuts and parmesan, and a good grating of black pepper. Just so simple, perfect for a quick meal after work. And ready almost as quickly as setting up Game of Thrones on the projector :)

Asparagus, Bean and Peanut Pasta

At the weekend I made a humungous batch of chicken satay for the Australian family, including my awesome satay sauce. There was a little left over at the end, and I needed a light meal to use it up. Oddly enough, I spent a few hours today going through some of the massive stock of recipes we shipped over from the UK, and found all of these ancient Sainsbury's recipe cards. Many of them were guides to creating things I could cook in my sleep nowadays, but some caught my eye, including a recipe for 'asparagus and bean strangozzi, with peanut sauce'.

Strangozzi is a kind of pasta from the Umbrian region of Italy; the name means 'priest strangler noodles', which of course I couldn't find anywhere. Not to be deterred, I substituted some linguine, added a tin of bortolli beans for bulk and protein, and used my satay sauce instead of theirs. It was surprisingly balanced and tasty - I wouldn't put together a peanut sauce specifically for this recipe, but it was a great way to use up the extra from the barbeque.

Ingredients

• enough pasta for two - really, any kind will do, but if you find strangozzi, well done you
• a small bunch of asparagus, ends snapped
• a generous handful of green beans
• a 340g tin of borlotti beans, drained, or the equivalent freshly podded and boiled
• 4-5 tbsp satay sauce

Boil the pasta in plenty of water until al dente. Slice the asparagus and green beans into long, bite-sized pieces, and steam for 4-5 minutes, until green and tasty. Drain the pasta, return to the pan, and stir in the vegetables, beans and sauce. Heat through, but don't bring up past boiling temperature or the borlotti beans will toughen. Serve!

Lasagne

Mmmm, hearty food. We made this on Tuesday night, ready to be baked on Wednesday, after we got home from swimming. Worked out well, although I wish I had an oven with a timer so that in future it could be waiting for us as we arrive! It's always worth making a big quantity of lasagne; we're limited by the fact that our kitchenware hasn't yet arrived so we only have the one Le Creuset tray. But we certainly made enough for two meals - so this serves four.

Ingredients:

• 500g good quality beef mince
• 1 white onion
• 1 red onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 sticks of celery
• 250g of white mushrooms
• 4 small cloves of garlic
• 2 340g tins of diced tomatoes
• 4 bay leaves
• a handful of fresh oregano, or 1 tsp of dried
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp butter
• 500ml milk
• 10-12 sheets of lasagne; enough for three layers in your tray (you can lay them down and test it out beforehand)
• grated cheese, to top
• salt and pepper

Dice the onions, carrots and celery, and cut the mushrooms into 1/2-cm wide slices. Fry with the beef mince for 10 minutes, until the beef has browned and the onions have softened. (For years I fried everything separately, as I was taught, and I've found that for a sauce that then goes on to cook for ages, it makes absolutely NO difference.) Crush the garlic into the mixture, then add the tomatoes and herbs. Stir well to combine, then cover and simmer for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally so as not to let it stick to the bottom.

Meanwhile, prepare a white sauce - I prefer to melt the butter in a pyrex jug in the microwave, stir in the flour, slowly add the milk, then microwave for four minutes, stopping every minute to stir well. Season the white sauce and tomato sauce to taste. Soak the lasagne sheets if they are the kind that need it.

When you're ready to assemble the lasagne, add the ingredients in layers; my favourite is: tomato, lasagne, tomato, white sauce, lasagne, tomato, lasagne, white sauce, cheese. At this point it keeps perfectly well in the fridge for a couple of days. When you're ready, bake it for 45 minutes at 200C; if adding straight from the fridge, put it in while the oven is cool and start timing from when it reaches 200C; this will allow your tray time to heat up without cracking. Serve with a green salad or some steamed veggies.

Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Asparagus

I've been helping the BBC film a short documentary about our observatory for the last couple of days, which has involved quite a lot of walking and running about outside, getting the right shots in rather variable weather. So every day when I've come home, I've just been hungry for something simple. Yesterday the lovely SO cooked one of our classic staples and today I threw together this pasta dish as it was exactly what I wanted: light and creamy, yet smoky and nourishing; best of all, fast and delicious. We topped this with paški sir from our recent trip to Croatia, but any hard, smoky cheese will do.

Ingredients:

• 300g dried pasta (we used farfalle)
• a large smoked fillet of salmon
• a large bunch of asparagus
• juice of a small lemon (or half a large)
• 4 tbsp crème fraîche
• hard smoked cheese, or Parmesan

Set the pasta boiling in a large pan of water at a rolling boil, for the duration of its packet cooking time. Flake the salmon into bite-sized pieces. Snap the asparagus and slice into bite-sized lengths. Blanch for 2-3 minutes, until bright green and just tender, then drain.

When it's done, drain the pasta, and add in the flaked salmon, asparagus pieces, lemon juice and crème fraîche, and season well with black pepper (but not salt, as the salmon will likely be quite salty). Toss well, then serve in deep bowls with the cheese grated over the top, and more for people to add later.