Spinach and White Wine Pasta!

I think 2 and a half months since my last recipe'll suffice...I guess my cooking has got less adventurous recently. I actually rote this a month or so ago, not long after I'd arrived in spain, but it's still damn tasty. On with the show...

Spinach and White Wine Pasta!

Hola from the lovely climes of the Amposta, here in the south of Catalonia in Spain! I know it's been a bit quiet recently, such has been my settling-in process and all – I haven't really made anything worth ringing home about for a while, but ironically I came up with the following with very little food left and no supermarket open anywhere nearby – such is the nature of the bank holiday in Spain; the country effectively stops for the day.

But my first Spanish (not particularly Spanish in nature, simply the first one here!) experiment ended up being really delicious, tangy and full of flavour with a minimum of ingredients. I know a lot of my recipes thus far have been pasta-based, but I cook with it very regularly because its a staple. I branch out occasionally, honest!

Ingredients (for one)

• 75-100g pasta (per person)
• Spinach leaves
• 100ml white wine
• 50-60g plain yoghurt
• Handful of sunflower seeds
• Grated cheese – something tangy like mozzarella – to taste

It's Masterchef time... (aka ready to multi-task?)

1. Pour the wine into a frying-pan on a moderately high heat.
2. Cook the spinach – depending on the stuff you have in the kitchen, there are several ayto do this.
   1. You can put a small amount of ater in a saucepan and put a steamer over the top – make sure the tare doesn’t come over the holes in the bottom of the steamer. Then, team the spinach by putting a high heat under the pan until it boil, then plonk the spinach in the steamer and let it wilt don – it ill lose a lot of physical mass so don't be afraid to put plenty in. Then, hen sufficiently wilted, take it off the heat and put to one side.
   2. Alternatively, put a small amount of ater in a frying-pan with a lid, put it on a high heat, then chuck in the spinach and place the lid on the pan. Hen sufficiently wilted, drain and put to one side. Both methods yield the same results, but the first is better because it means the spinach won’t get too waterlogged.
3. The wine should be simmering away nicely, so no add the yoghurt and cheese and stir through until completely mixed.
4. Cook the pasta in the meantime.
5. Finally, add the spinach and sunflower seeds to the sauce. Make sure the sauce has reduced don plenty so it's not too liquidy. If you need to do some quick reduction, put the tiniest sprinkle of veggie gravy granules in to thicken it ever-so-slightly – too much and it'll be sludge, so be careful!
6. Then, serve! You can either mix the pasta and sauce, or serve the sauce over the top of the pasta – however you prefer.

And that, mis amigos, is all there is to it. Quick, easy and pretty good if I say so myself. As a final note, if you notice any glaring grammatical errors, here's my explanation;

1. My computer is slowly dying. A couple of big hissy fits recently, and no bits of my keyboard don't work. Mainly the s and w keys. A mix of spell-check and 'copy-paste the letters where necessary' have got me through, but I'm positive there are a few glaring errors left.
   

Apple, Walnut and Blue Cheese Pasta!

A double bill today! Whoop! (Read: slight backlog that I'm only just dealing with...) But this is a really tasty sauce, absolutely chock-full of flavour, mixing strong cheesy flavours with the sweeter tang of apple.

I'd got a bit bored of making pasta sauces that were centred around using tomato (oh, irony, serving with a tomato...) and so I decided to try and think outside the box and made something with apples instead. It worked really well, and can be varied depending on the kind of pasta etc that you've got. I used Spinach and Ricotta tortellini with strong cheese in the sauce, as that kind of pasta is a bit more neutral-tasting, but equally you could leave out the cheese from the sauce and use a stronger-tasting filled pasta, such as a Walnut and Gorgonzola variety from Sainsbury's, which is delicious. Equally, gorgonzola or a similar strong cheese would work in place of the blue cheese I used in the sauce.

Ingredients (for 3);

• 2 packs Spinach & Ricotta tortellini
• 200ml cider
• 3 tablespoons creme fraiche
• 2 Royal Gala apples
• 50g walnuts
• Pinch powdered ginger
• Pinch powdered cinnamon
• 50g blue cheese
• Olive oil

Alright folks...let's cook;

1. Chop the apples into relatively small chunks. Place in a bowl of water to prevent brownage.
2. Heat the olive oil in a high-sided frying pan, and add the apple when hot.
3. Add the ginger/cinnamon to the apples, and fry them off for a couple of minutes.
4. Pour the cider in with the apples.
5. Take the pan off the heat, then add the creme fraiche. Stir it all through, before putting back on the hob. 
6. Once that comes up to simmering point, turn the heat down a little and leave it to reduce for a bit. 
7. Now for the anger management bit - get your walnuts, put them in a bag, do it up tight and hit them with a rolling pin. You don't want massive great bits of walnut in the sauce, better to break them up a bit.
8. Meanwhile, bring a saucepan full of salted water up to the boil and chuck in the pasta. This should only take about 5 minutes if you're using filled pasta. 
9. While the pasta's cooking, crumble the cheese into the sauce and stir it through until it's melted in to make a deliciously cheesy mess. Add your pulverised walnuts at the same time.
10. Once the pasta's done, drain it, then mix everything together, sauce and all. Then it's just a case of nomming down.

Pure Green Stir-Fry!

In my mortal crockery, sits a stir-fry of...purest green! (Blackadder anyone? Anyway) I was in the mood for something 1. quick and 2. really, really, healthy the other day. It was because I had eaten nought but crap for a few days, being ill with a cold man flu. So, I grabbed a few things from the shops to compliment some stuff we'd already got at home, and lo, after 20 minutes from starting the prep to plating, a stir-fry of absolutely pure green. It felt healthy to look at. Aside from being quick, it was truly bursting with flavour and just delicious, if I do say so myself.

Ingredients (for 2 people);

• 4 spring onions
• 1 courgette
• 1 medium green pepper
• 1 bag of pea shoots
• 3 tablespoons Thai green curry paste
• 100ml coconut milk
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely chopped
• Handful of cashew nuts, unsalted.
• Noodles
• Sesame seeds
• Sesame oil

Let the games begin;

1. Heat the sesame oil in a wok/high-sided frying pan. Finely chop the spring onions, and when the oil's hot, throw the spring onions and the ginger in.
2. Chop the pepper up into decent sized chunks and the courgette into sticks, and for the moment, put to one side.
3. Put the sesame seeds under the grill to toast them. Keep checking on them until they're browned, at which point take them out!
4. Put the pepper, courgette, curry paste and coconut milk in the wok/pan with the onions and ginger, and while keeping on a high heat, keep the whole lot moving. 
5. Add the lime juice to the mix, stirring it well the while time. If the mixture is still a bit liquidy at this point, don't worry - on a high heat, provided you keep stirring it, it'll reduce down quickly.
6. In a separate frying pan, heat some more sesame oil, and when hot, add the noodles and sesame seeds. These should only take a couple of minutes to cook. 
7. Right before service, add the cashews and pea shoots to the green mix, and stir them through only long enough to heat them.
8. Serve it up! Noodles on the base, then the stir-fry on top. Enjoy (and have a drink handy, it was quite hot)!

Butternut Squash Cannelloni!

Hello, and welcome to a new episode of AVD, live from The Sticks in rural Norfolk. LOL. Well, I am out in rural Norfolk, but it's lovely. Our current kitchen, while in line for a re-vamp is...shall I say retro? It's not in possession of the greatest cooker known to humankind, but it does a job for now, and it still makes things hot so can we ask too much more? Without any further ado, I present my most recent creation, butternut squash cannelloni!

Presentation, admittedly a but scrappy, does not affect the fact that this was damn tasty. It's straightforward, looks and sounds good, just give yourself plenty of prep time to cook the squash first.

Ingredients;
Cannelloni & Filling

• Cannelloni tubes - allow 3-4 per person
• 1 butternut squash
• Handful of pine nuts
• Grated cheddar cheese 
• Pinch (and really not much) powdered nutmeg

Sauce

• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons green pesto*
• Grated cheese to garnish

The Doings;

1. Now, there are two ways to do the squash, and you can do steps 3-5 while it's cooking. Whatever you do though, preheat the oven to about 180-200 degrees/Gas mark 6 first;
   1: Peel the squash (you'll want to use a sharp knife, skin's a bit tough for a peeler), chop it into smallish chunks, then bung it in a pan of boiling water and leave it for 15-20 minutes until it's really soft OR
   2: . Slice the squash in half lengthways (top to bottom), scoop out the seeds (doesn't matter about the stringy bits too much), cut a criss-cross pattern into the flesh of the squash and then stick it in said pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. 
2. Either method will leave you with some easily mashable squash, which is what you need to do: Mash. If you used method 1 to cook it, drain the water, then use a fork or a masher to do the dirty work - method 2, scoop it out of the skin and do the same thing.
3. Put the pine nuts under a medium grill until they are lightly toasted. 
4. Get your cannelloni tubes and place them in an ideally oblong (for logistical ease, though anything will do) shallow dish.
5. Put the tinned tomatoes and pesto in a mixing bowl and mix them together - it should be a relatively liquid-y mixture. 
6. Now for the slightly tricky part! Whack the mashed squash in a mixing bowl along with the pine nuts, nutmeg and grated cheddar, give it a good ol' stir through, then spoon it into the cannelloni.
7. The best way to do so, through trial and error, is to stand the tubes on one end and spoon it in the top. Don't lift it up though...it'll just fall out. It happened several times.
8. Get the tubes all rearranged in the dish once filled, pour the sauce over so it's fully covering the pasta, put some tin foil over the top of the dish and put it in the oven.
9. After about 15 minutes, take the dish out, remove the foil, sprinkle some cheese on top then stick it back in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Then, serve and enjoy!

I'd say to serve it with salad or something - in the above picture, we've done a medley of raw veg: broccoli, baby corns, cauliflower and green pepper. 

*Technically, most green pesto that you get in shops in fact isn't vegetarian, because it contains grana padano cheese - it uses rennet, sourced from animal innards, as a stabiliser. So if you're (unlike me) super-veggie, then you can either buy from health food stores or make your own! Just Google it. 

I have no food left.

Some of you may know, through knowing me or reading my other blog, that I'm moving next week. So, all the food in our house is dwindling...which means nothing cool. Soon, soon. We have got a KitchenAid blender/smoothie maker, so I might supplement posts with smoothies and the like.

Mushroom, Courgette & Kidney Bean Risotto!

Back home, and into a kitchen that contains FOOD. It's a joy, and I offered to cook without really knowing what I was going to cook. Eventually it turned into a very successful and tasty risotto (if I do say so myself). Despite only being the second risotto I've ever made, I didn't follow any recipe (or even use risotto rice), and its actually quite straightforward - it just takes a while, because you have to simmer it for a bit. Anywho, enjoyez!

Serves: 4 (cooking for the whole famalam this time!)
Time: 60-75 minutes
Ingredients:

• 200g brown rice
• Medium onion
• Clove of garlic
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• Splash of dry Martini
• 1 pint vegetable stock*
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3-4 closed cup mushrooms
• 1 courgette
• 1 tin kidney beans, drained
• Grated cheese
• Salad leaves (just get a bag of pre-prepared leaves, way easier)
• 1 lemon
• Salt/pepper

Crafting your risotto:

1. Dice the onion and garlic. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and fry the onion/garlic for a couple of minutes until softened.
2. Add the rice to the pan and stir it all together, coating the rice. 
3. Add the stock, the parsley/oregano and the splash of Martini (if you have any) - don't add too much, it can be an overpowering flavour. Bring the whole mixture up to the boil, then turn the heat right down and leave it to simmer for about 45 minutes.
4. While the rice mixture is simmering away, slice up your vegetables into relatively small pieces. Put them to one side for now. You've probably got some time to kill now, so just make sure everything's ready - kidney beans drained, cheese grated, salad ready, and slice up the lemon, allowing half a slice per serving (see the pic).
5. You'll know the rice mixture is done when the liquid has reduced right down, so that it's more of a creamy coating rather than a full-blown sauce. At this point, throw in the vegetables and beans and stir it all through. Add the cheese right before you serve, mix it in, whack it on the plate/in the bowl (again, see pic) and serve with the salad. 
6. A spot of salt and pepper on top of the risotto, as well as a drizzle of lemon juice, will give this the perfect spot of flavour. 

If you enjoyed reading this, please share it around your social medias, and if you've gone as far as attempting it, let me know how it went! x

*I've found the easiest thing to make this up is using Knorr veggie stock pots - basically little jelly pots that you just add hot water to, then mix it up until its dissolved. Voila. But as if Marco Pierre White actually uses them in his restaurants...

It's Fry-day, Fry-day, gotta get down on Fry-day.

I'm so sorry about that title. My mind is full of kitchen-based puns (look at my Twitter if you really want to know @tomcastle12) and...no excuses for RB. 


I've been working some stupid hours in the last week, which as a lazy student means I have been: knackered and unable to conjure up anything more complex than things on toast. 


I'm going home today, and so I shall therefore be privy to a kitchen that actually contains THINGS! Makes a change. So I'll get cooking again soon x