Spaghetti with Pea Pesto Recipe

Check out this lovely pea pesto mixed into spaghetti - just like classic pesto, only more summery!! I found this recipe in the latest edition of Waitrose Kitchen (July 2013), a really nice food magazine - it made me hungry just reading it, and I plan to try a few more of the recipes from it in the coming weeks.

I'm not the biggest pea lover, but this turned out to have a nice flavour - not too strongly pea-flavoured! The only thing I would say about this pesto is that it does have quite a strong garlic flavour - great for me as I love garlic, but if you are not so keen you could miss out one of the cloves.

According to the Waitrose Kitchen magazine, one portion is a reasonable 518 calories (if you're counting!) and of course all those peas help towards you getting your 5 a day - something I've recently been aiming to do every day.

Recipe - Pasta with Pea Pesto

Serves 4

Ingredients:

350g dried spaghetti

400g frozen garden peas

3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

50g parmesan, roughly chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

The juice of 1 lemon

25g basil leaves

Method:

1) Cook the spaghetti according the packet instructions. Once cooked, drain the pasta but reserve a cupful of the cooking water.

2) Whilst the pasta cooks cook the peas in a saucepan of boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and leave to cool.

3) In a food processor (I used my Kenwood Mini Chopper – see here) blend together the garlic cloves, parmesan, 2 tbsp of the olive oil, the juice of half a lemon and a ¾ of the basil leaves to form a thick paste. Add the peas and blitz again until just combined. Season the mixture.

4) Put the spaghetti back into a saucepan with 6 tbsp of the reserved cooking water, the pea pesto mixture, the remaining oil and the juice of the other half of the lemon. Serve scattered with a few torn basil leaves and some grated parmesan. 

Lisa x

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Tomato Soup with Orzo (Recipe from June 2013 Jamie Magazine)

I think I'm currently going a bit Jamie crazy! I do love most of the recipes of his that I've tried - and after writing about the June 2013 Jamie Magazine on Friday I was inspired to have a go at one of the recipes over the weekend. I decided to try to make 'Tomato Soup with Orzo' (which appears on pg 119) as it uses storecupboard ingredients which I already owned. Plus, I had a box or orzo which has been sat in my cupboard unused for months (probably a year or so actually!) and I didn't really know what to do with it until now. It's basically pasta that looks like rice....

Recipe - Tomato Soup with Orzo
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp dried mint
1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
750ml chickent or vegetable stock (I used chicken)

100g orzo pasta

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a big saucepan and add the onion, garlic, mint and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook over a medium high heat until the onions soften.
2. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for about 10 minutes. Use a stick blender to blitz the soup until smooth.
3. Add the stock and the orzo and cook for 8-10 minutes, until the orzo is tender.
4. Serve! I added a couple of roughly torn fresh basil leaves too on serving, just because I love the tomato/basil combo.

A quick and easy recipe to make a filling and tasty soup!

Lisa x

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Mid-Week Family Meal Inspiration - Ham, Cheese and Spinach Pasta Bake Recipe

I'm currently living back in my parents house (hopefully not for much longer!) and whilst we have a casual rota for making dinner during the week, I find myself cooking many of our family meals. I don't mind this though - I have the time at the moment, as well as the passion for cooking! One of the things I love about living back at my family home is being able to flick through all my mum's cookbooks and finding new recipes. Yesterday I was looking through her Good Housekeeping cookbook (available on Amazon marketplace here) and found a recipe for a pasta bake that looked tasty, so thought I would give it a go for our mid-week meal.

I adapted the original recipe slightly by using a little less cream and mustard powder, and a little more spinach to make it healthier (I absolutely adore spinach). It was lovely, so I will share my adapted version with you...

Recipe - Ham, Cheese and Spinach Pasta Bake
(Adapted from Good Housekeeping's 'Penne, Cheese and Ham Bake')
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

- 50g butter
- 25g plain flour
- 1 tsp mustard powder (the original recipe calls for 1 tbsp, but i'm not a massive fan of strong mustard flavour)
- 450ml milk
- 125g grated cheddar cheese
- 50ml double cream
- 120g pack of sliced ham, chopped (I used Sainsbury's Honey Roast Wiltshire Cured Ham)
- Pinch a nutmeg 
- Salt and pepper
- 350g dried pasta (I used fusilli pasta twists)
- 200g frozen spinach
- 25g parmesan, grated


Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°c.

2. Melt the butter in a pan, then stir in the flour until combined.

3. Add the mustard powder and milk and stir until smooth. Let the sauce come to the boil, stirring often with a whisk – let the mixture simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the cheddar and stir until all the cheese has melted. Add the cream and ham and season the mixture with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

4. Cook the pasta according to the package instructions and drain thoroughly went cooked.

5. Whilst the pasta cooks place the frozen spinach in a bowl and pour over some hot water until it has thawed. Drain and press out any excess water.

6. Mix together the pasta, sauce and spinach and pour into a big ovenproof dish. Grate parmesan over the top if desired and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. 

Pre-baking...

The tasty end result...

Lisa x

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