best broccoli. and cauliflower.

since falling in love with the best broccoli recipe back in april, i have cooked it regularly. a bit too regularly it has sometimes felt like so, this weekend, i decided to make a change. nothing major, just the addition of some cauliflower florets.

i love cauliflower, especially if it is covered with a velvety blanket of cheese sauce, but david is not keen. i think the new version of "best broc & cauli" tempted him to eat a bit more than usual but there were still leftovers. which i turned into a version of my easy broccoli and cauliflower soup.  

spaghetti with cavolo nero and pancetta

 

i’m loving the new autumnal vegetables that are appearing everywhere at the moment. one of my absolute favourites from last year was cavolo nero and i’ve been eating lots of it over the past few weeks. as well as having it as a side vegetable so something like sausages baked with fennel and cherry tomato, i’ve added it to risottos and pasta.

last year it was all about jamie oliver’s blokes sausage pasta, which i added the cavolo nero to. this year it’s pancetta that is the shining co-star with my black kale.

this was a very simple supper – while the spaghetti cooked i fried, in a little butter, some pancetta pieces, chilli flakes and garlic slices. cavolo nero leaves were stripped of their chewy central vein and shredded before being added to the pan with a glug of wine. the leaves quickly wilted down and i added a few sunblush tomatoes along with the cooked pasta. very quick, very simple and utterly delicious. the same flavours work well in a risotto.

i'me sharing this with ruth who is hosting this week's presto pasta nights!

spaghetti with crab and watercress

as i’ve mentioned before, twice, crab linguine is a regular standby supper for me – the tinned white crab meat that you can buy is very good and, with some lemon juice and zest, raw chilli and garlic plus olive oil added you end up with something very tasty. i usually add watercress to the mix too, although if you can’t get it rocket is a good alternative.

the dish above, and its matching pair for david, was made with my standard recipe (the links above are for two variations on the theme) one tin of white crab meat, juice and zest of half a lemon, one small but potent chilli from our chilli plant, a crushed clove of garlic, handful of shredded watercress and glug of olive oil. plus spaghetti as we were out of linguine. the perfect easy supper. 

i'm sharing this plate of pasta with haalo of cook (almost) anything who is hosting this month's presto pasta nights.

kentish cobnuts

i got some kentish cobnuts in my vegetable box this week - any ideas how i can use them?

the kilo of nuts has, over an hour of hard labour later, resulted in 300g of shelled nuts. i want to use some in a plum cake but am unsure whether to toast them before grinding and adding to the mix in place of ground almonds. that leaves me with c100g left though - any ideas? 

green chilli

 

chilli is something which i’ve enjoyed trying different versions of – beef and pork chilli with tomatoes and beef chilli without tomatoes (i preferred the version without but that is probably due to lots of other refinements i made with that recipe), white chilli (a much-loved and regularly-cooked vegetarian bean chilli from simon rimmer) and now, green chilli.

this jamie oliver recipe caught my eye due to the way jamie describes the dish:

“this green chilli is so delicious, simple to make and a total pleasure to eat. in england, we’re sort of brainwashed into thinking of chilli as just being chilli con carne, but this is completely different and i absolutely love it. i think it’s cleaner, braver and fresher than your average chilli.”

his description about it being “cleaner, braver and fresher” was the appealing factor – this is what i love about the white chilli.

the resulting dish wasn’t as wonderful as i’d hoped – i think it needs more herbs and i’d try to cook the peppers for less time so they retain a bit more of their flavour and bite (perhaps add them just before the tomatoes go in). i didn’t have any pork mince in so i chopped my own and i don’t think this did the dish any favours either – next time i will use mince and see it compares. the recipe does have the makings of something delicious but, if you try it, tweak things about a bit. i’ll update this post if i work out a definitive version!

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