Bacon with Red Pepper Pesto Pasta - done in a twinkling!

What a success this one proved to be!  Mind you, I don't know why I'm sounding surprised because it uses three of my favourite things - bacon, mushrooms and Asda's ricotta & red pepper pesto.  To my way of thinking, it was a winner before I even took my knife to the bacon.  However, sometimes what seems like the perfect combination of ingredients turns out to leave a little to be desired in one way or another - but happily, not so here.  Plus, of course, it has the added bonus of being simplicity itself to prepare.

Oh and as a little aside, have you noticed how often my food seems to turn out to be orange coloured? I don't try to make it that way, honest I don't, it seems as though my choice of ingredients has a marked lean towards the orange.  But then, the menfolk grumble if there's too much green on the plate, grumble again if I serve them "brown food" and would justifiably grumble at being served black food, so aside from white I guess that just leaves the red/yellow/orange palette as there's not too many blue foods out there!  So this one is following along in the tradition of being the seemingly man-friendly colour of orange. 

Now, let me recommend to you Asda's little pot of Ricotta & Red Pepper pesto.  This seemingly unassuming little jar contains one of the most delicious substances that I have used in everything from sandwiches to pasta.  Along with the rich ricotta and flavoursome red pepper, it also has a sneaky little bite from red chilli that just makes it glorious.  I would be very happy if you were all to rush out and buy some, love it and continue buying it, as that would mean it will stay around on the shelves for ever!

The pesto marries up with bacon perfectly, of course.  The celery adds a welcome freshness that prevents the dish from becoming too heavy on the palate and the addition of the small amount of sour cream helps to loosen the pesto into a sauce without impinging on the flavour at all.

I call this one a very definite win.  The empty bowls and enquiries as to whether there was any left, gave proof to that belief, too.  As a mid-week, easy, relatively cheap dinner, you can't go wrong.

BACON WITH RED PEPPER PESTO PASTA   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
350g smoked back bacon, trimmed of fat and diced
1 large onion, diced finely
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
2 sticks of celery, diced finely
black pepper
half a tsp dried oregano
200g quartered mushrooms 
190g jar red pepper & ricotta pesto
1 tbsp sour cream
200ml water
250g dried pasta shapes - tubes are good.

Method :

Heat the olive oil in a large deep sided frying pan and add the bacon.  Fry over a high heat until all the moisture has evaporated and the bacon is cooked through.

Reduce the heat to moderate and add the onion, garlic and celery, along with a pinch of black pepper and the oregano.  Fry until the onion is transparent and the celery is beginning to soften.

Add the mushrooms and continue to fry until they are beginning to soften.

Three quarters fill a large saucepan with water and add a pinch of salt.  Bring to the boil and once boiling, add the dried pasta.  Remember to give the pasta a stir every so often to ensure it's not sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Cook for 10-12 minutes, or to manufacturer's instructions.

Add the contents of the pesto jar to the bacon mix, along with 100ml of water (you can use it to rinse out the pesto jar, so as to get every last little bit!) and stir to combine.

Once the ingredients are looking mixed, stir in the sour cream.  Simmer on a very low heat until the pasta is ready.  You may need to add a little more water from time to time to keep the mixture saucy.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it well and return it to the hot saucepan.  Take the bacon mixture and decant it on top of the pasta and stir gently, but thoroughly, through.

Serve in warmed bowls with some garlic bread to accompany.

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Sausage & Mustard Spirali

Difficult to make sausage lumps look appetising - but it was sublime!

Now gather around, everyone, for this is a real, honest-to-goodness little gem of a recipe I'm about to share with you.

You know how, some days (usually middle of the week), you are looking for an easy yet completely scrumptious main course to serve to your family and you're thinking "pasta" but are fed up with tomato sauces?  Well, this is your recipe of choice.  No, honest, it absolutely is!

I was having a little click through the latest recipes that had been added to BBC Good Food's website and there was "Pasta with sausage, mustard and tarragon".  I was attracted to the idea but a little bit dubious about how the tarragon would suit the pork sausage.  However, having read through the ingredients list, everything was exactly the sort of thing we like - and I do enjoy being challenged with new combinations, so decided to give it a go.

Now I don't know about you, but I've been seriously disappointed by sausages just lately.  It seems to me that sausages have gone too far the other way now.  At one time they were disgusting in that they contained more cereal and fat than meat - they were little more than tubes of stuffing.  My old friend Mick Ford used to call them "tubes of plastic stuffed with horrid surprises".  These days, although you can still get those horrid pappy sausages, we opt for a more "Butcher's" type of sausage with a 85% or more meat content.  At one time, these were gorgeous and would burst in your mouth with a delicious juiciness that spoke of just enough fat to keep the meat content moist.  These days, however, it seems as though the fat content of a sausage has been demonised to such an extent that a supposedly "good" sausage is now a bag of meat-flavoured dry sawdust with no "juiciness" at all.  Where did the good juicy sausages that the Perishers' dog, Boot, used to pine over go?  What happened to a lovely tasty sausage that would go so well with fluffy mashed potato, onion gravy and peas?  I can't remember the last time I experienced such a sausage.  (No laughing at the back, please!).

Look at that mustardy sauce, tarragon shreds, sausage - where's my fork?

The sausages we used for this pasta dish were Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Pork & Fresh Herb - which I hadn't much enjoyed in their straight sausage incarnation.

However, when it came to using the other half of the pack as sausage meat (i.e. out of their skins and formed into sausage balls), they were perfect.

I can only put this transformation down to the fact that the sausage balls are cooked in a frying pan with olive oil - thus injecting the longed-for "juiciness" factor.  Maybe I should strip all my sausages of their skins and cook them in the frying pan!

Now dear ole hubby has a firmly held belief (and I think he has a point) that if a recipe contains something, then that thing should be able to be tasted in the end result.  Bearing this in mind, I was conscious that I needed to make sure that the tarragon could be tasted.  As such, I included half the chopped tarragon at the "adding the mustard/cream/stock" stage - and added the remainder at the last minute, as per instructions.  This allowed the tarragon to really become part of the sauce, as opposed to being almost an afterthought.

I see from the comments on the original recipe that folk have omitted the fennel seeds.  Now, to me, this is omitting a quite fundamental part of the flavour base.  Fennel has such a particular flavour, that with the two inclusions of tarragon, it completes a flavour triangle.  You have the earthy fennel seeds, the rich aniseed of the early included tarragon and the fresh greenness of the later tarragon.  I am sure the recipe would be quite different without them.

Another point that's worth mentioning, is to use the best Dijon mustard you can afford.  We have recently discovered Maille Dijon Mustard and its fabulous flavour just has to have helped in making the overall dish so gorgeous.  For gorgeous it was - and we all gave it a resounding thumbs up and resolved to have it again - soon!

16 April 2013 : Well, it wasn't soon, but I have got around to cooking this recipe again - and it turned out to be just as successful the second time around.  I currently have a nasty cold and, to be able to cook something so simple yet so satisfying and something that the family all enjoy, is fantastic.  Son and heir declared that it was "giving him a happy", eating it.  Can't argue with that.

I had forgotten how frisky the sauce got - very mustardy and definitely the sort of thing that warms the cockles of your heart.  The tarragon worked very well and was very definitely part of the sauce, this time around.

I also thought of a neat little trick for dividing up the sausages - poultry shears.  What you do is whip the skin off the sausage, then run your poultry shears under the cold tap and snip, snip, snip - cut each sausage into five equal sections.  Works perfectly - and with no mess.  If the shears start to get gummed up with sausagemeat, just run them under the tap again.  This makes serving easy, too - as two sausages equals ten meatballs.  Just keep count as you serve it up!

SAUSAGE & MUSTARD SPIRALI    (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

6 herby sausages
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced finely
1 tsp fennel seeds
a pinch of chilli flakes
1.5 tbsp Dijon mustard
200ml single cream
200ml chicken stock
250gm spirali pasta (or penne)
35g parmesan, grated
2 big tbsp fresh tarragon, chopped.


Method :


1.  Take each sausage and with a sharp knife, slit the skin along the length of the sausage, then remove the skin.  I find this so much easier than squeezing the sausagemeat out, as that always seems to leave so much in the skin - and the price sausages are, I want to use every little bit!


2.  Once you've skinned all the sausages, break each into three (or less) pieces and roll each piece into a ball (or just tidy the ends up!).


3.  Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan, then cook the sausage on a medium heat until they are crisp on the outside, golden and cooked through.


4.  Add the fennel seeds, chilli flakes and garlic and cook for 2 minutes.  Take care and reduce the temperature if necessary, so as not to let the garlic burn.


5.  Stir in the stock, cream, mustard, half the tarragon and season really well.  Simmer for as long as it takes to reduce the sauce to a double cream consistency, that will coat the back of a spoon.


6.  Cook the pasta following pack instructions (in a big pan, lots of salted boiling water, for around 9 minutes or so, usually).  Once cooked, drain well and return to the pan.  Add the sausage mixture, parmesan and the remainder of the tarragon (keeping some back to sprinkle over as you serve, if you like).  Gently stir to ensure the pasta is coated in the sauce.


7.  Serve in warmed bowls.


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Spirali al Forno (or Four cheese & bacon pasta bake)

The original inspiration for this recipe came from one which is attributed to Gino D'Acampo.  Mine isn't exactly the same as his, as his calls for thick ham and different cheeses.  However, I think the spirit of the thing was similar - and the result was really delicious.

I had booked this one in for Thursday last, when I was going to be working.  As it turned out, it got bumped along until Good Friday but it would indeed have been a very good dish to have cooked on a day when you'd been busy all day.

The usual approach I'd had with "pasta & cheese sauce" recipes in the past, has been to make a white sauce and melt the cheese into it.  Not so with this one!  Because it's a conglomeration of four cheeses, you take a pack of cream cheese and gently warm it (subsequently loosening it) through.  Mixed with a little milk, it quickly becomes a creamy cheesy sauce.  Add some gorgonzola, cheddar and ultimately, parmesan - and your dinner has become cheese-tastic without the need for any white sauce making.

The only drawback I found with this method, was that during the eating, the pasta became a little "claggy" as the cheese cooled and set.  I had served it on warmed plates - but I'm thinking that perhaps being served in a warmed bowl where it would maintain its heat better would do the trick.  Of course, then you've got the problem when serving, of keeping the crusty bit uppermost - but I'd definitely prefer that to it going claggy as it cooled!

SPIRALI AL FORNO (Four cheese & bacon pasta bake)  Serves 4

Ingredients :

500g spirali pasta (or penne)
25g butter
200g full fat cream cheese
70g gorgonzola cheese (I used closer to 100g), chopped
70g cheddar cheese (again, I used closer to 100g), grated
100ml milk
a gammon steak, diced
3 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
50g grated parmesan
salt & pepper


Method :


1.  Preheat the oven to 180deg C/gas 4.


2.  Place the gammon into a frying pan and cook until starting to brown lightly.  Reserve in a warm place.


3.  Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.  Add the pasta and cook until al dente.  Drain the pasta and place back in the saucepan.


4.  Add the gammon to the pasta.


5.  In the gammon pan, add the butter, soft cheese and heat through gently.  Add the milk gradually and use a whisk to ensure a lump-free sauce.


6.  Add the gorgonzola and cheddar and mix well with a wooden spoon until melted and creamy.  Check the seasoning (add a good quantity of pepper), add the parsley and pour over the gammon & pasta.


7.  Mix through and place into a baking dish.  Sprinkle with the grated parmesan and put into the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the top is golden and crispy.


Serve immediately.


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Chicken & Bacon Creamy Pasta : a quick classy meal

This is one everybody should like - provided you enjoy chicken, that is!

The first time I tried this recipe, son & heir was away on an extra-curricular sleepover and I had planned an entirely different meal.  However, being suddenly down to two people for dinner seemed too good an opportunity to waste on standing sitting in the kitchen cooking!  So I looked for something a whole lot less time consuming - and found this.

I don't remember why I didn't blog it at the time, probably just got swamped by other things.  Real life does have a habit of doing that from time to time - getting in the way!

This dish really couldn't be any easier.  One frying pan, one saucepan, three pasta bowls and bingo! you've got dinner.

It is very easily scaled up if you're wanting to feed more than three.  Oh and one other thing - it is perfectly okay to use plain old peas, instead of the petit pois.  We can't all have a bag of petit pois in the freezer, just waiting for us to need them.

CHICKEN & BACON CREAMY PASTA  (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1-2 tbsp olive oil
100g smoked lardons or 3-4 rashers of smoked bacon, diced
1 red onion, chopped finely
2 garlic clove, chopped finely
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced across the grain
0.25 tsp ground black pepper
pinch of sea salt
6 medium mushrooms, sliced
180ml Chardonnay white wine
0.5 tsp dried tarragon
0.5 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1.5 tsp low salt vegetable stock powder or 1 low salt vegetable stock cube
100g frozen petits pois
5 tbsp double cream
200g pasta tubes - penne or spirali are good
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley for garnish.

Method :

Fill a large saucepan with water, add a little salt and set it to boil.

Heat the oil in a deep non-stick frying pan and add the bacon.  Fry over a high heat until all the water has burned off and the bacon is beginning to caramelise.  Add the onion and garlic and continue cooking, stirring often, until the onion is transparent and softened. Remove everything from the pan to a bowl and set aside to keep warm.

If necessary, add a little more olive oil and, once that is heated, add the chicken breast slices and season lightly with a little sea salt & the ground black pepper.  Leave to cook over a high heat for 5 minutes or so until the chicken pieces are beginning to take on a golden colour, then turn and cook again, until the chicken has largely turned opaque.

Add the mushroom slices to the pan and stir to combine.  Cook on for a few minutes, until the mushrooms are beginning to soften slightly.  Add the onion/bacon/garlic mixture back into the pan and stir through.

Next, add the wine and let it bubble over a high heat until it has reduced by half.   Season to taste and stir well.

The water in your large pan should have boiled by now, so add the dry pasta and stir. Cook to the manufacturer's recommendation - around 10-12 minutes, ordinarily.

While the pasta cooks, add the tarragon, Worcestershire sauce and stock powder or stock cube to the chicken and stir to combine.  Reduce the heat to moderate and allow the contents of the pan to come to a lively simmer.

Add the petit pois and cream and stir through.  The rest is simply personal taste.  I like my sauce to have reduced quite considerably as that causes the flavour to intensify.  If you like your sauce to be wetter, then stop the cooking process when you like.  You can also add a little wetted cornflour to thicken the sauce, if you prefer a sauce with a thicker consistency.  The choice is yours.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it thoroughly and return to the hot pan.  Add the chicken mixture and stir through.  Serve straight away in warm bowls with a sprinkle of fresh parsley.

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