Monday's pasta and cheese

There's no picture of our Italian dinner,
but here we are in Rome.

Matt, my husband, had been mentioning on and off about recreating a pasta dish we had in Rome last year: cacio e pepe. This translates as cheese and pepper and was on offer in lots of the restaurants around where we were staying. A quick internet search (we made use of the free Wi-Fi®* in our apartment) revealed that it literally consisted of loads of grated cheese and freshly ground black pepper. This was something I wasn't keen on spending my touristical Euros on in a restaurant when we could quite easily rustle it up ourselves – especially as the apartment also came with black pepper. So we bought some spaghetti and the suggested two types of cheese (pecorino and grana padano if memory serves me correctly). There was a lot of cheese, but we like cheese. And we had ourselves a very simple and delicious dinner.

But we are not on holiday and thus such a super cheesy dinner was out of the question when normal diet rules apply. But I had been thinking about macaroni cheese a bit recently. I haven't had macaroni cheese for years. Rather than a pure macaroni cheese (which is probably on the too cheesy end of the spectrum) I decided to incorporate some spinach which wasn't going to keep much longer. And rather than macaroni I actually used whole wheat pasta bows. So it wasn't really going to be much of a macaroni at all.

I started off by making a white sauce in one pan and sweating a chopped red onion in another. The onion was easy – I have a lot of practice. The white sauce on the other hand might be a problem, my success rate is variable. I was feeling kind of optimistic because I had seen a TV cook make one the other day so had a new trick up my sleeve. I started off with a big dollop of butter (maybe I would have more success if I weighed it), melted this and then added about the same volume of plain flour. As I have deduced I cooked this for quite a while to avoid raw flour taste in the sauce – I think it is now called a roux. Once I thought the roux had cooked for long enough I added some milk – here's the new trick: the TV cook had used boiling milk. Now to me the concept of boiling milk is very worrying (visions of extreme mess in the microwave / all over the hob) but I was prepared to heat it up a bit. So I blasted my first cup of milk for 30 seconds on high to make it a bit hot. On adding this to my roux the whole lot thickened immediately. None of the tedious whisking for ages that I'm used to. I did the same with a second and third cup of milk and ended up with what looked like a rather nice white sauce.

But I wasn't after a nice white sauce, I was after cheesy spinach goodness. The cheese went in first – about half a standard size block of strong cheddar (or low(er) fat imitation in this instance), along with some ground nutmeg and black pepper. And then I tipped in my now sweated onion and the spinach. I used the whole bag of spinach which might at first seem a lot (it was 3+ colanders full) but it cooks down to a fraction of this volume. While that cooked a little bit I boiled the pasta (to save on washing up I used the same pan as for the onion).

 

It was all happening surprisingly quickly now. I tipped the cooked pasta into an oven-proof dish and poured over the spinach / cheese sauce and mixed it all up. That would probably have been enough, but for a few extra vitamins I added some cherry tomatoes, for a bit of extra texture I sprinkled over some breadcrumbs, and then just because I grated over a bit of parmesan.

 

It went into the oven at 180ºC and baked for about 15 minutes. The outcome was just as delicious as the cacio e pepe. Maybe not quite as simple, but definitely more nutritious. And it made an excellent reheat Tuesday lunch.

 

*Matt is happy to provide an explanation of why this is a registered trademark.

Wednesday's gratin

We had ended up with another high veg situation in the fridge. This included:

• Courgettes – bargain in the shop the other day.
• Mushrooms – seemed like a good idea at the time but I haven't had a chance to use them yet and they were almost getting to that horrible slimy stage.
• Spinach – I have no recollection of acquiring this. On questioning Matt said he picked this up some time ago when I was away and he didn't think there was enough green stuff in the house. On further questioning he didn't have any particular plan for it.
• Broccoli – because broccoli is really good.

We were talking about what we might have for tea whilst in the changing rooms at the swimming pool. But in terms of other useful ingredients we were somewhat depleted. When I say other useful ingredients I mean cheese – the last 60g having gone into some scones at the weekend. We did have some branded cheese triangles but these have limited culinary application. I suggested that with a bit of cheese I could do anything. Fortunately Matt had to take a trip out to the sorting office so was able to tag on a trip to the shop.

In the meantime I got on with cutting up the courgettes. I still had no idea what I was going to cook. A pasta dish would have been the obvious choice but I didn't really fancy pasta.

I put the courgettes in a large oven proof dish (I actually chopped up more courgette than needed to line the bottom of the dish – the rest will keep in the fridge for another day).

And then in a moment of inspiration decided to cook some sort of gratin. This not only provided the potential to use a lot of the vegetables but also:

• sour cream – purchased as a bargain at the same time as the mushrooms and surely not going to last in a healthy manner much longer
• bread crumbs – finally a use for the vast quantity we have in the freezer following the purchase some months ago of some extremely cut price sliced bread.

The question mark remaining over the meal now was protein. It would be quite acceptable to have some fish fingers or veggie sausages on the side but I didn't really fancy that. I decided to integrate some butter beans into the gratin. We have lots of tins of beans and pulses in our cupboards, most commonly they go in casseroles or curries and I was rather excited about using them for something different.

I narrowly avoided making a significant omission. Fortunately Matt called to ask if we needed onions. We didn't, but this did remind me to chop an onion up and put that in. I used a red onion, which I have subsequently learnt contain more quercetin than other types of onion (although how scientific this fact is I'm not sure and what the benefit of quercetin is I'm not sure). And for good measure I added some cloves of garlic too.

By the time I had layered up all the veggies (and beans and sour cream, intermittently adorned with black pepper and herbs from the new herb grinder that Matt's mum had brought us back from her holiday), Matt returned with the cheese. I grated a generous amount and mixed it up with the bread crumbs (and some more black pepper) and then poured this over the top of everything else.

I had no idea what temperature to cook this at, so I went for the default of 180ºC. I had no idea how long it would take, but long enough at least that I could hang up pretty much our whole household's worth of underwear and socks. I decided it was done after about an hour when it the top was starting to look a bit crispy (I love crispy things) and then put the broccoli on (I decided that would be better as a side than in the main dish).

I was a bit worried that it would be a bit soggy (I had poured over just a little bit of hot stock before it went in the oven) so got bowls out just in case. But it held together remarkably well. It tasted great, although I'm not sure what the sour cream added, but then I don't know what it would have been like without the sour cream. Maybe it would even have benefited from more sour cream. I had cooked vastly more than was needed to feed the two of us – probably more like enough for 6. So we both had some for lunch today (leaving it in a lunch box in a hot car is actually a rather effective (and free) re-heating method) and there's some more for picnic tomorrow.

Monday's risky pasta

As I had a band rehearsal to get to, a late finish at work meant that my preference for tea was reheat soup. Matt, my husband had other ideas and made it quite clear that he wanted pasta. I was up to the challenge. 

Since it had been such a glorious weekend, we were particularly devoid of fresh ingredients - grocery shopping is not, in my opinion, an appropriate activity in such fine climes. But I was optimistic that I could concoct something from the available ingredients: 

• some cherry tomatoes (brought for a picnic but then forgotten in favour of naughtier things) 
• a bag of baby spinach (not quite a fortnight past its use by date) 
• a bit of blue cheese (when I came to it a bit less than I had anticipated - I think that someone might have had some for lunch). 

I would make a variation on one of my favourite student pasta sauces of broccoli, Stilton and lemon. 

I began by frying an onion. Even this was the last useable onion in the house - I have to return one to the shop as it was gone off in that way that onions do but that you can't tell until you start chopping. Onion doesn't feature in the original student recipe but it seemed like a sensible thing to do tonight. When this was nice and soft I added the spinach. Based on its use by date this was in remarkably good condition, you have to be a bit suspicious about what they do to it to make it last so long. Hopefully I'll be able to start using spinach from our hanging basket soon, or maybe even chard if I'm feeling fancy. At the same time I added a dozen or so cherry tomatoes. 

Whilst the veggies were cooking I set about the pasta. We have a large choice of different pastas and today I opted for the "fun" pasta from my favourite garden centre. This is because I was not certain of the success of the sauce and, should it be less than delicious, fun pasta might at least distract. When the veggies looked like they were done (spinach a tiny proportion of its original volume and cherry tomatoes exploded) I stirred in the blue cheese. This didn't look like quite enough dairy so I augmented it with a dollop of cream cheese. Finished off with a good grind of black pepper. Unfortunately I forgot that you shouldn't pick up the pepper mill from the top and as well as the good grind I ended up with peppercorns scattered around the hob. 

It culminated in one of those happy coincidences where the pasta and the sauce are ready at just the same time. Furthermore, it was one of those happy coincidences where the things that you throw together from the fridge actually end up tasting pretty good.

And I don't think that it was just because we were distracted by the fun pasta. (I did identify a star, an apple and a bow shape, but these are nothing in comparison to the sphinx that Matt found). 

I'd been a bit excessive with the fun pasta, so one of us will be having even more fun tomorrow lunchtime.

Thursday's slack lasagne

I’ve taken to posting pics of my culinary creations on the internet and one of my friends suggested that I write a cookery blog as I’m "a domestic goddess".

Well, if you could see the state of our kitchen (or indeed any other room in our house) that goddess bit falls down. But I’ve been thinking about writing something for a while (I have a job that doesn’t permit for much creative expression!) so here goes….

I think that you’re supposed to come up with an amusing name for your blog but that eludes me at the mo, so for now it will be called "slack lasagne" after this first entry. I suppose the “theme” will be loosely around my exploits in the kitchen but this is liable to tangentalise into other topics, as is my habit.

I am yet to develop the advanced skill of planning meals in advance thus much of my cooking is based on what we happen to have in the cupboards and fridge, and this was just one of those occasions. And after my husband Matt announced to me this morning that he had found some lasagne sheets next to his porridge there was no other option in my mind.

So I spent my day off buying tea cups and glasses in charity shops, knitting a swan-a-swimming and doing some swimming myself (before I was interrupted by the lifeguard requesting that I get out because someone had been sick in the pool – which put pay to my plan of 100 lengths today!). And before you know it’s time to make dinner.

I had stopped on my way back from the pool to pick up some crème fraiche which quite often comes to the rescue in my cooking but that was the extent of my planning. I have a box full of recipes which I’ve pulled out of magazines over the last 5 years or so, most of which I will probably never make but which I feel compelled to sift through every time I’m making something new. Just in case there’s a good recipe. There wasn’t. So then I browse through the indexes of my recipe books for the keywords.

Today these were spinach and / or mushroom and I was led to “spinach lasagne”. Checking the list of ingredients I was pleasantly surprised to see that mushrooms also featured – albeit the “wild” variety rather than my budget supermarket box. I didn’t have any cheshire cheese but there’s been half a packet of feta sat in the fridge for the last couple of weeks and some pecorino, which would join some cheddar in a happy trio of cheese and recipe adulteration. I didn’t have the stated amount of spinach (who seriously ever keeps more than 1 bag at a time?) but an excess of mushrooms would surely make up for this along with a generous quantity of white onions (instead of the suggested tiny amount of spring onions which I always find a bit awkward anyway). Sadly the recipe didn’t call for crème fraiche but I found half a pot in the fridge which needed using up so that went into the white sauce. The new pot will be put to use another day.

And 2 hours later, after minimal adherence to the original recipe and using more utensils than I generally like to, we tucked in to a delicious cheesy dinner. It took less than 10 minutes for us each to polish off a portion. Fortunately there’s seconds for tomorrow.

Slack lasagne

•  Lasagne sheets
• About 750g of vegetabley stuff all cooked up - today this was onions, garlic, spinach and mushrooms mixed up with feta and cheddar and a bit of nutmeg
• White / cheese sauce made with 600ml milk - today this had crème fraiche and pecorino in it

In a large oven proof dish put half of the veg stuff, then a layer of lasagne sheets, then half of the white sauce, then a layer of lasagne sheets, then the rest of the veg stuff, another layer of lasagne sheets, then the rest of the white sauce. Finish with a generous sprinkling of cheese. Bake at about 200°C for about half an hour (until the cheese on top is cooked up nicely).