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My kitchen diary
My Christmas present to myself this year was Nigel Slater’s cookbook, The Kitchen Diaries. I love Slater’s approach - simple, fresh ingredients, regular local shopping, and where possible, growing your own.
Tonight I made basil and bocconcini stuffed beef tomatoes, with toasted bread and olive tapenade. I would have photographed it but I forgot and ate it up so quickly there was nothing left to snap!
New Year’s Eve I made a delicious herb and barley broth, threw in the last of the dark meat leftovers from Christmas and served it with some really simple soft turkish bread.
There’s lots of leftovers so lunch is sorted, and with the insides of the tomato I made up some Spanish rice, which is a great accompaniment for mains this week.
Every now and then I’ll post my own kitchen diary posts here, reflecting my journey towards buying more local, cooking from fresh, feeding the family more healthily, and who knows, maybe even growing my own!
As delicious as they are, there are only so many turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches you can stomach after Christmas before you’re looking for something else to dress up the leftovers.
So I whipped up this quick pasta, which tasted great and had bags of flavour.
Pea, prosciutto & turkey pasta
Preparation and cooking time: 20 minutes
What you’ll need to feed 2
- 6 strips thinly sliced prosciutto
- 1 turkey breast (leftovers)
- 2/3 cup frozen peas
- 2 spring onions
- 4 cloves garlic
- Splash red win vinegar
- Pasta (I used bowties)
How to make it
Get some water boiling away in a medium-sized pot on the stove. Thinly slice the garlic and spring onions and cut the prosciutto into thin ribbons. Get a tablespoon of olive oil heated in a pan and throw in the chopped garlic, onions and prosciutto. Check how long your pasta takes to cook and get it into the water. Back to the pan, toss the onions, garlic and prosciutto around until things are getting brown and crispy, then pour in the splash of red win vinegar. It’ll deglaze the pan and add some zing to proceedings. Put the peas into the pan frozen and toss them around with everything else until they’re softened but not mushy. Drain your pasta, and stir through everything in the pan. Lastly, throw in a pinch of Italian spices (basil, oregano, marjoram - you can buy these pre-mixed at many supermarkets), tear up the turkey and add that.
Was a welcome change to turkey sandwiches. If you decide to cook it let me know in the comments and we can work out how to improve it together :)