Summer spaghetti: Broad beans, spinach and mint

Man Woman will not dwell on the presence or absence of the English summer. It does not, in fact, weigh on our minds at all. No, rather it will often be midday before Man or Woman might even remark, ‘Oh look, dear, it happens to be a miserable shit of a day once again. Ever so glad we migrated.’

For us, as non-natives, part of the goodness of eating seasonally is actually discovering what is in fact seasonal. Broad beans, we understand, are summery even if the skies under which they grow are bleak and seemingly devoid of any sunlight. Moving on, this recipe was the first time we used them and it is pretty good. All can be made while the pasta is boiling and happily exists without the cheese if you want to go dairy-free.

A note here, this recipe quantaties are totally subjective. This amount will get you a nice balance of pasta to veg, but tweak to your tastes.

Broad bean, spinach, mint & hazelnut spaghetti

• Wholewheat spaghetti
• 1/3 C fresh broad beans (or peas, edame – any fresh green pod-borne things etc)
• 1 C spinach, chopped
• 6 or so leaves of fresh mint, chopped
• 1 large shallot, finely sliced
• 2 TBSP hazelnuts (pistachio, pine nuts or even walnuts could also work well)
• 100g soft goats cheese or feta (optional)
• Butter/olive oil for frying shallots

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and chuck the spaghetti in. (Really do use wholewheat – it so much tastier).

In a small pan, heat a little butter or olive oil and throw in the shallots and nuts. After a minute or two, add the broadbeans and keep stirring as the spaghetti cooks.

Once cooked, drain the spaghetti, return the spaghetti to the large pot and throw in chopped spinach. Let it wilt a little in the still-hot pot and then mix in the beans, shallots and nuts.

Throw in mint and then serve. Top with goats cheese if you like, and either way drizzle with good olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Estimated cost: £2.20 without cheese, £4 with cheese

Musical accompaniment: Something classical. We really should start paying more attention to this.

Fluffy gnocchi with home-made pesto and spinach

There seems to be this universal level of panic when one separates eggs. The discarded yolks, the abandoned whites – what to do? What to do?

For no reason other than we had this dilemma, we decided to chuck in a couple of extra egg whites into our latest attempt at gnocchi. This made for a lovely soft, pillowy gnocchi. A word of warning, leaving the excess gnocchi in the fridge does appear to involve that gnocchi turning blue – but after a significant amount of sniffing, we ate it and remain upright and healthy to this day.

Fluffy gnocchi (serves 4)

• 500g potato (desiree)
• 250g white flour
• 1 egg
• 2 egg whites

• 2 – 3 TBSP home-made pesto

• handful of baby spinach

Boil then mash potatoes. Add flour.

Whisk egg whites until thickened and airy, fold in the whole egg and then add to the potato-flour mixture.

Roll teaspoon sized balls of the ensuing dough and then dust in semolina or fine corn flour.

Throw into boiling water for a few minutes. Test if cooked and then drain. Toss through pesto and spinach. Voila!

Estimated cost (including home-made pesto): £3.50

Musical accompaniment: Kings of Convenience

Pesto cannelli beans stuffed in baked beef tomato

I’ve got to be honest. Just having the word ‘beef’ in a recipe on this blog feels a little bit uncomfortable. It brings up all strange feelings. And really, look at the word – it is strange.

God, you can be too vegetarian, can’t you?

This meal was inspired after Man’s stroke of home-made pesto genius and the shock that pesto really doesn’t miss parmesan at all. Man Woman felt so betrayed by the entire Italian community – the needless cheese! Why?

Pesto canneli beans stuffed in baked beef tomato

• 2 large beef tomatoes (or the largest, firmest tomatoes you can get)
• 1 can cannelli beans (or other soft white bean)
• 2 – 3 TBSP home-made pesto (you can cheat with store-bought if you like. We’re not looking)
• 1 spring onion

Pre-heat oven to about 200C.

Now this is a little tricky. Cut out the centre of the tomatoes, leaving the outside in tact and ideally with around 1/2 inch of flesh all around. (Save the tomatoes for pasta sauce or something later). Try in particular to remove the more watery, seedy parts.

Bake for about 30 minutes. The tomatoes at this point will have released a bit of water. It’s best to transfer them into individual serving dishes that you can bake them a bit further – otherwise drain the train from it’s water and perhaps sit the tomatoes on a small bed of rice, to absorb the excess liquid that will inevitably be released.

While the tomatoes are baking, mix the cannelli beans with the pesto and chopped spring onion.

After the tomatoes have cooked for their 30 minutes, remove and fill with the bean mixture (putting them in their own serving trays or on rice). Return to the oven and cook for a further 5 – 10 minutes or until the beans are warmed through.

This is enough on its own, but you could always serve with some rice or salad on the side.

Estimated cost: £4.60

Musical accompaniment: Nina Simone

Tomatoes three ways pizza

When next you think about what a pain in the arse making your own pizza might conceivably be when wandering the ready-meal aisle of your local supermarket, just think about this recipe.

Not only is it cheaper than ready-made – cheaper, even, than your Tesco brands – but it is a gazillion times tastier than ready-made – gazillion, yes, times better than even supposed “posh” supermarket brands. Woman would know. In a moment of what must have been other-worldy possession she bought a ready-made pizza from her local, and realised that what she might have tolerated drunk and hungry at 2am, could not be tolerated while sobre – or in posession of self respect.

This is serious business.

• Pizza dough base (as here, but with an extra 1/2 tsp of yeast)
• 1/4 C nicoise olives
• 2 roma tomatoes, cut into 1cm thick slices
• 1/4 C sun-dried tomatoes
• 100g white cheese

Tomato sauce

• 1 can whole peeled tomatoes
• balsamic vinegar
• 50ml water
• sun-dried tomatoes

Make pizza dough as in the linked recipe. You can just let it prove for about an hour, but this time Man Woman had made up the dough the night before we ate the pizza, putting it in the fridge overnight and then taking it out before going to work in the morning. This made for a really tasty and more thick & chewy pizza base.

Make sauce by basically chucking all ingredients in, and cook down the sauce for about 20 minutes.

Assemble pizza and throw in the oven at 200C for about 12 minutes.

Estimated cost: £3.50

Musical accompaniment: BBC World News

Decadence in the evening: Truffle mushroom pasta

Having been emboldened to make more use of our truffle oil following our truffle scrambled eggs life lesson, and inspired to recreate an amazing dish at 500 in Archway, Man Woman gave this a shot. It took ten minutes.

I’m not lying. It was good.

Truffle mushroom pasta

• Fresh egg pasta for 2
• 150g oyster mushroom
• 150g chestnut mushroom (or any mix of nice mushrooms)
• 1 small shallot, finely sliced
• 2 TBSP butter
• 3 TBSP truffle oil
• Parmesan grated

Cook onion and butter in 1 TBSP of butter. Once largely cooked, add the extra butter.

Meanwhile cook pasta. Once cooked, drain and add to the mushroom mix.

In bowls, drizzle truffle oil and grate parmesan over the pasta.

Estimated cost: £3.50

Musical accompaniment: Billy Bragg & Wilco, Mermaid Avenue Vol. 1

Winter salad: Mustard roasted butternut squash & orzo

Orzo is such a fun pasta shape – almost like alphabet pasta shapes for adults. It doesn’t often  get a showing on Man Woman’s dinner table, but I think we might have turned a corner.

Mustard-roasted butternut squash & orzo salad

• Two lady handfuls of chopped butternut squash
• 1tsp black mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/4 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tsp agave nectar, maple syrup or honey
• 4 roma tomatoes
• 1 C orzo pasta
• handful or two rocket

Heat oven to about 200C.

Mix chopped butternut squash, spices and agave and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes. Throw in the roma tomatoes into the baking tray and cook for another 10  minutes.

Meanwhile, cook and drain pasta.

Mix together with the rocket and serve hot or cold.

Estimated cost: £2.10

Musical accompaniment: Beirut, the Gulag Orchestra

Lebanese calzone – Lentils, parsley and feta folded pizza

Man Woman likes to debate what our favourite cuisine may be (for, indeed, the independence of our individual tastes has crumbled over the last few years, the only difference now being Man’s persistent love of a veggie fry-up breakfast). This debate is moot. The Turks. The Italians. The Viets.  We love them each in their own special way.

This dish here would be called ‘fusion’ if it wasn’t so rustic and the word ‘fusion’ wasn’t so simultaneously pretentious and out-dated. It combines my memories of massive dinners at Lebanese friends’ houses back in Sydney, when the delicious spinach and onion triangles would get inhaled by any who dared tread near. Saving ourselves the hassle that so many Lebanese ladies throughout the centuries have endured of making endless tidy little parcels, we decided we’ll big it up. Go calzone size and also throw a bit more beefiness in it to make it a substantial meal. Substantial it was. It was also darn tasty. How can the cross-breeding of two Mediterranean dishes ever go wrong?

What I love particularly about Lebanese cuisine is the appreciation for parsley as a flavour. Don’t knock it and don’t you dare scrimp on the parsley outlined below. This herb is not to be mistaken for a garnish.

Lentil, feta and parsley stuffing (serves 6)

• 2.5 C cooked lentils
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 150g ricotta
• 200g feta
• 1.5 C chopped parsley
• 1 Spanish onion, diced
• 3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 6 sun-dried tomatoes
• 2 TBSP tomato paste
• 3 TBSP raisins
• 1 TBSP dried thyme
• 2 tsp dried mint
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1.5 TBSP lemon juice (to taste)
• ground black pepper
• salt
• toasted pine nuts (if desired)

Calzone dough recipe

• See pizza dough recipe, then double it

Soak and cook beans (probably about 1 cup of dried lentils will make 2.5 cups of cooked). Prepare pizza dough.

In a small pot, cook diced onions until softened. Add garlic, cook for another two minutes, then add lentils, stir through for a minute and add all three kinds of tomato (paste, dried and tinned).

Add herbs and spices and cook over a medium-high heat until there isn’t much liquid left. Take off the heat and let cool slightly. Mix in ricotta, feta and chopped parsley. Let cool.

Take a handful of the prepared pizza dough, and spread out into a 20cm circle. On one half of the circle, lay out a few good wooden spoonfuls of the lentil-feta mix. Fold the clear half over the half with the mix on it and seal shut.

Cook in an oven at 200C for about 25 – 30 minutes or until calzone dough is hard.

Estimated cost: £4.50

Musical accompaniment: Freelance Whales

Winter bruschetta

Another recipe so simple as to cause its authors to wonder if publishing it on their blog is not just a little bit patronising to any others who might pass this posts way, but we enjoyed it so wanted to record it for our future reference. Perfect way to use day old bread on a cold day.

(PS. This isn’t winter bruschetta because we did anything worthy like use seasonal ingredients. It’s just warm and cosy)

Winter bruschetta (serves 2 as a snack or starter)

• 4 very ripe tomatoes
• 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 TBSP balsamic vinegar
• Day old bread

Heat oil in pan, adding garlic when hot. Add chopped tomatoes and a dash of balsamic and salt. Cook down until tomatoes soften.

Meanwhile, toast day old bread (we used the end of a baguette).

Scoop hot tomato mix over toasted bread and serve immediately. Can add fresh herbs or cheese at this point if desired.

Estimated cost: 60p

Musical accompaniment: Oh Ruin

Mushroom and Stilton (blue cheese) tortelli

The ownership of a pasta maker is a challenging thing. We’ve gone at least a year between making any pasta at home, because often the store-bought stuffed pastas are on sale and suffice for a quick mid-week meal.

But making pasta yourself does allow you to make some rather nice stuffings. Having been reminded of how much ‘fun’ (albeit time consuming) making and eating fresh homemade pasta is, we’ll probably be trying it again sometime soon and posting any decent results we come up with.

Mushroom & Stilton tortelli

• 2 C mix of chestnut and portobello mushrooms diced (get wild mushrooms if you can. We couldn’t)
• 150g Stilton or other blue cheese (we used Tesco’s Finest, which is really quite decent and very cheap)
• 1 TBSP red onion, finely diced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 TBSP balsamic vinegar
• 3 TBSP creme fraiche

1/2 egg pasta dough recipe

Cook down onions and mushrooms (diced into small cubes) in a bit of butter in a fry pan, adding splashes of balsamic vinegar and salt. Drain excess liquid (but keep to use as stock within the next day or two) and mix in crumbled Stilton and creme fraiche.

To make the tortelli, cut large squares of pasta dough – about 10cm – and place a generous tablespoon dollop of the mushroom-Stilton mix in the centre of a square. Press down to remove any air bubbles.  Top with another (ideally slightly larger) pasta square and press down around the mushroom dollop, working from the top and around (see pic in the egg pasta dough recipe).

Boil for about 3 – 6 minutes.

You can, however, use this mix in any kind of pasta shape. We decided on big ones ’cause we’re lazy, also because they make a nice looking starter. For a starter we placed one large tortelli over a buttered portobello mushroom and drizzled truffle oil, creme fraiche and crumbled Stilton over the top.

For a main we lightly steamed some swiss chard over the boiling pasta, and served ourselves 4 or 5 tortelli each, topped with creme fraiche and black pepper.

Estimated cost: £6

Musical accompaniment: Woman’s playlist on Last.fm

Egg pasta dough

Man Woman stumbled upon an Italian pasta maker for a fiver in a charity shop a few years ago. Since then we’ve had friendly disagreements as to the correct way to work the machine. Man, for instance, believes cranking the machine very quickly will yield best results. Woman disagrees, vocally.

What follows is the recipe which brings the best harmony to the Man Woman abode.

Egg pasta dough

• 1 egg per 100g pasta flour
• Pinch of salt

(how easy is that? we used 3 eggs, 300g)

Sift flour into a bowl. Make well. Crack eggs into well. Combine. Knead. Continue kneading for about 10  minutes until dough becomes smooth, silky and supple.

Cover in plastic and leave in fridge for an hour.

Fix pasta maker to bench. Flatten dough so it is no more than 2cm thick and feed through largest setting. Fold in half and feed through again, then make setting smaller. Repeat until the dough is fed through the smallest setting.

To make any filled pasta, you don’t need any water. Just press closed the pasta firmly and emphasise the closure with a pressed fork (if desired).

Estimated cost (serves 2 – 4): £1.50

Musical accompaniment: Oh Mercy