Wild fennel and tomato pesto tagliatelle, prawns and salad

We needed a very quick dinner, and fortunately I had been waiting to try the wild fennel and tomato pesto which I now stock - well!  it is outstanding!  Some good pasta - tagliatelle today and some salad and we were good to go.  I added some grilled prawns as well, to please the gathered ... but there were three views on this!  i) fantastic, love it, having thirds; ii) really good pesto, pasta and salad - would make a really good veggie dinner; iii) nice dinner - but would be fan-bloody-tastic to have this pasta and pesto with steak, or indeed, chicken ... and the same salad would be great too.  I think I come down with iii ... but, damn good pesto, damn good pasta, damn good dinner.

Takes about 12 minutes from cold ...

1.  Put on a pan of water to boil.
2.  Prepare lettuce.
3.  Make salad dressing - a splash of garlic infused olive oil, a squirt of lemon juice and a grind of sea salt and black pepper - into a salad bowl.
4.  Chuck lettuce and very finely sliced half moons of onion into the dressing.
5.  When water is boiling, chuck in the pasta and cook for 4 minutes until al dente.
6.  Grill prawns in hot pan.
7.  When the pasta is done, drain and stir in pesto.  Toss the salad.

Serve, scoff ...   then get the opinions written above ... thinking about it now - I think this pasta/pesto combo would be AMAZING with a good steak.  (Sorry vegetarians!)

Chicken and mushroom stroganoff with cavolo nero

Day 3 of "training" for swimming the "channel" and I did my 40 lengths.  I am swimming the 22 miles of the channel - in a pool - between September and December to raise money for the Alzheimer's Society - see link to the right - and feel free to sponsor me.  (But more of that another time).  The victim, swimming with me, kept banging on about pie for dinner.  No, no, no ... there is no point swimming up and down just to reinsert the calories when you get out.  So, after the usual, spag bog, ricey stuff, pie requests we managed to land on stroganoff - which was good because a number of the ingredients were sitting in the fridge really needing to be used up.  Cavolo nero is just ready for harvesting in poly the tunnel, so I added that to mine.  Victim refuses anything quite so blatently green, so had some beetroot and radishes as a starter... go figure!  Anyway, there is too much cream to be really "diet", "low fat" etc, but I'm sure it's better than pie!

Chicken and mushroom stroganoff

Serves: 4.  Time: approx 30 minutes:  Calories:  approx 450 per portion  Cost:  approx £1.30 per portion

1/2 tbsp Olive oil
1 Onion
1 Leek
1 Celery stick
Garlic clove
2 skinless chicken breasts
Chicken stock (cube is fine)
About 12 Green beans
About 4 Runner beans
Some Mushrooms
Paprika & black pepper
100ml Half fat creme fraiche
100ml double cream
Chopped parsley

Tagliatelli - about 70g per portion

Method:

1. Chop and sautee in olive oil - leek, onion and celery.
2. Add bite sized pieces of chicken breast, turn over until edges are a bit coloured.
3. Add crushed garlic, and a cup of stock (add more if it looks like it's a bit dry).
4. Cook tagliatelli in salted boiling water.
5. Add chopped beans and mushrooms, and simmer until beg is soft and chicken is cooked, season with salt, pepper and paprika.
6. Just before pasta is al dente add creme fraiche and cream to chicken and vegetables.
7. Drain pasta and  mix into sauce.
8. Chuck in chopped parsley and sprinkling of paprika.
9. Scoff (with or without steamed cavolo nero (about 7 minutes steaming) or crunchy salad.