A lively discussion was had when my post about broccoflower fed over to facebook. Among the topics discussed were canned asparagus and broccolini. Broccolini is known in the UK as tenderstem broccoli and was the featured ingredient in the 2008 bbc good food calendar. I’ve never seen it in any of my supermarkets or markets here, but I still decided to look for it this weekend.

Not surprised that I couldn’t find it. I did however find broccoli rabe (aka rapini) at Edgewater Produce (can always rely on them for fruits and vegs, and an overflowing shopping basket for around $20, that’s another post). A number of recipes online use it like broccoli, especially in a pasta dish. So that’s what I did. Sautéed it with garlic, threw in a few cherry tomatoes for colour and served it with rigatoni. Needed to carb up for a 10k practice run, so it was perfect.

It has more “green” flavour than broccoli, that’s true. I didn’t find it bitter, the trick when cooking is to teat it like any other stem-y veg you find at Asian wet markets — in terms of taste and appearance it’s more like gai lan or choy sum, so I added soy sauce and a bit of sugar in addition to the usual s&p. I’ll buy it again, for sure.

This is an old recipe revisited. I got this off an early Jamie Oliver series, may even have been the original Naked Chef. Now that’s memories.

It’s so easy to make, no cooking apart from the pasta. I used fettuccine rigate, which is like regular fettuccine except with ridges along the length of the noodle. Basically, cook the pasta, drain and add cubed brie and cherry tomatoes. I used a mixture of fresh and roasted tomatoes. The heat from the pasta will melt the cheese. Season and drizzle with olive oil.

I’ve always thought risotto is difficult to make, at least perfect. I knew I’d have to try to make it one day, and with the mushrooms I bought at the farmer’s market early this week, it’s a good opportunity. This recipe is inspired by, no surprise, Elise, with modifications. And I didn’t measure.

1. sauté mushrooms with butter, garlic and cream; set aside
2. meanwhile, heat up a carton vegetable stock to simmering point
3. melt butter in heavy pan, add arborio rice
4. slowly, add stock one ladle at a time, stir until completely absorbed before adding next ladle
5. when all liquid is absorbed and rice cooked, add mushroom mixture
6. season, serve with shavings of pecorino (or parmesan)

The verdict — it was scrumptious!!! I can’t stop eating it. It’s like congee made with cream of mushroom soup. The cream and mushroom flavours really came through. And the rice wasn’t hard to make. All I needed to do was focus on what was going on in the pan and not multi-task. The actually cooking of the rice took about 20mins. Can’t wait till I make it again.

This was really delicious using vegetables I have in the fridge. The scallops were frozen, in a perfect world I’d get fresh ones. Wash the scallop, driy them over paper towels and pan-fry them in olive oil. Just s&p as seasoning. It only takes a few minutes to get them medium — do NOT cook them completely.

In another pan, cook the rigatoni. When done, drain and add spinach which will cook in the heat of the pasta and pan.

Remove the scallops and quickly toss some yellow pepper pieces into the frying pan. Throw the pasta and spinach in with the peppers to remove the residue at the bottom of the pan. Add a teaspoon of red pesto for flavour.

Arrange the scallops on top of the pasta and veg, add a little black pepper to finish. I suppose a real chef will drizzle over some olive oil but i didn’t do that.

This was a quick dish I threw together cos I didn’t want to spend too much time prepping and cooking. I got the peeled shrimps from the supermarket. Fresh but packaged. Normally I’d go for the larger fresh (still swimming) prawns, cook a large batch and freeze them.

I sautéed the shrimps and set them aside. While the pasta was cooking I chopped up a couple of ripe tomatoes and reduced them till they were soft and just like a sauce.

When the pasta was ready, I tossed everything together.

Simple and quick. Not a jar of sauce in sight.

This is a recent Recipe for Health at the New York Times. Very simple to make and a great pasta substitute.

Slice a zucchini (courgette) into thin ribbons using a potato peeler so they look just like fettuccine. Sauté in olive oil for a few minutes. Remove before they get soggy. Season.

This can be eaten as is, or the recipe recommends adding tomato sauce. I ran out of red pesto and didn’t have jars of sauce handy so I chopped up a ripe tomato and mixed it up with a little balsamic vinegar and Italian seasoning so it had a salsa-like consistency.

Easy to make, tasted great. I had it cold the next day and it tasted even better.

Anyone who doesn’t: a) like b) know how to make this dish should have to eat nothing but oatmeal for a month.

Made everything from scratch, no jars of sauce. Oh, okay, the tomatoes are canned chopped tomatoes. I like mushrooms in my spag bol, I suppose I should dice them finely so they are similar sized to the mince, but I like my mushroom visible and chunky.

It all started with this week’s friday food fiesta topic, which was olives. It got me thinking how I can use olives to make a quick and simple dish. Aside from serving them on their own as tapas of course.

It was unbelievably easy to make with this. I had all the ingredients in my fridge. Tossed cooked penne in a generous dollop of red pesto, then added pitted kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes and the last of my jar of peppadew. Season, adding a little dried basil. An altogether sweet combination. Worth making again, just as soon as I get more peppadew.

This is a New York Times recipe, a great way of combining the special (asparagus) with the mundane (eggs). It really is very simple and surprisingly, very delicious. The recipe calls for cheese, which should work wonders. Of course I don’t like cheese in my pasta so there.

Timing is important, so all the ingredients are ready at the same time.

put water to boil and cook spaghetti
in a frying pan heat olive oil and add 2 cloves of garlic, crush the garlic to infuse the flavour into the oil
when garlic is beginning to brown, remove and toss in chopped asparagus, fry quickly
drain pasta, reserve a little cooking water
toss asparagus with pasta and the reserved liquid
crack an egg into the frying pan and fry quickly until the whites are just set
plate pasta and put egg on top
when ready to eat break the egg, allowing the yolk to run into the warm pasta which will cook the egg

I had a whole mozzarella ball in my fridge so I thought I’d try this Jamie recipe for a simple baked pasta dish. I made the sauce yesterday and the rest of the dish today.

for the sauce
sweat 3 cloves of garlic and half an onion until soft
add a can of chopped tomatoes and a can of water
add seasoning — the recipe calls for chili which I usually don’t have, nor do i use often; but I did add a dash of tabasco, some worcestershire sauce and Italian seasoning
simmer until the sauce thickens
blitz slightly, just enough to break the tomato pieces but not so that the sauce ends up being a paste

for the dish
cook pasta according to package instructions
drain and toss with half the sauce
arrange half the pasta at the bottom of an oven dish
spread over half the remaining sauce
slice up the mozzarella and arrange over the sauce
add the rest of the pasta, the rest of the sauce and the last pieces of cheese
bake at 200°C for 20mins

There’s supposed to be liberal amounts of parmesan sprinkled in with the mozzarella but I, um, don’t like parmesan. Yes, really.

I had penne with avocado for lunch today. It’s a dish that K introduced me to, and we had it for one lunch when I was visiting. The avocado I had weren’t as creamy or avocado-tasting as the Hass in Chile, but it wasn’t as watery as I expected.

For one portion I mashed up half an avocado and seasoned with lots of salt and pepper. Then it was just a matter of adding the pasta. For decoration (and a little taste) I sprinkled on some Italian seasoning. I should have also dribbled on some olive oil but forgot. It was nice.