Spinach and Ricotta Pasta Sauce

Home made Spinach and Ricotta Pasta Sauce

You will not believe how much time I have spent in the kitchen these last two weeks!

Now, some of you may have already picked up that despite living with my parents still, I do most of the cooking in the house. To be frank, Dad has just got lazy in his old age and when he gets in from work wants to do nothing more than sit down. Mum, bless her, doesn’t think she can cook so tries running in the other direction at the mention of moving into the kitchen. So, almost every day the cooking of the evening meal falls on to me.

Since they’ve gone on holiday, the word ‘almost’ has disappeared...

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not complaining! Cooking for Mr KG every night for two weeks straight has meant I’ve been a bit more creative as I can’t fall back on many of the recipes I’d cook for my parents. (He’s veggie and has some rather random food allergies like sweetcorn!)

One of the best things to have come out of all of this cooking however, is my ability to knock together something incredibly simple and tasty with basic ingredients.

Best served simply with fresh pasta and garlic bread

Spinach and Ricotta is a classic flavour combination and frequently appears on veggie friendly menus. Ready-made packets of ravioli in the supermarkets are often stuffed to bursting with it and if that’s not enough, 9 times out of 10 there will be a tub of gelatinous spinach and ricotta sauce to go with it. I’ve also seen a twist on lasagne made purely with spinach and ricotta before and let’s not to forget it’s also the obvious filling for cannelloni!

We’ve all tried these supermarket made pasta dishes and I think we can all say that although they are quick and easy they are incredibly bland. Tell me, why do we subject ourselves to tasteless food in the name on convenience!? There really is no good excuse for it!

Home-made butter

We've all been there- you're cooking away happily when you take your eye off the ball for just one second and BOOM you've got a kitchen disaster on your hands...or have you?

Sometimes kitchen accidents can become kitchen revelations helping you to discover something entirely new and delicious.

Thus is what happened to me on Valentines Day...

2 courses down and copious amounts of pink cava drunk, Mr KG and I were just about ready to serve up dessert. Mr KG had cooked an amazing meal; all I had to do was hand whip some cream to serve with his chocolate lava cake (I hope he'll be sharing the recipe soon!)

I got bored of handwhipping pretty quick so we served up with half whipped cream. After the meal I decided I didn't want to be outdone. So with a bowl of cream and a whisk in my hand I started whisking like I've never whisked before. But in an attempt to whisk even faster, I shut my eyes. By the time I opened them it was over whipped!

At first I was disappointed. I was secretly hoping to sit and eat a bowl of whipped cream as post-dessert-dessert! But then I remembered something I’d seen on the Baker Brother TV show when I was back at uni.

With a little bit of research I realised I’d made butter!

So here’s how to do it...

Gooseberry Crumble

Despite being a foodie for almost ALL of my life, fearlessly trying anything my Dad ever put in front of me and hanging off of his apron strings in the kitchen, there are still a few foods that have managed to elude me until recently, gooseberries being one of them!

My parents LOVE gooseberries, and a few years ago decided, that rather than visiting the local fruit farm every week to get their gooseberry fix that they should plant their own bush in the garden! Last year we had a huge gooseberry crop and my parents were soon asking me to whisk up various gooseberry filled dishes. You may remember that I posted a recipe for gooseberry fool, and even won a competition over @WeGrowOurOwn.co.uk for baking Gooseberry and Elderflower Butterfly Cakes!

We picked our first punnet off of our gooseberry bush just last week, and once again I was faced with the challenge of coming up with something delicious! This time, I decided to embrace the tartness of the gooseberry but top it with a rich, gooey, yet crunchy crumble top.

Strawberry Ice Cream

In the summer time when the weather is high

You can chase right up and touch the sky

When the weather’s right

You got *ice-cream you got *ice-cream on your mind

Have a drink, have a drive

Go out and see what you can find...

(Hopefully more ice-cream!)

You would have to live in a cave to have not noticed the beautiful weather we have been having across the UK the last 3 or 4 days. The picnic blankets have come out, there have been walks in the park, gardening, cool cocktails in the evening sunshine and plenty of BBQ’s and the whole time I’ve been walking around with my own personal summer theme song playing in my head, except unlike the Mungo Jerry original, I have not had women on my mind, but instead, ice-cream!

I love all types of ice-cream, scoops in a bowl with fresh fruit, in a tall sundae glass covered in sauce, nuts, sprinkles and whipped cream, Ben and Jerry’s out of a tub, or soft my whippy in a cone with a flake...ALL types of ice-cream! I’m also quite partial to a sorbet or frozen yogurt too...but I’m sure there will be more of that as the summer continues.

As most of you know my exams are already over due to a horrible timetable that meant I had all of my exams in the first three days of my university’s exam period. As a result, I thought I’d return home for a week so as not to distract my friends still slogging it away over their textbooks and revision notes!

I’ve been fortunate enough to not only be able to sun myself in the garden all weekend, but I’ve also had access to my parents fridge/freezer and a couple of gadgets I couldn’t take to uni with me, like my ice-cream maker!

Food Trends #2: Macaroons (Le Macaron)

This is my second post on a series of food trends; first I posted on cake pops, and today I am writing about macaroons.

Gooseberry Fool

The last of this seasons gooseberries have been picked form our gooseberry bushes and I needed to come up with a quick and easy recipe for them...

I'd never had Gooseberry fool, and as far as I can tell, it's quite a retro dish! BUT it is super yummy and quick and easy!!!