Naked Cheff-ess makes pasta!

Minted pea and asparagus risotto from le Naked Chef

So, on returning from sunny Preston it was back to the Jamie Oliver challenge.  Another set of asparagus recipes given that it's in season.  A little bit of info about asparagus - English asparagus is yummy yummy when it's in season.  Peruvian asparagus is also found in the shops - supporting the livelihoods of those in Peru and helping to raise GDP in the area but with big environmental impacts.  If you are interested in reading more, look at:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/15/peru-asparagus-british-wells

Anyway, back to Jamie O.  We have mainly made two recipes this week - minted pea and asparagus risotto and asparagus and ricotta tortellini.  Both from the Naked Chef.

Now then, the risotto was easy, we make lots of risotto and the kids love it (Arty loves moist food - so risotto is normally always a hit!).  The mint made it taste lovely and summery which was needed given the rubbish weather.  So, the minted pea and asparagus risotto gets good marks.

Next up, tortellini.  This required making pasta.  Ha ha. This was actually quite easy - I was quite surprised!  You can basically make it all in the food processor, kneed it a little bit and then put it in the fridge.   The filling was a little bit more time consuming to be honest - you basically cook up the asparagus with some garlic, then add the ricotta and some mint.  The preparing of the asparagus was the time consuming bit.

Pasta begins to take shape!

Then onto the next stage - making the pasta dough look like pasta.  What fun we had.  We found my mum and dad's old pasta machine and off to work we went!  It was quite good fun - we seemed to end up with loads!  After filling the tortellini (took quite a while....so not something to do when you are hank marvin as we were - doesn't lead to particularly well crafted tortellini as you're too desperate to eat something!), we ended up with some left over so made a bit of tagliatelle as well.  I looked up how to freeze it and found a few good links:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=254119

and

http://www.dailyunadventuresincooking.com/2009/05/how-to-freeze-homemade-pasta.html/

The finished product - and it was very yummy!

 
Peter is off to South Sudan tomorrow for a month.....I'm in sole charge....I'm already slightly worried about how much gin I might have to consume!  When I'm in sole charge it always makes me think of how hard being a single parent must be.  We don't have a lot of family nearby so have to rely very much on friends but when it's just you, you can't go out as easily, you don't get that little rest from the screaming at the weekend and you basically rush to work, rush around at work and then rush back.  Hopefully it might mean I shed a few pounds (I ate a bit of cake over the jubilee you see!).

I won't be able to go running much which will be hard but luckily I've found a few exciting things to take Isobel to - Peppa Pig on the Spa Valley Railway, Wisley (why not - we've not been for at least....erm, well 3 weeks!) and the Gruffalo!  I'm almost more excited than she is!