Make it quick

Faster Pasta Carbonara

Fasta-pasta-carbonara

For 2, I used:

225g pasta, cooked
150g bacon, chopped (or use lardons to save even more time)
1 clove garlic
2 eggs
150ml double cream
80g grated parmesan (or my favourite, Grana Padano)

While the pasta is cooking, fry your bacon in a little olive oil until it is slightly crisp around the edges. Drain off excess fat, add garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs and cream, adding plenty of ground black pepper and most of the cheese. Drain the pasta and put it in the pan with the bacon and garlic. Add the cream-egg-cheese and stir well over a low-ish heat until heated through. Serve with remaining grated cheese.

To follow, we had tinned peaches with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream - a poor man's Poire Belle Helene. My favourite fruit and ice cream pudding is a good banana split, the success of which hangs on the quality of the chocolate sauce. I made two today in the interests of research. One, made with melted chocolate, turned out like Ice Magic (remember that?). The other was a super quick and easy Nigella recipe: Place equal measures (I used 4 tablespoons) of cocoa powder, sugar and water in a pan over a low heat and stir until the sugar has melted and there is a bit of bubbling going on. I later added a dollop of golden syrup. It is quite intense, so a little goes a long way. She says it will keep 'for a long time' in the fridge.

Pears, ice cream and chocolate sauce

Tuna Tuesday

Somehow Tuesdays have become known as Tuna Tuesdays in this house.  Not that we're obsessed with food or anything! Owing to logistics, child 1 will be having a meal on the move today.  It will include her favourite, a tuna sandwich - half a can of tuna in spring water drained and mashed with salad cream.  No butter, crusts off.

The rest of us will be having pasta with last week's tomato and red pepper sauce.  I will stir in a generous lump of Quark to make it a creamy-but-still-low-fat sauce, and smother it with Grana Padano cheese.  I might stir the remains of the tin of tuna in - lovely if you like cat food!

Pudding will be an unashamedly easy 'Apple Fluff' (like apple fool, but easier).  Stew some apples, puree them in a blender.  Mix together one third apple and two thirds Ambrosia custard.

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This (above) is the beginning of our apple harvest. There will be a lot more about apples, including a recipe for apple jam as soon as I have tested it.

You can get through quite a lot of apples if you have a juicer. We have a basic model that cost about £40, but it works pretty well. Add a bit of peeled root ginger and/or some carrots. My children think it's a real treat - as good as the fresh juices in Wagamama. Praise indeed.

Going back to salad cream in sandwiches, I have to commend and recommend M&S' egg, salad cream and tomato sandwich. Simply delicious.