Courgette Carbonara (Jamie Oliver)

I seem to be making a lot of recipes with courgettes lately! No idea why... just a lot of yummy sounding recipes involve them! And this is another one, taken from Jamie Oliver's website. Carbonara is already so delicious, then add some roasted courgettes to it and it's even better (and with 1 of your 5 a day hopefully!) I feel that this recipe is also very summery, so what better way to say goodbye to our almost non-existent summer than with this dish and nice cold glass of white wine!

For 4 people

Ingredients

Sea salt and black pepper

6 medium green and yellow courgettes (I only used green, but the more diverse the colour, the better!)

500g penne

4 large eggs

100ml double cream

2 generous handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Some kind of yummy porky meat - around 12 slices/1 packet (of lardons) - unfortunately I didn't get hold of any for this, but the meaty flavour deepens the flavours of the dish so it is well worth getting. You could use chopped up pancetta slices, the pre chopped up lardons you can get in the supermarket, grilled bacon chopped up or even some grilled parma ham!

A small bunch of fresh thyme

This is slightly different to Jamie's recipe, as I always like to start with the preparation. Put a large saucepan on the boil, and fill with slightly salted boiling water.

Then start preparing the carbonara mixture, you will need to get the eggs, double cream and grated parmesan in a bowl together and mix well. Season and then set to one side.

Halve and quarter the courgettes lengthways, and slice roughly so they are of a similar shape to the penne.

Then chop up the pancetta - or whatever meat you have chosen to use! The water should by now be boiling, so add the penne to the saucepan.

Get a large frying pan on and add a good amount of olive oil (Jamie says a 'splash'!) and fry the pancetta until crispy. Add the courgette slices and a good sprinkling of black pepper - then my recipe differs slightly from Jamie's here as I wanted my courgettes to have their own flavouring. So I used garlic oil, dried thyme, dried Italian herbs, fresh thyme and gave it a good mix coating the courgettes in the herby garlicky dressing. Fry until golden.

Now here I really did follow Jamie's instructions as he advises to work quickly otherwise the carbonara could end up ruined, as you don't want the eggs to start scrambling!

When the pasta is cooked, drain and keep a bit of the salted water on the side.

Add back to the pan and remove from the heat. Then add a ladleful of the salted water, and then the carbonara sauce and stir together quickly! (Again no scrambly eggs happening here!)

Dish out into four bowls and arrange the courgettes/pancetta on top of the pasta like a garnish. Season and then you're done! Yummy, summery courgette pasta!

Starter - Crostini with minted courgettes (Two Greedy Italians)

I made this as a starter to a three course meal that I cooked for my family, I made the starter and main course and my mum made a beautiful bread and butter pudding for dessert. I thought I would show the starter and main course separately, as it would mean two posts that are more concise than just long!

This is from the Two Greedy Italians by Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo, a cookbook that I got for my birthday. There are so many meals I want to make from this; pretty much every recipe, but I ended up picking the first recipe of the book! It's a simple starter that requires little effort but can still appear impressive and is definitely tasty!

For 4 people.

Ingredients

1 large courgette, thinly sliced (or you could use a peeler to get wafer thin slices)

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

1 garlic clove, very finely chopped

10 mint leaves, chopped. Plus extra for garnish

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1/2 ciabatta loaf, sliced (you may need to use more if you're cooking for more people!)

a handful of cherry tomatoes, sliced

Preheat the oven to 200C

Peel/slice the courgette and arrange on a baking tray, sprinkle with a little salt and drizzle with oil. Cook for 10 minutes until golden.

While the courgettes are cooking, you can make the dressing. Mix the olive oil, garlic, mint leaves, vinegar and a sprinkling of black pepper in a bowl.

When the courgettes are nicely browned, add to the dressing and mix. Leave to marinate for 10 minutes or so.

While it is marinating, pop the sliced ciabatta under the grill until toasty and golden.

When the ciabatta is cooked, arrange a couple of slices on a plate and top with the courgettes, a drizzle of dressing, a few cherry tomatoes and finish with a garnish of mint leaves! I also roasted some portobello mushrooms to have with it, and just roasted them with a bit of garlic oil and had on the side of the crostini.

courgette, chickpea and mint soup à la Rosie

I haven't updated for quite a while, exams and revision! But I have still been busy in the kitchen and taking photos of meals, with a definite means to be putting them up sometime on the blog, just exactly when is another matter!

I made this soup a week or so back for me and my housemate, we had lovely crunchy toasted bread on the side and I think we were both avoiding some kind of revision!

This is a really gorgeous flavoursome soup from the one and only Rosie Lovell, I still love dipping in and out of Spooning with Rosie and reading her blog. Lots of inspiration and ideas!

I kind of modified the recipe slightly, in that I used less courgettes, but it was still lovely!

Ingredients

2 courgettes

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 garlic cloves (roughly chopped)

1 litre vegetable stock

1 x 400g tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)

a handful of fresh mint leaves (I used dried but still gave a lovely refreshing taste)

black pepper

1/2 lemon

Trim the courgettes, slice them lengthways in half then chop them into chunks. Heat the oil in large saucepan and drop the pieces in, frying and sweating them for a few minutes. Add the roughly chopped garlic cloves and fry for a few more minutes. Then pour over the vegetable stock and leave to simmer. Add the chickpeas and a sprinkling of dried mint/handful of mint leaves. Simmer for half an hour. Remove from the heat to cool slightly and then blend, but blend gently so that you leave chunks of courgette and the soup is not of a watery consistency. Season with black pepper and squeeze in the lemon juice.

Serve with toasted, buttery crusty bread, preferably sitting outside in a sunshine filled garden!

Love FF x