While pasta continues to dominate the food served on our dinner table, the multitude of ways it may be prepared is a real bliss. Today we opted for a simple mix of spinach pasta with chanterelles. I've always thought mushroom dishes were quite complex and time-consuming, but it was a very nice surprise to find out how wrong that assumption was. The dish I served tonight could have been ready in less than half an hour, have it been not for me making green pasta from scratch. I made green (spinach) pasta - the recipe has been posted in the post Pasta Frenzy Continues , but it may well be served with packet pasta to cut down on preparation time. As I mentioned, the sauce is both easy and quick to make, plus there's virtually nothing that could go wrong with it. You need: 300 g chanterlles a pot of cream fresh basil leaves fresh oregano leaves fresh parsley salt and pepper 1 tbsp cooking oil grated Parmesan Rinse and chop chant...

I got a pasta maker for my birthday and we seem to be eating nothing but pasta since! Though the every first attempt was far from successful, I quickly sussed it out. The fact that I naturally tend to start with the most complex things, didn't help here, either. Instead of taking baby steps and making simple spaghetti or tagliatelle first, I had a go at making ravioli :-) Well, I ate my humble pie and next time I made simple soup pasta. Successfully! :-) It reminded my of the childhood days when my gran would make a delicious soup with home-made pasta when I stayed with her. Of course, I keep hearing questions, like: why bother making something you can buy in every single shop? Well, I bother as the home-made pasta is incomparably better! :-P To make basic pasta dough you need: 1 cup of flour 1 egg a pinch of salt a dash of olive oil water if the dough is to dry more flour - if the dough is to sticky, also to sprinkle on the worktop The proportions above are enough fo...

I first tried this meal back in Italy, and fell in love with it instantly. It is a great example of how to get the maximum of flavour with minimum of ingredients. Usually, we either have a small portion of it as a starter, followed up by the main course (most often involtini di pollo), or a large portion of smoked cheese is the main course, after a pasta dish first (pomodoro e basilico is my natural choice here). Today, however, as the temperature has hit over 30C, we decided to go for a small meal. You need: a large piece of smoked cheese a handful of fresh sage leaves 5-6 slices of parma ham a dash of olive oil salt and pepper Cut the cheese into slices of about 2cm thick. Place a sage leave on each slice of cheese, and wrap a slice of ham around it and season. Put the slices into a bake dish, or a small baking tray, sprinkle them with a dash of olive. Grill it for about 15-20 minutes.