Orecchiette with Gorgonzola, Bacon and Spinach

200g orecchiette (or other pasta)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled
2-3 rashers bacon, diced, or (even better) a small block pancetta, cubed
Small splash Marsala
2 big handfuls spinach, washed
100ml crème fraîche
100g gorgonzola, cubed

Bring a pan of water to the boil, salt the water and add the pasta. Whilst the pasta cooks, get on with the rest of the dish. Flatten the garlic clove, so that it is still whole, but squashed. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, and add the garlic clove. Let it cook for a few minutes until the garlic is slightly browned and the oil is fragrant. Remove the garlic, and turn up the heat. Add the bacon or pancetta and cook until very slightly crispy- not cremated. Add the marsala, let it bubble for a few seconds and stir in the spinach, letting it wilt. Turn the heat down, and stir in the crème fraîche. Stir in the gorgornzola, and let it melt into a creamy sauce. When the pasta is cooked, drain, mix with the sauce and serve.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

for the sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped finely
2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves finely chopped
2 tsp dried oregano
2x800g tins of chopped tomatoes
pinch of chilli powder (optional)
pinch sugar (if needed, see below)

 for the meatballs
500g beef mince
500g pork mince
1 crushed clove of garlic
small bunch of flat leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped finely
3-4 anchovies, finely chopped/minced

1 tbsp olive oil
half a glass of red wine
750g spaghetti or other long pasta
Basil leaves
Freshly grated parmesan.

Start with the sauce. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, gently fry the onion, garlic, celery and carrot until they are translucent and softened. Add the  rosemary and oregano, and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in the tinned tomatoes, and sprinkle in the chilli powder. Turn the heat up to a simmer, and leave to gently bubble until it is thick and pulpy. Stir at frequent intervals so the bottom does not burn. Taste near the end- if the tomatoes turn out to be not so sweet, add a little bit of sugar. Be generous with the pepper grinder, but hold off on adding salt until the very end of cooking time.

While the sauce is cooking, mix together the meat, garlic, parsley and anchovies, along with a good amount of salt and pepper. Form into balls a little smaller that a walnut.

 In a hot frying pan, quickly brown the meatballs in batchs, setting them aside as the are done. When they are all browned, put them in the sauce and stir the in gently, being careful not not break them up. With the heat still under the pan used to brown the meatball, pour in the red wine, let it bubble up and cook off the harsh alcohol smell, then pour this into the sauce as well. Let everything cook together over a low heat while you get on with the pasta. Taste the sauce, and adjust the seasoning if you feel it needs it.

Drain the cooked pasta, and mix with the meatballs. Tear up to basil leaves and mix these in too. Serve with lots of parmesan.


If you make a big batch of sauce and only cook a small amount of pasta, I recommend using some of the meatballs and sauce to make a homespun meatball sub. Get a submarine roll, or french bread, fill with reheated sauce and meatballs, and sprinkle with a mixture of parmesan and mozzarella. Bake in a hot oven for a few minutes until the cheese is melty.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Carbonara is so easy and quick to make, yet it is probably one of the recipes that have suffered the most corruption. Done well it is dreamy, done badly it is stodgy and bland. The worst thing I've seen done to a spaghetti carbonara is it being coated with bechamel sauce in place of mixing the pasta with the raw egg. Bottled carbonara sauce is a horrendous idea too, especially as the 'sauce' required merely involves beating some eggs.
White wine is sometimes listed as an ingredient- it'll taste nice, but I'm not sure could call it carbonara. Sometimes I add a little cream, just to gild the lily. I wouldn't buy cream especially for the dish, but if I have some in the fridge I'll happily add a tablespoon or two to the beaten eggs.
I wouldn't complain if I was served carbonara made with pancetta or lardons and parmesan instead of the original guanciale and pecorino romano- I think these are perfectly acceptable substitutions. If you could never have carbonara because cured pig jowl is never available in your local morrisons, then that would be very sad. Try to avoid rashers of bacon in place of the guanciale or pancetta- the little cubes are far nicer here. 
This recipe is probably right for about 3 or 2 hungry people.

Recipe
250g spaghetti
2 eggs, plus 1 yolk
1-2 tbsp double cream
2 tbsp finely grated pecorino or parmesan
1tsp olive oil
100g diced pancetta or lardons

Method
Put a pan of water on the heat. When it starts to boil, add a large pinch of salt and the spaghetti, and cook for as long as the pack tell you tom or until it's cooked as you like it. Beat together the eggs, cream and parmesan, and season with freshly ground black pepper. Add some salt if you like, just remember that the pancetta and parmesan will also make the dish salty.
To avoid the eggs overcooking when mixed with the pasta, I put the beaten egg mix in the fridge until I want to use it. If you have a serving bowl you can put the egg in there, and mix with the cooked pasta. Doing this as opposed to using the same (hot) saucepan you used for cooking pasta will also lessen the risk of an overcooked, grainy sauce.
Fry the pancetta or lardons in the olive oil until slightly crispy, and set aside. Once the pasta is cooked, mix quickly with egg and bacon, and serve.

Linguine alla Puttanesca

Several hours of journeying later, I'm back from Croatia. Travelling exhausts me, and the food solution is to either eat a rich and comforting meal to lull you into a stupor, or go the other way and have something fiery to jolt you back to normality. Having had a week of food without masses of flavour, I opted for the latter. I hovered around making a curry, but settled on pasta puttanesca as it required a little less thinking and a shorter shopping list.

There are probably endless variations to making this sauce, and I'll throw in my own. Onions aren't often included, I like them, but by all means leave them out. By the same token, I'll sometimes add fennel seeds. I think they work well, but they aren't authentic. Spaghetti is the usual pasta shape for the sauce, I just happened to have linguine to hand.

As with other garlicky pasta sauces, Parmesan wouldn't be served alongside puttanesca in Italy. I do prefer it cheeseless- something I rarely say- but you already have the saltiness from the olives and the anchovies so to add parmesan can be overkill. Bear this in mind when seasoning at the end, you may not want to add salt at all. Adding parmesan also tones down the punchiness of the dish, which I feel somewhat defeats the point of puttanesca, The Whore's Sauce.

Ingredients

½ onion, finely chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

6 anchovy fillets

1 tin chopped tomatoes

2 tsp dried oregano

1-2 tsp chilli flakes

fennel seeds (optional)

palmful capers, chopped

palmful black olives, stoned and chopped
300grams pasta

Method
Put a large pan of water on to boil for the pasta, when it reaches boiling point, add salt and the pasta, cook until al dente. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a saucepan or deep frying pan, then add the onion. Cook over a medium heat until softened. Add the garlic, cook for about 1 minute, then add the anchovies. Cook for another minute, then add the tomatoes, oregano, chilli flakes, and the fennel seeds if using. Grind in some pepper too. Turn up the heat slightly and simmer for about 5 minutes. Introduce the olives and capers to the sauce, and cook for a couple more minutes. Taste, add salt and pepper if it needs it. Add the (now drained) pasta to the pan of sauce, toss until thoroughly and evenly coated. Divide between plates and serve.
Serves 3 for a main, 4 for a starter

Macaroni Cheese

Totally unfashionable and utterly delicious, macaroni cheese is probably my ultimate comfort food- starch in starch sauce, baked with cheese, there's nothing cosier to eat when it's freezing outside. I love it so much I'll eat it in August. I had made extra white sauce from the chicken pie, so the preparation for this was minimal, but making up from scratch isn't labour intensive. The most involved part is some therapeutic sauce stirring- you do have cheese to grate, but you can delegate that to anyone pretending to want to help.

Four things:
You can assemble the dish before putting it in the oven in advance, and bake it about half an hour before you want to eat.

I don't always infuse the milk with the usual bay/mace/onion for the white sauce, it is good though. But sometimes the need for dinner sooner rather than later is too much, and if this is a more impromptu meal, then forgo this stage.

I use penne, not macaroni. I like the way the tubes hold more sauce. I always felt like I needed to apologise for this. until I read Simon Hopkinson's wonderful Prawn Cocktail Years and was reassured with the knowledge that he did the same.

This macaroni cheese is white, not orange: http://achewood.com/index.php?date=12312009

*Update 15/10/15*
Well, this is something I make a lot, and I usually serve it with roast leeks- cut into 4cm ish chunks, and roasted in olive oil and sea salt.

Ingredients:
 300g penne, or macaroni.
Strong cheddar- few handfuls. I never weigh it out, just be generous. I presume you like cheese if you are making a macaroni cheese,
Parmesan (optional)
30grams butter
15g flour
pinch mustard powder
300ml milk (full fat, for preference)

Make your sauce: Melt the butter in heavy bottomed saucepan, then stir in the flour and mustard powder. Toast the flour-butter mix over the heat for a minute. Add a little of the milk to the pan, stirring. Continue to add the milk, bit by bit and stirring all the time until it is all used up and you have a creamy sauce. You may need to add a little extra milk.
Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, add salt and the pasta, cook until al dente.
If you are making it up in advance, run the pasta under the cold tap until it is thoroughly cold, and mix it with the sauce when that has cooled too. If you are proceeding straight away, have the hot bechemal waiting and just tip the hot pasta back into the pan you used to cook it, then pour the sauce over and stir it in. Stir in some grated cheddar, and a few spoons of grated parmesan, if using. Put in an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with more grated cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees till piping hot and browned. If you've made it up and are cooking it from fridge temperature, cook it at 180 degrees for slightly longer.