Recipe: Tortiglioni with a Creamy pesto and Spinach sauce

I had never heard of tortiglioni until the other day, but it was on offer at sainsburys, so now I not only know what it is but also love it! It's basically a pasta similar to rigatoni, but smaller, and with ridges. If you look at the previous post, you can find the recipe for my wild garlic pesto- but if you are unlucky and don't have the wonderful luck of having a serving of wild garlic pesto made, or are not in the short period of time when wild garlic is available, then use any other type of pesto you prefer; typical basil, red pepper, or sundried tomato- there seems to be so many varieties out there these days!

Tortiglioni with a creamy pesto and spinach sauce (serves 2)

200g tortiglioni
150ml chicken stock
180g thick double cream
60g spinach
120g Wild garlic pesto
Salt and pepper to taste
Wild garlic flowers and fresh basil for garnish

1. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. Cook the chicken stock and cream in another saucepan for 5 minutes. Add the pesto, cook for another 2 minutes.
2. Add the spinach and cook for a further 2 minutes. Drain the tortiglioni and mix into the cream sauce. Cook on the stove, stirring continuously for 1 minute, until all the ingredients are well mixed and hot.
3. Season to taste, and serve, with wild garlic flowers and basil leaves if desired.

Recipe: Wild Garlic Butter

I know this is the most simple recipe i've put up on here, but i can't believe up until this year i had never thought of using wild garlic like this! It's actually so much easier to make than normal garlic butter (when you have to bother peeling and dicing dozens of garlic cloves and all that) and i think it's actually much tastier. It also means I can enjoy wild garlic throughout the year, as of course the butter freezes very easily and then lasts for ages. Although the way me and Nick are getting through this stuff it probably isnt going to last us all that long! My favourite ways to use this butter (as mentioned in the recipe) is to make homemade cheesy garlic bread, or to melt it over steamed cabbage/broccoli peas as a side dish. I garnished this dish with some wild garlic flowers but of course this is just for visual effect.

Wild Garlic Butter (makes 800g flavoured butter)

750g salted butter
50 wild garlic leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Soften the butter (on the counter or in the microwave). Chop up the wild garlic leaves as fine as you can. Mix into the softened butter and season to taste. This butter can be used immediately (for garlic bread, for cooking with, to have over steaks, or to toss into steamed green vegetables) or can be frozen.

Recipe: Braised Lentils with chorizo and purple sprouting broccoli

Made this quick little dish up the other day, purple sprouting broccoli of course being in season at the moment. I suppose it's rather later than normal to be using wild garlic, but because of the ghastly weather we've been having in spring/early summer, generally everything has been rather late this year. You can of course, if you want an even quicker supper, use 2 tins of cooked lentils, and only 100ml of stock- but i think you get a better flavour from using dried lentils in this dish. I have served this with some steamed buttered jersey royals- yum!

Braised lentils with chorizo and purple sprouting broccoli (serves 2)

1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
4 wild garlic leaves, finely chopped
½ white onion, finely diced
100g chorizo, diced
150g green lentils
600ml low sodium (or weak) vegetable stock
100g purple sprouting broccoli, diced
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Sautee the onion, chorizo and wild garlic in the olive oil and butter, in a deep frying pan, for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add the lentils and stock, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring often (adding a little more stock if the lentils get too dry).
2. Add the purple sprouting broccoli and cooking for a further 6 minutes. Season to taste and serve!

Recipe: Spinach and Walnut Stuffed Mushrooms

These are the lushest stuffed mushrooms I have EVER tried. I mean, my mum makes some mean garlic and herb butter stuffed mushrooms- but this is a killer recipe man! Very quick to make, delicious and healthy. Nice with a fresh side salad, or actually I reckon one of them would be a nice side for a steak. It would also make a fantastic vegetarian starter for a dinner party. If you can't get wild garlic, add 10g more frozen spinach, and 2 cloves crushed garlic.

Spinach and Walnut Stuffed Mushrooms (serves 2 with salad)

4 large field mushrooms
150g frozen spinach, defrosted, and then most of the moisture squeezed out of it
1 tbsp olive oil (plus extra for drizzling)
10 wild garlic leaves, roughly chopped
40g walnuts, roughly chopped
Some grated fresh nutmeg
30g Philadelphia
10g wholemeal breadcrumbs
40g finely grated cheddar
Salt and pepper
Some sort of herb garnish (mostly for appearance really)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Remove the central stalks from the field mushrooms, and finely dice these stalks. Place the mushrooms, face up, on a baking tray, with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and set aside.
2. Heat up the 1 tbsp olive oil in a saucepan on a medium heat. Fry the finely chopped mushroom stalks and wild garlic for about 5 minutes. Add the defrosted spinach and fry for 3 more minutes, and remove from the heat.
3. Mix in the Philadelphia, chopped walnuts, some finely grated nutmeg into the spinach mixture, and season to taste. Stuff this mixture equally into the 4 cooked flat mushrooms. Top with the cheddar and then the breadcrumbs.
4. Bake the stuffed mushrooms in the oven (at 200C) for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve!

Recipe: Creamy Garlicky Gnocchi, with mushrooms and bacon

This was just what I needed- I made this for myself on saturday night as a nice carbohydrate rich, starchy meal, to have before my race on the sunday morning. Because i heard that's what experienced runners do- they tend to have starchy foods such as rice, pasta or potatoes the night before a race, to keep their energy levels going. Yesterday I completed a 10k run in Corsham, which was in aid of "RUH prostate Cancer", and I also raised extra money for my charity of choice WSPCA (World Soceity for the Protection of Animals). I completed it in 1 hour, 9 minutes, and 30 seconds. I am very proud of myself, as that is a very good time for my first 10k race, and i'm also very proud of myself because i've wanted to do a 10k for so long, it's always been a "New Year's Resolution"- and this year I actually did it!

This dish is a simple and quick dinner for one, very comforting and creamy! You'll find my wild garlic pesto recipe is on my asparagus soup recipe, if you fancy making it. If not, I think that any other type of pesto would work well in this dish.

Creamy garlicky gnocchi with mushrooms and bacon (serves 1)

130g pre-packaged gnocchi
1 tsp olive oil
75g button mushrooms, quartered
1 rasher smoked bacon, diced
35g wild garlic pesto (or use any flavour you fancy!)
50g Philadelphia
Salt and lots of black pepper
Basil leaves for garnish.

1. Fry the bacon and button mushrooms in the olive oil for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, boil the gnocchi according to packet instructions.
2. Drain the gnocchi, reserving 60ml of the starchy water you have boiled it in. Add the cooked gnocchi, pesto and Philadelphia to the mushrooms and bacon. Stir until well combined and the sauce is nice and thick. Season to taste, garnish with basil and serve!

Recipe: Creamy Asparagus Soup, with Wild Garlic Pesto

This soup is soooo lush! Really tasty and creamy, and made with some fantastic tasting local Wye Valley asparagus. Beautiful and thick, and the nutty wild garlic pesto drizzled on top compliments it perfectly. If you have any pesto left, it's delicious to have as a simple dip, with loads of crunchy vegetable crudite.

Asparagus soup with wild garlic pesto (serves 2)

For the soup:
50g butter
4 wild garlic leaves, roughly chopped
1 white onion, chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme
200g asparagus (woody ends and all!), finely chopped
300g potatoes, peeled and finely diced
700ml chicken stock
250ml skimmed milk
Salt and pepper to taste

For the pesto:
8 wild garlic leaves
20g toasted pine nuts
10g finely grated parmesan
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook the white onion, thyme and wild garlic in the butter on a medium heat for 5 minutes. Add all the other ingredients, increase to a high heat, and cook for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, blend all the pesto ingredients in a food processor until smooth, season to taste, and set aside.
3. Remove the soup from the heat, allow to cool a little, and blend until smooth. Return to the pan and heat up until nice and hot again. Season to taste, swirl in some of the wild garlic pesto, and serve!

Recipe: Wild Garlic Roasted New Potatoes

Another scrumptious recipe using the lovely british seasonal ingredient that is wild garlic! A very tasy little side dish i've got here- not many ingredients, it just really lets the flavour of the wild garlic and good english new potatoes shine through. It is important to use small potatoes, and to bunch them all together (although not completely piling them up!) in the roasting pan, otherwise they will not cook together thoroughly and you'll end up with crunchy potatoes. Next time I make this, if i have a chance to go and pick some more wild garlic before their season is over, i'm going to make quadruple what I make here- it is just too good!

Wild Garlicky Roasted New Potatoes (serves 2 as a side dish)

500g baby new potatoes, quartered
10 wild garlic leaves
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp sugar
Plenty of salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. In a food processor blend the wild garlic, herbs, olive oil and sugar until smooth. In a large bowl mix together the potatoes and garlicky oil, and add plenty of salt and pepper, making sure the potatoes are all nice and coated.
2. Pour onto a tray and bunch them up together (don’t spread them out). Roast in the oven for 50 minutes. Remove and serve!

Recipe: New Potato Salad with Wild Garlic

Now, wild garlic- have you ever tried it? If you havent, you MUST, it is fabulous! Now i'm not much of a "forager" per say, not like these chefs that go out picking their own mushrooms and catching their own seafood and things, but wild garlic is very easy to identify and collect. It's not like I could mistake it for something else, and end up ruddy poisoning someone! As you can see with the pictures here, wild garlic leaves are thin, dark green, and the plants have white flowers. The flowers can also be picked and consumed- they look lovely as a garnish! You will know it is wild garlic when you pick it- cause all you need to do is smell it- it has a very pungent garlicky smell! Infact often, when you get large patches of it like this, you can actually smell the wild garlic in the air- it's amazing!

Now, it's hard to make potato salad look pretty- but this dish is soooo tasty- and healthier than your adverage potato salad too, cause it uses yoghurt instead of mayonaiise (cause I aint a big fan of mayo). Wild garlic is seasonal to the UK in April/ early May, and can mostly be found in wooded or shady areas. It aint around for much longer now, so get out there and start picking!

New Potato Salad with Wild Garlic (serves 2 as a side dish)

1 heaped tsp smooth Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp walnut oil
Pinch of sugar, salt and pepper
4 tbsp Greek yoghurt
6 wild garlic leaves, finely chopped
8 cooked (cold!) new potatoes, quartered

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the mustard, honey, vinegar, oil, salt, pepper and pinch of sugar, until it emulsifies (just like how you would normally make vinaigrette).
2. Mix the Greek yoghurt and wild garlic into the other ingredients until well combined. Mix the potatoes into the finished sauce (not too vigorously! You don’t want to mash the potatoes!).
3. Season to taste and serve!