Tag archives: lemon juice

Pasta with a creamy avocado sauce

Serves 4

How hungry are you? Can you wait 12 minutes, because that’s exactly how long it takes to make this simple and delicious meal.

You will need:

  • 400g of your favourite pasta, I used linguine
  • 2 ripe avocados
  • A few basil leaves
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 2 tbsp of lemon juice
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • A 200g tin of sweetcorn
  • A few cherry tomatoes
  • Some kind of food processor

Right, fill a large pan with boiling water, stick your pasta in it and cook it however it says on the packet.

Whilst that’s doing its thing we can make the sauce, halve your avocados, peel them and get rid of the seed, stick them in the food processor along with the basil leaves, peeled garlic and a twist of salt & pepper to taste.

Process it all together until smooth.

With the processor running drizzle in 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil until the sauce emulsifies, you’ll see the sauce change in consistency and thicken. You might not have to put all of the oil in so see how you get on.

Drain your sweetcorn and quarter your cherry tomatoes.

Your pasta should be done by now (see it’s that quick), drain it and return it to the pan, stir in your avocado sauce, sweetcorn, tomatoes and serve!

Adapted from: http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2012/08/creamy-avocado-pasta.html

Vegetarian Haggis recipe

Can you call vegetarian haggis, haggis? Either way, I had some in Edinburgh when I was there last week and it was so tasty I decided to make it myself. Sorry for listing some of the measurements in cups, that’s how I got the recipe and I didn’t think to weigh out the ingredients once I’d measured them.

Ingredients

Olive oil

1 carrot, peeled and finely diced

1/4 of a peeled swede, finely diced

1 onion, peeled and finely diced

6 mushrooms, finely diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup of whole mixed nuts, hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts

1/3 of a cup of red lentils

600ml of vegetable stock

1/2 cup of cooked kidney beans

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary

1/4 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground cinammon

Freshly ground black papper

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 and 1/2 cups of pinhead oatmeal

The juice of half a lemon

Method

Heat the oven to 170C.

Spread the mixed nuts out on a baking tray and roast in the oven for 10 minutes, don’t over-roast.

Let the nuts cool and finely chop them, I put them in the chopper I got with a stick blender.

Add a little olive oil to a large pan and add the onion, sauté for 5 minutes.

Season with some black pepper, don’t add too much right now, we’re going to add more later.

Add the carrot, swede, mushrooms and garlic and sauté for another 5 minutes.

Add the lentils, 450ml of the stock and stir.

Add the kidney beans to the remaining 150ml of stock and give them a little mash, don’t break them up too much.

Add the nuts, soy sauce, herbs and spices to the stock, stir it all together and add it to the vegetables. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add some more black pepper, keep tasting so you don’t over do it but you want to be fairly heavy handed with the amount of pepper you put in for a more authentic taste.

Add the pinhead oatmeal and cook for another 5 minutes. Add a little water of it gets too dry, the mixture should end up moist but not runny.

Add the lemon juice and stir it in.

Spoon the mixture into two lightly greased loaf tins.

Bake for 30 minutes at 190C.

Serve with mashed neeps and tatties!