Spaghetti with Pine Nuts, Sundried Tomatoes and Pesto

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of Spaghetti, cooked
• 80g of Pine Nuts
• 3 Rashers of streaky bacon
• 8 - 10 good sized sun dried Tomatoes
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1 tblspn chopped fresh thyme
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh flatleaf (continental or Italian) Parsley
• 2 or 3 cloves garlic, peeled
  
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Method

• While the pasta cooks, take about a quarter of the pine nuts and add them to a mortar and pestle with the garlic. Pound into a rough paste and add a lug of olive oil. Add the chopped herbs and pound into a rough pesto and put to one side. Strain the pasta, add pepper and olive oil to taste, put to one side.
  
• In a frying pan, heat another lug of olive oil. Put the remaining pine nuts in the pan and stir until they begin to brown, then add the balsamic vinegar. Roughly chop bacon into strips, and the sun dried tomatoes into thin strips. Once the liquid has coated the nuts and began to thicken, add the bacon.
• Once the majority of the liquid has thickened, add the tomato and fry until the bacon is cooked to taste, about 5 minutes.
• Add the pine nut and bacon mix to pasta, add the pesto and stir through. Serve immediately.
  

Great for lunch when you have friends over, as it's simple to make and doesn't take long at all. Optionally you can add almond slivers to the pine nuts and bacon, and you can add baby spinach or basil leaves to the pasta when you stir it all through. Experiment with your own herb combinations to make different pestos, or add Ricotta cheese or mascarpone to make a creamy pesto. Cumin seeds, crushed with Coriander, parsley and fennel seeds or tumeric make a nice pesto, especially when you substitute the sun dried tomatoes for roasted capsicum or peppers. I've also used a good dukkah mix instead of pesto before. Possibilities are limited only by your imagination and your pantry.

Enjoy!

-James, the Not So Skinny Cook

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

• About 1 kg Mushrooms (button or cup)
• 8 Large Swiss Brown Mushrooms
• 10 Oyster Mushrooms
• 45g Dried Porcini Mushrooms
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 Spanish, or red Onion, chopped
  
• 2 Litres Chicken or Vegetable Stock
• 250ml Cream (light preferably)
  
• 3 Garlic cloves, crushed or grated (I grate all my garlic)
• Handful of chopped fresh thyme leaves
• handful of chopped continental (flatleaf) Parsley
• 4 or 5 tblsp Mascarpone cheese
• 1 lemon
  

Method

• Place the dried Porcini mushrooms in a bowl and cover with boiled water, and place to one side. In a large pot, heat a large lug of Olive Oil and add the onions and mushrooms (excpet the Porcini. Once the mix started to get moist and fragrant, add the herbs and garlic (save a little of the thyme for garnishing if you wish).
• Simmer for about 10 mins and then add the stock. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  
• When the Porcini is soft strain into another bowl to remove grit, and save the water. Chop half the Porcini and add to the mushrooms, put the other half to the side for later. Add the Porcini water.
• Simmer for about 20 mins, then allow to cool a little. Take half the soup and process it, or use a chef master mixer, then return it to the soup. Place soup back on heat. Add Cream and bring to the boil, then remove from heat
• Pour into bowls, garnish the remaining Procini mushrooms in the centre of each bowl, and ladle with a spoon the juice of 1 lemon between the bowls. Lightly dust with the zest from the lemon and any thyme that you reserved. Serve with a big dollop of the Mascarpone, and thick crusty bread.
  

Every once in a while I make something that pretty much ruins meals for me. By this I mean that once I've had it my way, I cannot conceivably order it at a restaurant ever again. I did it with Spaghetti Bolognaise, and now I've done it with this Mushroom soup. Up until about 3 or so years ago, I was not a fan of any mushrooms but there was this Cafe that I used to live above (next door to a porn shop) in Kings Cross, Sydney. They served a massive 3 egg omelette with mushrooms in it which totally rewired my taste for mushrooms. Unfortunately the Cafe is no longer there, but I'll never forget those Omelettes. And so began my exploration of mushrooms.

This recipe is another Jamie Oliver recipe variation, I dont think he uses cream, from Jamie's Dinners (Page 148).

Enjoy!

-James, the Not So Skinny Cook