This recipe is new favorite at our house. Dead simple, made with ingredients we always stock in our cupboard: spaghetti, tinned mackerel, garlic, onions, fennel seeds and olive oil. Brilliant just like this. If you feel like it it's nice to add some greens. Broad beans or swiss char work very well but I guess fennel would be nice too.

Boil the spaghetti water. Cut a small onion and some garlic. Slowly fry the onion with a pinch of salt. When they start to turn golden add the garlic and the fennel seeds. At this point I added some boiled and peeled broad beans and some finely cut swiss char. Drench with a bit of white wine or pastis. Add the tinned mackerel. Season with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mix with the spaghetti and serve.

Pasta is the one thing our son actually likes. Ricotta - Spinach Tortellini in particularly.
Perfect for an other holiday cookery action: How to make pasta.

You might ask your self why on earth we have the equipment to make pasta in italy? Well … the other day I was trying out a new locatelli recipe which involved fresh ravioli. As usually I thought I buy the dough in the supermarket but there was none. Seems logical that they don't sell that in italian supermarkets now, but back then it didn't cross my mind ;-)  It was already late and all the pasta shops were closed, luckily we discovered a halved prized pasta machine in one corner of the supermarket and my son got totally enthusiastic about it, so we bought it.

Making your on pasta is really easy, the only thing you need is a bit of time, and the result is great! So much better than the dough you buy in supermarkets.

Making the dough:

I recommend making the pasta dough by hand, it easy and you get better feeling when it's done. Pasta dough shouldn't be knead to much.
Have a bowl of water by the side when you start , so you can wet your hands to bring the dought together if needed.

Make a heap with the flour sprinkle over the salt and add the eggs in the middle ( like on the picture). To begin break the yolks with with the fingertips and begin to move your fingers in circles, gradually incorporating the flour. Then bring it together to a ball and start pushing it with the heel of your hand, then fold it back and turn it. Do this for 10 minutes . The dough will still feel rather difficult to work. Don't worry about this. Make two balls and let them sit under a damp cloth for an hour and then they will be perfect.

Rolling your pasta:

Roll the first ball with a rolling pin until it's 1 cm thick. It should go through the machine comfortably and not squeeze it to much this is important.
Now gradually go through all the settings of your machine, turning with one hand and holding the dough with the other. This is a bit tricky as your dough get's longer and longer.
Next fold the the strip of the pasta back on itself and start the whole procedure again ( starting on setting one).

Now cut your strip into have and cover one of them with the damp cloth. Fold the length of the other one into three, bringing one end in and the other over the top of that, so that pasta is the same width as the machine. Roll it with the replying pin so it is no more that 5 mm thick, then put it pack in the machine on setting one and feed it through the machine. This time widthwise not lengthwise. This makes it more elastic. Keep feeding it through this way taking it down two or three settings as you go.

Finally, fold it back on itself, put the machine back on one 1 and take it through the settings until it's about 1.5 mm thick. It should be nice and shiny.

Filling your pasta:

Once you have your dough almost as thin paper you can cut it into smaller pieces. Put the filling in little heaps on the dough. You gonna cover it with more dough, but before you do that brush on some egg white on it  so the two layers of dough really stick together . When you stick them together try to get all the air out, this is important otherwise hot water comes in when you cook them and you can really burn the mouth when eating. Cut them with one of these pasta cutters and thats about it.

I do think that I will invest in the ravioli extension that you can buy extra for our machine though.

You can fill you pasta with everything. We did the the classic "ricotta - spinach" but we have to keep working on that one . Ours had to much spinach in it and little men didn't really like it…  An other not very successful cookery class I would say, then again we had loads of fun…
Next time we try noodles.

I like to experiment with ready made pasta dough. Even though I'd love to get a pasta thing for my kitchen aid. But we live next to a pasta "factory" where we can buy the dough. You even get it in supermarkets these days.
This is inspired by a ottolenghi recipe. Perfect to use up some left over goats cheese - something we always have.
Serves 2.

Mix together the goats cheese, squash it with a fork. Add 3/4 of the lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper.
Make the pasta. I always use two layers and "glue" them together with some beaten egg white. 
Use a glass to cut out the rondini this will seal them together. Cook immediately or cover with cling film till you cook them .
Cook in boiling saltwater for 3-5 min.
In a small pan, melt the butter till it starts to turn slightly brown. Add the red pepper flakes and some more lemon zest.
Season with a bit of salt.

Put the butter over the rondinis and sprinkle on the tarragon.
Lovely simple dinner I must say! Or maybe a primi if you want to impress ...

Fast and delicious. This was one course of our christmas eve dinner.

Bring salt water to boil. Add the black noodle and cook according to the package instructions. Meanwhile quickly fry the crabmeat. Season with salt, pepper and a good dash of fresh lemon juice. Drain the noodles keep some of the pasta water, and but them back into the pan. Add the pasta water and the Pernod. Season with salt and pepper and heat again. Add the cream and mix well. Serve with the crabmeat on top and some bitter green salad leave for decoration.

It's summer already and we can finally eat on the balcony again ( in may! ).
I'm still cooking the Ottolenghi way, last saturday I tried his Soba noodles with mango, eggplant and fresh herbs. Delicious and fast.
I can see many more evenings on the balcony looking at the last shafts of sunshine while eating this lovely dish.

Glass noodles with edamame beans and a dressing of chillies, cilantro, mint, lime and palm sugar.
This is a great summer dish which could be done in many variations I think. 

The bast way of eating pulpo for me is with nice with bread and a good glass of red wine but this is a nice variation.
Cook the pulpo. Cook the black noodles,  when al dente drain them and mix with the pulpo and all the juices that are left in the pan.
Sprinkel with some finely cut celery stalks and italian parsley.

Now is the time I have to eat my yearly ratio of tomato. I only eat tomatoes during the hot summer month when they are ripe and sweet and smell beautifully. One of the favorite summer dishes is a simple tomato sauce.
We are lucky here, we get almost 20 different tomatoes types during the summer. Big ones, tiny ones, red, green, yellow and even burgundy ones.

As I said if you can't get hold of these perfect summer tomatoes don't even think of doing a fresh tomato sauce - use tinned ones instead.

2 sliced onions
2 garlic gloves
a handful of capers
10 black olives
all kind of different tomatoes 5-6 depending on the size
salt
pepper
fresh basil
dried italian herbs
1/2 buffala mozzarella

Slowly fry the onions and garlic in a good dash of olive oil. Add the capers, tomatoes and the olives.
Season. Let cook for approximately 20 min. Add the fresh basil and if you like some buffalo mozzarella ( this does not look very elegant but tastes pretty good). Mix with the pasta and serve.

It's hard to say which is my favorite time of the year vegetable wise. But spring is just so exciting. Suddenly all this lovely bright green veggies start to turn up again. What you don't get on the market here are the typically spring veggies like fave - my all time favourite and barba di fratte. I always plant my own fave in the garden but this year it does not not look like it's going to be a good fave year. Only half of the seeds germinated and the cold may did not do them a favor either. Luckily we have a italian wholesale shop ( who also retails) more or less around the corner and they sell every possible italian speciality.

I spend my days in the garden at the moment ( garden holidays this is called ) an have no time for big cooking.

Spaghetti with fave and barba di fratte is a fast and delicious dinner.

20 pods of fave
A bunch of barba di fratte quartered
1/4 lemon zested
1/3 feta cheese crumbled
good olive oil
salt and pepper

Bring a big pot of saltwater to boil

Take the fave out of the pads and blanch for 4 minutes. Take of the skin.
Cook the spaghetti in the salt water after 3 minutes ad the barba di fratte, when done drain

In a large sauce pan, combine all the ingredients and season with salt and pepper.

Wild fennel grows everywhere here in sardinia so I was happy to find a recipe
in the fantastic "Made in Italy cook" book from Locatelli that uses wild fennel.

• 2 tbs sultanas
• 2 good quality tomatoes blanched and peeled
• 2 tbs pine nuts
• 12 sardine filets roughly chopped
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 3 finely chopped garlic cloves
• 1/2 glass of dry white wine
• handful of chopped parsley
• handful of chopped wild fennel

Soak the sultanas in hot water for 30 min.
Spread the pine nuts on a baking tray and put into the preheated oven (180°), just long enough to turn them golden. Remove from the tray.

Briefly fry the garlic till he starts to color, don't let burn. Add the chopped sardines and cook for 1 minute. Season and add the with wine. Allow to evaporate the alcohol. Put in the tomatoes, pine nuts, drained sultans and turn off the heat.

Meanwhile cook the pasta. Add to the sauce add a little more olive oil. Toss in the parsley and the fennel.