Category Archives: Classics

Pesto. Timeless classic.

It turned out exceptionally well last night, all the photos look great on this particular laptop, so here it is, on the blog.

We had it with shop bought gnocchi.

A handful of pinoli got toasted on a dry pan, another handful of skinless, raw almonds got thrown together into the mini food processor and blitzed. Onto this fresh, amazing basil. Lots of it. Freshly grated parmiggiano. 2 cloves of garlic. Olive oil, good glug. Salt. All nicely blitzed into a wonderful, juicy green paste.

This almond trick I learned from Molly, whose husband is responsible for the best gnocchi with pesto I’ve ever had. Almonds seem to add a lovely creaminess to the pesto, I always have some in the pantry now. Yum. Simple, delicious, timeless classic.

Hail butter!

Bruschetta. Not very adventurous, not difficult, not sophisticated. But I have watched “Julie & Julia” again and made it right after the movie finished. Julie has fried bread on lots of butter. It was dark golden, crunchy and moist. I normally grill it with olive oil. but noooooooo, butter is the way forward methinks.

That fantastic bread I put lovingly on the plate and topped with chopped tomato, basil and shallot mixture and freshly grated ( the only way again!) parmesan. YUMMMMMMMM!!!!