Smoked salmon and avocado oreccette

This was a complete throw together of everything that was left in the fridge, but turned out really lovely.

You'll need;

1 avocado diced
100g smoked salmon, chopped into small strips.
150ml cream
50g parmsan
1 red chile, chopped finely
1 crushed garlic clove
handful parsley chopped
300g oreccette pasta (or whatever)
2 tomatoes (I used kumatos), chopped finely
Extra virgin Olive oil.
3 anchovies

Cook your pasta according to directions. Drain and set aside.

In the same saucepan (love this aspect) put in a few glugs of olive oil, the anchovies, chile, garlic and stir for a minute. Add the tomates and heat through. Pour in the cream and heat until just simmering, and shave in the parmesan. Season now.

Stir through the pasta, smoked salmon, avocado and parsley. Serve to rapturous appaluse.

Pistachio, rose and cinnamon brittle

Okay, okay - it's been a while since the last update. I just haven't made anything that I thought was blog-worthy. Hey, it happens:-)

This was a great experiment. I'd made a maple and pecan brittle which was yummy, but this was particularly interesting.

You'll need:

1 cup brown or raw sugar
1 cup corn syrup
4 tablespoons rosewater
300g shelled pistachios
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon red food dye
1 tbspn baking soda

Put the sugar in a saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of water over high heat, and stir till dissolved. Pour in the corn syrup and rosewater.

This is the tricky bit. I've never had a sugar thermometer that was in any way reliable, so I use the old water test. Once your toffee has been heating for a few minutes, drop a teaspoon of the mixture into some cold water. If the toffee goes instantly brittle, you're there. Simple as that.

When you are getting close, drop in the pistachios, food dye and the cinnamon and stir. I put the dye in just to give the brittle the slightest warm hue to offset the green pistachios, but you can omit this if you like. Stir in the baking soda - this is essential to getting brittle that breaks cleanly and doesn't pull out your fillings.

Turn out the mixture onto a sheet of baking paper, spread into a thin layer and let cool. Eat, eat, eat!!