“Farfalle with savoy cabbage, pancetta, thyme and mozzarella” from “The Return of the Naked Chef”

Peter: This smells like the broccoli pasta.

Anna: That will be the pine nuts. He puts pine nuts in almost every recipe in this book.

Peter: Are pine nuts very turn of the century then? What’s in now, during these recessionary times? Quinoa?

Anna: Dried things. And things you grow yourself. You can’t grow pine nuts. But, you can grow cabbage if you’re so inclined. I don’t think we’ve done this recipe before. And it’s rather nice.

Peter: You’re right, I can’t remember having it. But it’s a proper meal. And this is an easy way to sneak cabbage into someone’s diet.

Anna: Yes, hide it behind the saturated fat and salt of the mozzarella and pancetta. I think we’ll be having this again. It’s good for restoring your energy after your swimming lesson with Louis.

Peter: All that splish-splashing around in a circle and up in the air certainly takes it out of you.

Anna: I should mention that there’s no photos as the camera ran out of battery just as I was serving. This isn’t the sort of dish that can sit around while searching for an replacement.  Next time…..

“Pasta Bolognese” from “The Family Meal”

Miles: I love this pasta mummy!

Tom: Wow. You ate the pasta, and a lot of the sauce!

Ella: That piece of tomato looks like an eyeball. So I’m not going to eat it.

Kirstin: Oh, Ella!

Georgia: It was yummy.

“Spaghetti Bolognese” from “The River Cottage Family Cookbook”

Kirstin: Well I only read at about 5pm that I was supposed to let this simmer for two hours. So I had to be really speedy about getting it on the hob.

Tom: It has made the house smell amazing this evening though.

Kirstin: Hasn’t it just? I have never added milk to a bolognese sauce before and I really think it made it that much yummier.

Tom: Yes, it added a lovely complexity to the sauce.

Ella: I am not a huge fan of gloopy pasta sauces, but I do like this one.

Miles: I absolutely love pasta. And I love this sauce. Look at the way I am noodling the pasta in right now!

Kirstin: You make me laugh, Miles! You really do! Look at that sauce all over your chin too!

“Macaroni and Cheese” from “The River Cottage Family Cookbook”

Tim: What do you think boys?

Andrew (12) and Nicholas (8): Good!

Maureen: Nicholas, I didn’t put bacon on yours since you told me earlier today that you were “born hating bacon.” Would you have liked some anyway?

Nicholas: No. It’s perfect the way it is, without the bacon.

Maureen: Do you like this more, less or the same as our favourite macaroni and cheese? When I say “our favourite” I mean the New York Times recipe, not the Jamie Oliver 30 Minute Cauliflower Macaroni.

“Rigatoni al Forno” from “Feast”

If you would like to make this yourself, Red Dirt Mummy out of Australia posted the recipe on her blog here.

Tim (watching as the boys gobble up their dinner): You boys do love your pasta.

Andrew (12): This is great.

Nicholas (8): Yes, I think it’s very good.

Andrew: Please can I have some seconds?

Nicholas: Me too, although it’s a bit burnt around the edges.

Andrew: Yes, I can see the burnt bits.

Tim: It adds some nice crunchy bits.

Maureen: Sorry about that. Having a lifetime experience of baked ziti behind me, I should know it’s going to take no more than 30 minutes to finish this dish off. Nigella says it might take much as 45 minutes. If you did that, it would be totally burnt.

Tim: Isn’t this just a baked spaghetti bolognese? But without the spaghetti?

Maureen: Sort of, though you do have to make a bechamel sauce. The other major difference is that while this is easy, it does take the better part of an afternoon. It took 2 and a half hours.

Nicholas: Wow! Two hours 30 minutes! That’s a long time.

Tim: You have to start this early in the afternoon if you want to have it for dinner then, don’t you?

Maureen: Yes, this is definitely a cold weekend dish. There’s no way you’d have the time to do it on a weeknight. Saying that, though, it is delicious. And to be fair to Nigella, she put this in the “Partytime” section of the book to feed a crowd of 16– I scaled it down– so maybe that’s when she intends it to be eaten too.

Andrew: I’m going for some more.

Maureen: Thirds!

Tim: This might be a record.

Andrew: No, my record is fourths, probably with chicken parm.

Maureen: Should we have it again?

Everyone: Yes!

Cook’s Notes: While this does take a long time to cook, it doesn’t take a long time to prepare. You make the base of the meat sauce by bunging onions, carrots, pancetta, celery and garlic into the food processor. After frying it up, you add the minced beef, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, red wine and bay leaves. Then you leave it to cook for two hours. Like I said, the perfect dish to have simmering away on the stove on a cold winter’s day.

“Pasta with goat’s curd, caramelised red onion and fig” from “Fast, Fresh, Simple”

Anna: Oh dear. This didn’t work, on so many levels.

Peter: I sense you didn’t like this as much as I did. The portions were certainly… generous.

Anna: Is that why you liked it?

Peter: No! It’s a shame we are having a heatwave as it was quite autumnal.  Also, I think it’s probably a good store cupboard meal.

Anna: I don’t know. How often do we have goats curd in the cupboard?

Peter: We didn’t use goats curd, we used goat cheese. I accept we wouldn’t buy that every week, but everything else we’d have.

Anna: But didn’t you think it was dry?

Peter: I don’t know…..

Anna: It was a big lump of stuff in a bowl.

Peter: Wasn’t that to do with the pasta?

Anna: Partly. But also because the timings for caramalising the onions were totally off.  You can’t caramalise 4 onions in 10 minutes!  We gave them another 5-7 and they still weren’t caramalised but at least they were better than before. But what that meant was that the liquid had cooked off, and the pasta was cooked, so in the end everything was dry and lumpy.

Peter: Well maybe you need to treat the recipe a bit differently. But I’m not given the latitude to do that.

Anna: No, you’re right. And that’s why I don’t think this works. I don’t think I can be bothered to cook it again.

“Rustic Summer Crumb Pasta” from “Fresh, Fast, Simple”

Maureen: First of all, there’s a problem. The name of this is “Rustic Summer Crumb Pasta.” Can anyone tell me what the problem is?

Andrew (12): It’s not summer.

Maureen: Bingo! But I’m not sure what makes it a summer dish. It’s not as if there’s anything really fresh in there other than the basil, but you can get that year round. What did you think?

Andrew: I think it’s really nice.

Nicholas (8, therefore not prone to liking much of anything that’s new): It’s good!

Maureen: Praise be! Nicholas likes it!

“Macaroni Cheese” from “A Taste of Home”

Tom: This is great! I’m having seconds. This is the best macaroni cheese recipe so far. Yum!

Miles: It’s delicious!

Kirstin: Should I make it again, Miles?

Miles: Um, no thanks.

Tom: Why not, Miles? Do you just like other things?

Miles: When I tasted it with loads of sauce on it, then I didn’t like it. I wanted to taste the sauce. With a little bit, then I liked it. With a lot, then I didn’t like it. May I please be excused?

Kirstin: It was very easy to cook.

Miles: And very delicious!

Ella (eating it from the pan): I like the crunchy bits. They are all chewy!

Tom: Leave some for me!

Ella: Uh-uh. These are the only bits I will eat.

Kirstin: I will keep cooking macaroni cheese recipes until these two decide that they like it.

Ella: You will be cooking for hundreds of years. And into the afterlife.

Kirstin: Well, there’s a challenge! And I really struggle to make macaroni cheese look good in a picture, I so do. I feel another challenge coming on….

“Rigatoni with Aubergine” from ” A Taste of Home”

Anna: You’ve just said she’s ruined aubergines.

Kirstin: She has. I like my aubergines crunchy. These are soggy and taste of vinegar. I mean what was the point of frying them if we then had to stick them in the sauce like that?

Anna: I don’t mind a soggy aubergine and I don’t mind the taste of vinegar, but I can hear what you’re saying. We think perhaps this would work better if you added the vinegar to the tomatoes first and then added the aubergine.

“Rigatoni with fennel and sausage” from “A Taste of Home”

Tom: I thought this was very nice. A bit lighter than our usual Friday night sausage sauce. Was that because there was no red wine in it?

Kirstin: Possibly. I cooked the sausages for more time than she said so they became a little browned. And I liked the addition of a small amount of flat leaf parsley to add to the green. That and the fennel were two interesting additions!