01.09.08: Spelt tagliatelle with roquefort sauce

Fancy-pants pasta land, here we come: We snapped up some handcrafted spelt tagliatelle from Spitalfields yesterday, and while we were standing there, the stallholder slipped us each a fateful smudge of intensely creamy, pungent roquefort cheese. Slightly dizzy, we forked over a little more dosh than we meant to in order to take home a chunk of the heavenly blue.

And tonite, She paired up the pasta and cheese, adding dabs of yoghurt and splashes of white wine for good measure to make a sauce that also coated some shallots, chestnut mushrooms, peas, and spinach. Pinches of dill and grindings of black pepper topped it off. Standing by: salad of pear, radishes, beetroot, watercress, spinach and rocket.

HE SAYS: I was a little disappointed the roquefort didn't make the sauce creamier but the taste was great: intensely blue cheesy and salty. Ahh, the power of cheese. The spelt pasta also had a uniquely tasty tang, more earthy then your regular white flour pasta. The salad rocked, 'nuf said.

SHE SAYS: Well, it wasn't bad at all, but that whole dense slice of richness disappeared into a dun-coloured soup. I was trying not to load any more big fat into the dish, so instead of adding cream for thickening, I tried yoghurt - and it totally soupified. Could have stirred in some flour, but that would have cancelled out the bloat-busting good of the spelt pasta (and would have made us feel stooopid paying more for a special-grain noodle).

Spinach was the star in terms of pasta veg, and black pepper heightened the roque-y flavour - a good tip for next time we get seduced by speshy cheese, when the only added accompaniment will be a (spelt?) cracker.

04.06.08: Veggie pasta with fresh sauce

A second outing for the spelt pasta: She grilled some baby courgettes, sauteed an onion and portobello mushrooms, got saucy with the fresh tomatoes, splashed in some red wine, sprinkled in the garlic and capers, shaved some Parmesan over the whole dealio and called it dinner. Lest we forget: Sweetfire beetroot, avo and leafy salad pulled up to the plate, too.

HE SAYS: Mama Mia! Whatta nice-a pasta dish this was. The capers really made it zing and the courgettes added the fresh smokey element. I'm sure a dash or two of red wine didn't hurt either. Ate more then my fair share of the Sweetfire salad, she don't mind, she knows how much I crave the deep red chunks of goodness.

SHE SAYS: Decent enough, if not wow-inducing. Tomatoes are really good right now, so I think we'll keep experimenting with fresh sauce instead of automatically reaching for Lloyd. I'd get the spelt pasta again if we passed by the market. Now, do you know about the joys of the frozen tomato? One of mine was icy as it came out of the fridge, and I immediately learned two things: frozen tomatoes peel super-easily (the peel just slipped off when I tried to cut into it), and they are so very tasty! Think savoury tomato sorbet. This is going to be my blue-ribbon summer snack if it ever gets hot outside.

26.05.08: Spinach pie and spelt pasta with fresh sauce

Stuffed! He spent the afternoon making spinach pie, packed between papery, buttery layers of filo with the aforementioned spinach, feta, ricotta and a touch of parmesan. She jumped into the fray with a ho-made sauce of fresh baby plum tomatoes, white wine, capers, a big handful of basil, some chopped garlic, prosciutto, onion, and portobello mushrooms - spooned over some semi-fresh spelt pasta bought at the Richmond market. The salad of cucumber, grapes and leaves was rebelliously simple.

HE SAYS: The wet bank holiday at least enabled me to spend some time making the spanakopita that I hadn't attempted in about a decade without any guilt about missing out on frolicking in the non-existent sun. I set aside 3 hours to leisurely put this baby to bed, and so glad I did as it's quite a production. After creating the spinach filling I noticed the ricotta that we'd frozen and defrosted was not looking like it should, i.e. looked like a puddle of water; I had to nip out and get an emergency ration quick smart. When all the filling was prepared, the buttering and layering of the filo dough went smoothly and cooking was a breeze.

The result was very tasty and decadent and will be a nice lunch for the rest of the week. Her pasta was also great, very fresh tasting. The tomatoes hit the perfect sweetness and the capers and dash of white wine added just enough tart and savoury tang needed to round out the overall flavour. The posh bacon, sorry, prosciutto, didn't hurt neither. Salad was very green looking due in part to the inclusion of some green grapes that were camouflaged to the eye but not to the tastebuds.

SHE SAYS: The spinach pie was extraordinarily rich and delish - it's meant for lunch this week, but it sneaked onto the dinner plate somehow (whistles and looks away). The pastry was perfectly crackly and buttery, the filling herby and moist. My sauce was no slouch, either - can anything with prosciutto in it not be tasty? But even aside from that cheat, the tomato sauce itself was sweet and yumsome. The pasta gets a cheerful thumbs up, despite being a little pricey. The cool green crunch of the salad made just the right counterpoint to all the luxurious flavours and textures.