Festivals, Birthdays and Cookery Classes

 It's actually been about a month since I posted anything on my blog. I've basically had a month of fun, festival going and birthday celebrations, including many culinary capers along the way. On the weekend of 10th August, we went to Wilderness festival where I bought tickets for Nel and I to do a cookery course with the Thyme Cookery School.

The course felt a little rushed but I did pick up a few tips and ideas for recipes which I'll do another week. We made a feta and spinach filo spring roll with several sides and salads. In particular I liked the tahini and lemon dressing and the crushed pea dish, which I made again when we got home, desperate for some fresh food.

 Last weekend was my Birthday, and so Billy and I cooked a special, rather pink, birthday brunch. We made a rough guacamole and spread it on sourdough toast and topped it with two poached eggs, fresh chillies and greens. Yummy. In fact two summers ago, Nel and I also went to the Green Man Festival and this is where I got the inspiration for this breakfast. At the Green Man though, we had it with scrambled eggs, chard and chorizo. It's delicious either way.

 Finally to top off my culinary month, I made made cupcakes. Now I never usually bake cakes but I do like lemon drizzle cake. So, using one of Nigella's lemon drizzle cake recipe's I made these. Took them to the pub, where we all enjoyed them with a few glasses of wine.

Beetroot Ravioli with Blue Cheese, Walnut and Spinach filling

As I've not been working of late, I wanted to make a dish with things that I had in the fridge already so as to save a bit of money. I had some beetroot and pasta flour and so decided to make some bright pink pasta as a bit of fun.

Using Gina Steer's pasta recipe from her book, The Pasta Machine Cookbook, I made my pasta. I then wrapped it in clingfilm and placed in the fridge for about an hour to cool.

After making the filling (see below), Billy and I set up our pasta machine and rolled out the pasta until we got to the smallest setting.

We decided to cut out the ravioli shapes first, fill them and then put the top layer on, brushing on some water around the edges of the filling in order to glue the two layers together.

We cooked them for around 4 minutes until al dente, and served them with a horseradish butter. Delicious. Next time I am going to add even more beetroot as it did loose a bit of colour during the cooking process.

Recipe (serves 4):

Pasta:
See my related links for the pasta recipe from the Pasta Machine Cookbook

300g flour
3 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pinch of Salt
Beetroot, pureed

Filling:
20g crushed walnuts
40g blue cheese
125g ricotta cheese
1 bag fresh greens- I used spinach, watercress and rocket. cook and drain thoroughly so that there is no water left in them.
Salt and pepper to season

Horseradish Butter:
Large knob of butter
Half a crushed clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of hot horseradish sauce
Squeeze of lemon and a bit of zest.
 Bring all of these ingredient to a sizzle and sizzle until a golden colour. Pour over the pasta once cooked with some more crushed walnuts.