16: Orecchiette with roast tomato and basil sauce, p197

A very very easy one this, but a nice twist on a tomatoey-sauce on top of pasta - by sticking the tomatoes and some garlic in the oven for a while to roast first, they go deliciously sweet and bring out the flavour of the basil, and adding a little bit of cream just makes it darn scrummy. Will definitely do this many times over the next year.

 

15: Lemon and basil linguine, p150

There are a few relatively simple pasta suppers in the book which give me a good excuse to make homemade pasta. Sometimes making pasta is a disaster and I think whenever I've had a problem it's because the dough hasn't been chilled for long enough - 30mins isn't enough, 1.5hrs seems to be much better. So a happy afternoon making dough, letting it chill, then rolling it out to make lots of lovely linguine (some of it nearly a metre long!) and a couple of bowls-worth of orecchiette ('little ears', so sweet!)...

 

 

 

Once dry,  a couple of minutes in a boiling pan of water, and then a creamy (but no cream!) lemony basily Parmesany sauce, and voila!