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Here’s an easy, delicious and quick cold pasta recipe, perfect for big dinners, buffets and picnics (well, it’s turning Spring, isn’t it?)

I made it with a kilo of pasta, and it went some way to feeding around 10 people (depending on appetites, you can usually go by 100-150g of pasta per person.)

Ingredients

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1kg penne rigate pasta (‘tubes’)
3 packs of mozzarella
3 packs of cherry tomatoes
1 bottle of pitted green or black olives (unseasoned)
1 clove of garlic
Basil, salt and olive oil to taste

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1. Cut the mozzarella, tomatoes and olives and mix together in a bowl with olive oil and some salt.
2. Cut up fresh basil (if you have it) or add some dried basil to the mix. Cut the garlic in half and add that too.
3. Leave to marinade (preferably at least half an hour).
4. Cook the pasta – make sure it’s ‘al dente’, ie not over-cooked – keep tasting it as it nears the predicted cooking time (usually around 8-10 mins.)
5. Drain the pasta, and run under lots of cold water (it’s important it cools down, so the cheese doesn’t melt when you add the sauce.)
6. Add a little more oil and basil to the sauce and mix it together.
7. Remove the garlic (if you can find it! Or else warn everyone – garlic looks remarkably similar to mozzarella!)
7. Mix the pasta and sauce, and bob’s your uncle!

Moni and I are second cousins, but I feel like we’re very closely related. My great-grandparents were also second cousins.

Not meaning to flatter myself here, but I’m sorry Cousin Moni, I’m just not ready for that kind of relationship.

You do make a mean cold pasta though.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Stupid question.

Everyone knows the honey monster wins everytime.

Still, spotting said ‘spelt popples’ in a local tofu emporium, I thought: “What the hell, can’t be all that bad?”

I should add I have fond childhood memories of sugar puffs, and was only allowed to eat them when I went to visit my grandparents up north (usually while watching kids TV classic Wackaday (another forbidden pleasure.)

LondonCooking Verdict:

The honey monster has nothing to fear from his vegan competitors.

Spelt popples are utterly bland, without a doubt more like styrofoam than anything else I’ve ever tasted.

Honey Monster Foods 1 – Amisa ‘Special Diet Nutrition’ – 0

More classic Sugar Puff ads, ooh… and buy the T-Shirt (you know you want to – it’s just £2, and for charidee, after all.)

On the other hand, the less said about Honey’s rap duet with Samanda (‘Honey Love’) the better.

OK, this isn’t studentcooking.co.uk, but it’s come to LondonCooking’s attention that no matter how easy, simple, basic we try to make our recipes, some people (ie – my friend Sophie H., née C.) still won’t go anywhere near them.

With this in mind, here’s a recipe even the most fervent pulse or legume-dodger can make in about 5 minutes flat. No excuses, S.C.!

Ingredients

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1 can baked beans
1 onion
Cumin, to taste

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1. Chop the onion into small pieces and fry in a little oil.
2. When ready, add the beans, and cumin to taste.
3. You can put this on toast…duh!

If you’re really fancy, you could consider buying whole cumin seeds, and crushing them into powder yourself (let’s face it though, you’re making a baked bean curry. This isn’t going to happen.)

On an unrelated note, I see that the website URL studentcooking.com (listed under ‘EXTREME BRANDABILITY’ – nice caps) is available for just $24,000 – bargain!

NB – ‘Brandability’ is definitely not a word. Whoever coined it needs a big slap.

(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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London Cooking’s raison d’etre is to serve you regular lashings of delicious, quick, healthy recipes (plus a little bar/pub/restaurant tips on the side.)

On the odd occasion, however, we like to veer off topic.

There was a piece in London-based newspaper the Economist lately on the various different nicknames the capital has earned over the years:

Manhattan-on-Thames, Londonistan and, lately Rekyavik-on-Thames, to name a few. But where does the Economist say our fair city is headed now? In essence:

‘London will simply resemble the less prepossessing city it was in the 1970s and 1980s, before the excesses and excitements of the New Labour epoch’

So, as we journey to the past (not necessarily a bad thing?) LondonCooking would like to suggest the following as a fitting, affectionate new nickname for ‘the big smoke’:

Nodnol

This links us to the classic episode of Red Dwarf in which the crew lands in an alternate London where everything plays out backwards. And as they too discover, it’s not all bad…

What do you think? Does the name fit? And will it stick?

It’s got to be more cheery than ‘the Abyss’, or ‘the Empire of Hunger’, right?

Some extra-quick dinner tips which combine part ready food, part fresh ingredients – ah, Delia would be proud.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t Robert Peston, or even Niall Ferguson, but really Delia who predicted the downturn, with her ‘How to Cheat at Cooking‘ book last year, in a funny way. And like some kind of Norwich-based culinary Cassandra, she was roundly panned for it…

Pizza

• Co-op Margherita (ie – plain, cheese & tomato) ready pizzas are surprisingly good – much better than Sainsbury’s, for instance.
• Buy one (or two – they were on 2 for 1 offer at my local!) then add your own fresh ingredients, eg – I fried some sliced mushrooms, added salt and oregano – hey presto!

Ravioli

• Buy some ready ravioli, the type with mushrooms and cheese (available in most local supermarkets)
• Slice and fry some pointed cabbage – in season at the moment, and beautifully sweet (not stinky, honest…) – these are currently available even at my tiny local Sainsburys – get them while they’re hot…
• The ravioli only takes a couple of minutes to cook, since it’s ‘fresh’ – add the cabbage, and some olive oil (or butter if you prefer) – and you’re done!

If you’re short of time, or just can’t be bothered to cook, I find even combining ready & fresh ingredients makes me feel a lot better about myself than going the full-on ready meal route.

Buy Delia’s How to Cheat at Cooking @ amazon.co.uk

NB: I’m personally not a fan of instant mash, or canned meat… but needs must when the devil… you know the rest.

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Recently spotted by londoncooking playing an acoustic gig in Camden’s convivial Green Note bar (open mike afternoon – Sundays 1-5pm – nice…) The ever-versatile Vegan Meg here gives a masterclass in humous/hummus-making:

Couldn’t be easier really – so long as you’ve got a mixer. Which I don’t. (Gasp!) Unwilling to wip out the pestle and mortar for the moment, looks like it’s back to hummus bros for me, at least for the moment.

NB: Apparently, Americans call chick peas ‘garbanzo beans‘ – crazy stuff.

Ah lentils… Hippy food, beloved of Neil from the Young Ones. But really, really good with lemon ‘n’ cumin, ya know? Vegetable rights and peace!

Ingredients

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2 Onions
1 Tablespoon olive oil or sesame oil
1 Teaspoon of salt
1 Teaspoon of ground cumin
1 Cup of dried lentils (soaked for 1-2 hours)
5 Cups of water
3 Thin slices of lemon
1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
6 Thin slices of lemon for garnish

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1. Chop the onions into medium-sized pieces, meanwhile heat the oil on a medium heat (notice a pattern here?)
2. Sauté (that’s posh for ‘fry’) until golden.
3. Add cumin and salt – cook for 5 minutes.
4. Rinse the lentils in a sieve, then add to the pot with the water
5. Bring to the boil, add lemon slices.
6. Once boiling, reduce the heat & simmer for 25 minutes until the lentils are soft
7. Finally, add the lemon juice, and garnish with a slice of lemon.

Come to think of it, the ‘Cash‘ episode of the Young Ones has no doubt taken on masses of extra relevance now, given the straightened times we’re living through.

Just one more Young Ones Link (because I can’t resist it:) the infamous ‘mouse in a telescope’ embarrassing party scene – ah… Reminds me so much of my own student days…  “Does anyone here like the Human League?”

(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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It was the best of peas, it was the worst of peas – the split pea is so revered in certain cultures that they even have a National Split Pea Soup Week (no joke – 12-18 Nov – missed it, darn!) But is not to be confused with the pigeon pea, often used to make dal.

You’ll need to start by soaking the peas for about 12 hours or so – try leaving them in a bowl of water before you leave for work in the morning – this’ll cut down their cooking time considerably. Just multiply the measures of pea/water if you want to make masses of soup.

Ingredients

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1 cup of yellow split peas, soaked
3 cups of water
1 stamp-size piece of kombu (seaweed) soaked for 15 min – this is a definite optional – if you can find/afford kombu or another type of seaweed available in health food shops, it’s said to make them ‘easier to digest’ – alternatively, just go ‘commando’, seaweed-less!
1 Sliced onion
2 carrots
1 cup of pumpkin (another optional – you could replace with mushroom, or a green vegetable like pointed cabbage – in season at the moment, if it’s easier)
Pinch of salt
Barley miso (paste) to taste OR marigold/any other type of soup stock

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1. Place the peas (and seaweed, if you’re using it) in a pot with water. Simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Add chopped onion, carrots,pumpkin and salt and cook until tender.
3. Add the stock powder, or miso.
4. cook for 5 more minutes (but don’t boil – this can denature the miso.)

And that’s that. I’ve also just discovered there’s also an interesting traditional Geordie/NW English pea recipe (no, not Cheezy Peaz) called pease pudding using split peas… will have to check this out in a future London Cooking recipe!

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If nothing else, this has confirmed to me that, since I started this blog, I’ve been unhealthily obsessed with sprouts – quite a reality check.

This image was created by the excellent Wordle – try submitting your blog, menus, recipe book etc to it, and see an instant ‘word cloud’ summary of your key obsessions! Try it out…

“If I was a wild animal, I’d start eating this now. But I’m not like your momma.”

Did you know that current Celebrity Big Brother contestant (and hence current London resident) Coolio is the star of his own web TV cooking show?

You’ll probably live to wish you didn’t.

On this edition of ‘Cooking with Coolio’:

He quickly comes to regret letting possibly the most obnoxious child in New York to guest on his web TV show, as he offers up a nifty, easy to make chicken recipe. He also finds a ‘foreign object’ planted in his food (almost certainly not suitable for work…)

I think this has the makings of a great web TV format (seriously)… And who else but Coolio could get away with having ‘Sauce Girls’?