Tagliarini with asparagus and herbs

 Another from my rediscovered River Cafe Cookbook, which has become one of favourites as everything is delicious from it - including this.  Easy to make, the sauce took just 10 minutes and got extremely positive noises out of the hungry boyf.  

Chickpeas in a sauce

 A strange title for what is essentially a chickpea curry, from Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Easy, which is another of my ‘must make something from that book’ books.  My boyf bought me this years ago but I don’t think I’ve ever used it.  This was indeed very easy to make and tasted lovely with just the right amount of spice - it attracted a ‘very good’ from the boyf, which is v unusual!

Pastel de nata

 I was challenged by someone at work to make these from scratch, including the puff pastry. I was really daunted but gave it a go and was surprised by how easy (albeit a lengthy process) puff pastry is.  The bake off makes it look trickier,  I think.  It was actually harder to make the filling as there were a couple of pans on the go and I had to redo my sugar syrup as I over boiled it first time round.  These were absolutely delicious and most definitely worth the effort.  

Orecchiette with a slow cooked sausage sauce

 Simplicity itself to make but packed with so much flavour this sauce was a complete winner.  I bought spicy pork sausages as I couldn’t get any Italian sausages, but it was perfect anyway.  From the seemingly consistently brilliant River Cafe Cookbook, making me want to cook everything in it.