Ilse's Kitchen - culinary adventures of a girl who loves to eat

Asparagus cream pasta - this has got to be one of my favourite recipes. When I come home from a long day at work I don’t always feel like spending hours in the kitchen preparing dinner. Life gets a little dreary when all there’s time for is work and cooking. There’s more to be done.  So I look for quick fix solutions. Solutions that don’t imply me necessarily eating the same thing every day. Pastas generally make pretty good ones - this under-fifteen minute meal is one. Luckily quick in no way means less tasty. But I’ll let you be the judge of that ;)  Ingredients (serves 2): 220 mL cream 3 cloves garlic 16 large green asparagus spears dash of dry white wine 200g tagliatelle Chunk of parmesan cheese freshly ground black pepper to taste Instructions: 1. Peel the garlic cloves. Put cream and whole garlic cloves into a saucepan and bring to a boil. As soon as the cream starts to bubble, remove from heat and set aside. 2. Peel the asparagus. C...

For a while, I ordered vegetable delivery crates filled with seasonal veggies. By way of the crate I discovered cavolo nero... if it hadn't been chosen for me, I might never have given it a second look. And that would have been too bad, because then I would never have learned about all the wonderful things you can do with it. Cavolo nero (black kale, Tuscan cabbage, or palmkool in Dutch) is an Italian cabbage with dark soft leaves. Instead of growing in heads like some other cabbage types, its leaves grow straight up like fronds... and it is, it turns out, a beloved ingredient in minestrone soups, Tuscan risotto, pasta, and even lentil dishes. I put it to the test with the first best thing I had in the pantry: some carnaroli rice. The cavolo nero passed the test with flying colours.