Thursday and Joe's pasta

Joe does not handle illness quite as well as I do (ha!), and has got in a huff about having a runny nose and a sore throat, bless, so is making me do today's blog post even though it is definitely his turn!  Typical men hey?

In his infinite logic however, he did insist on cooking dinner tonight, and rustled up pasta with pesto, spinach, chicken and mushrooms.  It was a pretty good effort, which would have been well accompanied by a glass of wine, but we resisted the booze again - hurrah! 

Pasta with pesto, spinach, chicken and mushrooms

Thursday - Riverford Veg Medley with Egg and yesterday's Pesto

It's Mums birthday on Monday so it was late night shopping for me, while Jo had a few drinks on a work night out. I obviously can't say what we have got her, but she may mention it on her blog on Monday.

Also, yesterday I created my sponsorship page for my running, which will be for the Seve Ballesteros Foundation - I am aiming for a £1000 and am on zero at the moment so feel free to put your hand in your pockets for a good cause!....click here to find it.

Back to the food, Jo whipped up a Veg Medley (made from today's Riverford delivery) topped with an egg and the left-over pesto that I made yesterday.

Ps. This is a quick mention about some of the brilliant work an old friend of mine is doing on the Wirral at Claremont Farm - check it out here

Tuesday Night Vegetarian Treats

I've had a lovely evening getting engrossed with wedding things, which has become even better with the croque en bouche competition on the Great British Bake Off (my Tuesday night guilty pleasure).  I'm hoping we might have one at the wedding, and bring a little bit of France to Scotland, so will keep you posted..!

Anyways............In my attempt to assist in Joe's marathon training, I've been trying to come up with different, healthy treats to make sure he gets the right balance of food.  Joe used to be one of these people who thought a meal without meat wasn't really a meal at all. It's taken some time but I think he's finally coming round to my way of thinking.

So step up tomatoes stuffed with moroccan quinoa, which was really good actually!  The quinoa, dried fruits and pine nuts were a good substitute for meat and the whole thing was light and tasty, if I do say so myself!

Stuffed tomato with quinoa

The stuffed tomatoes

Joe also decided that he was going to put our home grown basil to good use and make pesto for the first time.  It looked quite hard work with lots of pounding in the mortar and pestle, but the results are pretty impressive and will be for dinner tomorrow or Thursday!  I'm really looking forward to it!

Home grown basil

Grana Padano cheese

The other ingredients, ready to be pounded

Single press olive oil

Gennaro Contaldo's pesto recipe

The finished product