Linguine con asparagi, pancetta e limone

Doesn't that title sounds so sexy :-) well actually it is just Asperagus,pancetta and lemon linguine :-)
For the last two weekends ( this weekend ) it has been just Shyama and I at home. As hubby was gone out of Belgium.

Ofcourse when he is not home I do miss him.
But it has been also very good just to spend time with Shyama alone.

Not that we have been going to the next city for spending a whole afternoon looking to the shops and going to a coffee shop etc... which we would have loved to, but she will be soon having exams next months and these days weekends are spend learning especially saturday.
The weekend when it was Mother's day we had a cosy dinner and then late evening we made a cocktail and enjoyed and watched a luvvy duvvy mocie which we usually won't watch when hubby is there as he thinks it is too musshy, well S also thinks when I choose to see a musshy movie but then as she do love a romantic movie even though she woudn't admit to that :-)
So now to the recipe.
Ok we love Asperagus, green and the white variety.
When I say we I mean hubby and me not S. She fished out all the asperagus and gave it to me.
So now that it isin full season I thought I will make something with them before I start moaning that the season is gone and that I didn't make anything with them when I had the chance.

This is a recipe from Taste Italia Magazine.
Sending this delcious pasta to Pasta presto Nights and the host is Cassie, of the Kitchen Alchemist.
Serves 4

250 gm Pancetta cubed. ( I bought from the delli in one fat piece and cubed them myself)
One onion finley chopped
1 garlic finley chopped
250 gm Green Aspergus, woody ends trimmed, spears cut into small pieces.
350 gm dried Linguine ( I didn't have them so used normal pasta)
200 ml double cream
200 ml Cream fraiche ( if you don't get them you can use sour cream)
2 large egg yolks
40 gm Parmesan grated plus extra to serve
Grated zest of one lemon
Salt and freshly ground peper.

1. Heat a frying pan. And add the pancetta.
You will not need any oil as there is a lot of fat in pancetta.
Fry the pancetta really crispy, remove them with a slotted spoon and keep in a plate.
Add the onions and garlic in the pan fry them for few minutes , add the asperagus and fry them for few minutes untill it has begun to soft. Add the fried pancetta back to the pan.
2. In the mean time bring a large pan of lightly salted water to the boil, add the pasta annd cook according to the packet instructions, but cook it for a minute or two less, so it is little under done.
3. Mean while mix together the double cream, cream fraiche,egg yolks, parmesan and lemon zest in a bowl,then season with salt and peper.
4. Drain the cooked pasta, make sure to keep a bit of the pasta water, so you can add to the dish if needed.
5. Add the pasta to the pan together with the sauce mis and give it a good mix untill it is evenly incorporated and all the ingridients are cooked. If you need add a bit of the pasta water which we kept aside.
Serve with a good grating of parmesan chees and black pepper.

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Pear Tart with Chocolate Sauce



After almost 2 months I made a dessert.

And that too something from myown blog with a bit of change to the original recipe. There is also a step by step pictorial.

Not that I had to make any thing new for posting here as I have so many pending pictures and recipes for posting.
As you all must have noticed I am still not visitng the blogs I used to visit regularly before my life was turn upside down.
I once in a while and I mean once in while I go to a blog.
I think I must have gone just to few blogs in total, not that I don't want to visit , just that I don't have the patience  to  visit and write a comment, I am sure in time I will get back to my regular bloghopping.

Ingridients.
3 firm pears, peeled
400 ml water
Few ornage peels
1 vanilla stick split
1 bay leaf
50 gm sugar
Few table spoon of Poire William ( optional)
6 square sheets of puff pastry
25 gm soft butter
50 gm walnuts chopped
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 egg lightly whisked
A bit of sugar to sprinkle

Half the pears and remove the middle and scopp a bit out from the middle.
Bring the water to boil in a pan abd add the orange peel, vanilla essence, sugar and bat leaf and poire williame.
Bring it to boil and add the pears.
Boil them for 10 minutes in slow fire with a cover

Now take the pears out and keep the sugar syrup aside ( remove the ornage peel and the bay leaf) Let the pear cool down.


Preheat the oven to 200°cNow take the pastrt sheets and cut them into pear shapes ( shown in the pic).

Apply egg wash over the whole pastry
Mix the butter ,sugar and the walnuts in a bowl.
Take a tsp of the filling and fill the holes of each pear.


Lay the pears the filled side down on the puff pastry.
Sprnikle with sugar.
Bake the tarts 15 to 20 minutes or untill it is golden brown

In the original recipe you make a chocolate sauce from the syup.

But this time I just MW 100 gm of chocolate with a bit of milk and poured over the tarts.
Enjoy.