Creamy butternut and herb pasta

This particular dish has become one of our favourite pasta dishes even though the ingredients might initially seem strange to use with pasta. So much so, that about a week ago, one or two of Andrea’s house mates asked her to teach them how to make this very recipe which they’d seen us eating a couple of weeks ago. So last night, we met in the kitchen for a fun evening of laughs and cooking. We gave them a shopping list the day before and so by 5pm we were ready to start. If you’re reading this, grab a pen and paper and try to keep up as this recipe is a little more complicated than the last one we posted and due to the roasting process, needs a longer time to prepare.

What you will need:

• A medium butternut
• 1 large onion
• 1 punnet button mushrooms (app 250g)
• 250g chopped bacon pieces
• 250ml fresh cream
• 1 cup dry white wine (If you prefer less, ½ cup will do)
• Tagliatelle pasta
• 2 Tbsp chopped garlic
• Assorted herbs
• Butter
• Oil
• Salt & pepper


1. Peel and chop butternut into app 4cm x 4cm blocks.
2. Boil butternut until almost cooked – if a piece falls apart when poked with a fork, you’ve cooked it too long!
3. Cut the mushrooms into halves.
4. Cut ¾ of the onion into biggish chunks.
5. Finely chop the last ¼ of the onion and place to one side.
6. Into a large oven dish, place the almost cooked butternut, the chunks of onion, the halved mushrooms and the garlic.
7. Add an assortment of herbs – This is where the recipe gives you the chance to play around. We like to use origanum, fresh finely chopped rosemary, thyme, mixed herbs and a little mint. We are generally not shy when it comes to using herbs!
8. Season with salt and cracked black pepper.
9. Add about 4Tbsp oil and gently mix to spread oil and herbs throughout the vegetables. Take care not to mush the veggies, especially the butternut which is soft.
10. Dot with blobs of butter and place in a preheated oven at 180º C
11. Roast veggies for 30-40 minutes, taking it out once or twice during this time to mix the veggies gently. Once again, be careful not to mush the veggies too much.
12. Toward the end of this roasting time, you may want to put them under the grill for a couple of minutes for final browning.
13. About 15-20 minutes into the veggie roasting, start to fry the bacon and finely chopped onion in a little oil in a large pot or frying pan. (You need enough space to add the oven roasted veggies at a later stage)
14. Once lightly browned, add the wine.
15. Bring to boil for about 5 minutes allowing the wine to reduce considerably.
16. Reduce heat slightly and add the cream.
17. Simmer until thicker.
18. Season with salt and pepper if necessary.
19. When the vegetables are done, add them to bacon and cream sauce.
20. Once again, mix gently.
21. You are now ready to serve this on your Tagliatelle pasta which is hopefully ready by this point.

A thing or two about pasta:
1. Adding a tsp of oil to the water that the pasta will cooked in, prevents the pasta from sticking together.
2. Never over cook pasta!!! Taste regularly.

By 7pm, we were sitting around the dinner table with very satisfied stomachs. The focus of the conversation and laughs was around the varying tastes between the house mates’ dish and our own. We eventually discovered that the reason for this was that they had accidentally mistaken their pre-chopped butternut for pumpkin!!! It was certainly quite different, but just as tasty.. ok, almost as tasty!

Pepper steak and brandy sauce

This being our first post, we felt that it would only be fair that it truly reflected our first love in food – a big fat juicy steak! The other reason is of course, that our appetites are still trying to recover from just such a steak, which we tucked into only a few hours ago! So if you love a steak as much as we do, then keep reading as this simple, yet delicious recipe is a must for anyone! It’s really not complicated, does not take very long, and oh so good!

What you will need is the following:

• 3 pieces of steak, 1.5 cms thick (rump does the trick)
• 3 Tbsp freshly ground black peppercorns
• 50 g butter
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt
• 2 Tbsp brandy (any make will do – no need to get expensive here)
• ½ cup cream


Trim all or most of the fat and grizzle (all the nasty bits) off of the steak and cut the fat into small pieces – this is most easily done with a pair of kitchen scissors. Next lay the steaks out and press the pepper into both sides of steak. If you don’t have anything better, you can even use the bottom of a glass to do this.


Heat half of the butter and all the oil in a heavy based frying pan. When it is smoking hot, put the steaks in for 1 minute per side to seal the meat. (Make sure it is no more than this per side as you may well burn it!!!) Take steaks out of the pan, turn the heat down and allow pan to cool to a medium heat. Once this is done, add steaks to pan and continue cooking for 3-10 minutes, depending on how you like your steak done. (We love our steaks medium rare and juicy, so we typically do them for 2 minutes a side.) While frying the steaks, you can also add to the pan, all the nasty bits you chopped up earlier for extra flavour. Once done, take the steaks out, salt them lightly and keep warm. Note: If you like your steak rare, make sure you don’t keep it too warm!!!



Now for the sauce. In the same pan which now contains the juices and cut up scraps, add the brandy. Bring this to the boil and then add the remaining butter. Now slowly add the cream and let it simmer until it is nice and thick. If it however is not thick enough, you are welcome to thicken it with a corn starch (or Maizena), but make sure you only add a little at a time as it can get very thick, very quickly! Taste the sauce and add salt and pepper as needed.

And that’s it! Smother the steaks in the brandy sauce and serve immediately. We hope you enjoy it as much as we always do!!!