TIS BEEN BAD FOOD WEEK

Didn't do too much cooking this week. Other than a Thai-noodle soup with prawns from Nigel Slater's new programme on BBC2. Mr. Chops isn't a fan of Thai food while I adore it. I love the heat of it and that little touch of sweetness in the background. You can find his recipe on the BBC food website bbc.co.uk/food, there's a link to his show.

I've become obsessed with prawns recently. Tesco were doing an offer on frozen raw king prawns so I stocked up on a good few bags. Of course, I never remember to take them out to defrost overnight so my little tip is to put them in tightly shut plastic bag and let sit in very cold water for an hour or so. If you think of it, change the cold water a couple of times but they won't be sitting in it for that long so its not entirely necessary. Turn the bag around every now and then and eventually you'll have perfectly safe-to-use defrosted prawns. The Tesco prawns are pretty tasty too, nice and meaty.

Another fall-back cupboard dinner is pasta with olive oil, garlic and chilli. If you've a fresh chilli near the end of its life hanging around, you can use it, otherwise I used dried chilli flakes. All you need to do is cook your choice of pasta, then while its draining, use the same pot to heat up a good splash of olive oil with a very finely chopped garlic clove and a sprinkling of chilli flakes - more or less depending on how much heat you like. Just make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Add the cooked pasta to the oil mix and give it a good stir. Check for seasoning, but definitely add some fresh ground black pepper. For a final flourish add some grated parmesan, then serve. Literally from pan to plate in 15mins max! Mr. Chops likes it and he's usually not one for plain pasta, he likes a little texture added. If you have it, you could add some roughly chopped chorizo to the pan with the garlic.