I first read about Cavolo Nero in The River Cafe Cook Book which I was given as a birthday present back in September 1995.

It was one of the many ingredients in the book that I could only read about with there being no great likelihood that I would have an opportunity to eat it. The veg plot has changed that and I have grown it over the last five years or so. As I said yesterday it seems that we are going to have a surfeit of it this year. Unfortunately the kids are not big fans so I will have to find ways to smuggle it into them.

The recipe I cooked last night might just work. It came from the River Cafe book and was a sort of Cavolo Nero pesto.

A good handful of leaves was blanched in boiling water with a couple of cloves of garlic. That was all drained and then pulsed through the food processor. It was then pulsed some more with a cup full of olive oil until it turned into a thick dark green sludge. Another two crushed cloves of garlic were mixed in with more olive oil until it was the consistency of thick double cream.

I then cooked some pasta, drained it and stirred in the sauce until each piece was coated green. We ate it with grated Desmond cheese instead of Parmesan.

After that we had a chicken from the Farmer’s Market. It had spent the afternoon marinading in crushed garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. I then roasted it in the barbeque.

For most of the day we listened to a combination of Chic and The Bee-Gees.