It has been a grey flat day and as the clouds started to bunch up  from the west towards late morning there was a hint of snow in the air. But when it came it came as hard cold rain.

There were only three of us for lunch and I decided to try and use up some of the cavolo nero that has been growing down the bottom of the garden. When I got down it transpired that the pigeons had eaten most of what there was. I had seen the pigeons there a week or so go but had not taken on board how much damage they were carrying out.

Betwen them the pigeons and squirrels seem to be determined to ruin all my good intentions in the garden. One of the butchers at The Farmer’s Market last week had some skinned grey squirrels for sale along side his rabbits hares. Maybe I should invest in a suitably powerful catapult I could keep the family fed that way. They would taste mighty fine fed fat on my tulip bulbs and black cabbage.

In the meantime there was just enough of the cavolo nero for me to make rough sauce for pasta.

The cavolo nero was blanched in boiling water for a few minutes with a couple of cloves of garlic. It was all fished out of the water and ran through with cold water and I then tipped the pasta into the pan of still boiling water.

As the pasta cooked the cavolo nero was drained thoroughly and then puréed in the fine hand mixer that was gifted to me for Christmas with a generous slug of olive oil.  A couple of squashed cloves of garlic were stirred in with more olive oil and a seasoning of salt and pepper.

the thick green sludge was then stirred into the drained and cooked pasta. We now now all smell of garlic for the rest of the weekend.