spinach sort-of pesto = spesto? spinesto? spinachesto?

pulverise spinach, especially spinach that's looking a bit sorry for itself, with toasted seeds, lemon, oil and garlic for an irridescent sauce - here i bunged it on some egg noodles but it's also good with pasta, or simply as a dresssing for veg.

Ingredients

• 1/2 bag spinach - about 100g, plus any other nearly-dodgy salad knocking around - rocket works well
• juice of half a lemon
• handful sunflower seeds (or pine nuts or any other tasty nuts you have that need using up)
• glug of olive oil
• clove garlic
• spinkling dried chilli
  
• salt, pepper

Method

1. toast the seeds (or nuts) lightly in a frying pan. if you burn them, you'll have to chuck them out because they taste really nasty.
2. once they're toasted, bung in a food processor or liquidiser. put the olive oil in the still-warm frying pan and lightly fry the garlic - again, if it overcooks it'll be bitter so keep an eye on it. cooking the garlic takes the edge off...
3. place everything else in the processor and squish on high until it's a sauce. serve ...

chilli sort-of satay sort-of noodles

i had some fresh wholewheat spaghetti knocking around, so i improvised some spicy noodles with other random veg and a load of chilli. this makes too much for one meal (unless you're ravenous), so you could either make it for 2 or eat half, then have half cold later on, with an extra squeeze of lemon juice to loosen the noodles.

Ingredients

• portion noodles or spaghetti
• approx 1tbsp veg oil
  
• half a red onion
• a red pepper
• clove garlic
• tsp minced ginger (don't worry if you haven't got any)
• minced chillis (i use the lazy sort from a jar - add according to taste, about 1/4 tsp)
• couple of tbsp frozen peas or any other lurking left over veg
• 1 tbsp tahini
• good sloosh soya sauce
  
• slug lemon juice
• dried chilli flakes, to serve
  

Method

1. put your spag or noodles on to cook. chop the onion and pepper, or otherwise prepare your own veg into stir-fryable bits.
2. when your noodles are about 3 mins away from being cooked, heat a slug of sunflower oil (olive oil is too strongly flavoured for this) in a pan over high heat. stirfry the onion until it colours a bit, then chuck in the garlic, chilli and ginger (if using), stir for 30 secs or so until you can really smell them.
   
3. put in your other veg, and continue to stir until they are slightly softened. they should still be crunchy, but the right side of raw.
   
4. add the tahini and soya sauce, stir to coat the veg. if it's really sticky & therefore unstirable, add a bit of water.
5. drain your noodles, add to the veg and stir to coat. add the lemon juice and maybe some crushed chillis on the top :).

Notes

If you don't have any tahini, or if like my friend Hen your head swells up if you go near sesame seeds, you can substitute peanut butter instead. crunchy, naturally. smooth is for losers. You could use lime juice instead of lemon for a more authentic thai flavour, but i didn't have any limes lying around.