A redo of 16 February. We had the pasta from the night before which I'd cut into wide strips and frozen. They cooked well straight from frozen. I'd forgotten the lovely silky texture of home made egg pasta. With that we had previously made mini burgers. I like the flavour of an equal weight of minced lamb and minced beef. In addition a carton of courgette bake pulled from the freezer. This is my favourite way of using up a glut of home grown courgettes and tomatoes in season. As`well as an accompanying vegetable the bake makes a delicious sauce for pasta.

Burgers

Lamb mince 500g

Beef mince 500g

Thick slice of bread, crusts removed, soaked in milk to cover

1 large onion

2 cloves garlic

Soften the finely chopped onion and garlic in oil. Place the 2 meats in a large bowl. Add the bread which has had the excess milk squeezed out and the cooked onion mixture. Mix all well together- most easily done with your hands. Have a preheated griddle or frying pan on the stove top- no need to grease it. Pinch off suitable sized pieces, flatten slightly and cook gently on each side until brown. This makes at least 18 2.5-3" diameter burgers. The excess freeze well.

Courgette Bake

No precise quantities for this. Its a good way of using courgettes which are on their way to marrows. Cut courgettes into pieces about 2"x2" thick. Halve or quarter tomatoes depending on their size. Peel and roughly chop onions. Put all the veg into a large roasting tin. For a roasting tin of size 14"x12"x2" depth, I use 2 large onions, enough cut up courgette to fill most of the tin, and probably about a dozen medium sized tomatoes. To the veg add a generous glug of olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, and salt and pepper. Mix so that seasonings and liquids are well distributed and roughly level off contents. Put in preheated oven at 180C. cook for about one and a half hours, turning every so often, until most of liquid has evaporated. (freezes well)