Home-grown is best, but you knew that didn't you?

It'll come as no surprise to you that I'm a fan of home-grown fruit and vegetables, even before we had our allotment I regularly grew tomatoes and more in pots in our back garden. So when I saw this infographic from Premier Polytunnels I was keen to take a closer look.

What I didn't realise was that polytunnels don't have to come in super-huge size, they can be as small as 6ft x 8ft which while it's not tiny, is smaller than I expected.

At the moment we're eating our way through our small mountain of allotment grown purple sprouting broccoli, so in the spirit of this infographic I thought I'd share my favourite way of cooking (and eating) one of my favourite vegetables.

Chilli and purple sprouting broccoli pasta

250g dried spaghetti or linguine
three or so handfuls of purple sprouting broccoli and its leaves, cut into bitesize pieces
1 clove garlic, crushed
4 anchovy fillets in olive oil
A red chilli

Serves 2

  1. Fry the anchovies and garlic in olive oil - often I use the oil from the anchovy tin - on a low heat until the anchovies "melt" then add some chopped chilli to taste.

  2. At the same time cook the pasta in boiling salted water following the cooking time on the packet, adding the purple sprouting broccoli for the last three minutes of cooking. Don't forget to add the leaves as well.

  3. Drain the pasta and broccoli, reserving some of the cooking water.

  4. Add the pasta and broccoli to the anchovy, garlic and chilli mixture and stir well, adding some of the pasta water as needed.

  5. Serve with slices of fresh chilli and drizzled with chilli oil.
     

* This is a collaborative post with Premier Polytunnels, but all opinions are my own.