Pasta with bacon and broccoli

This should probably be called something fancy, like "orecchiette with purple sprouting broccoli and lardons", but to be honest you'd probably have refused to eat it. Quite right.

You'll need:

pasta - orecchiette would be good, but we only had bows (farfalle)
broccoli - again, this would be fab with the purple sprouting stuff, but ordinary calabrese broccoli does just as well
bacon - a rasher or so of streaky per person, chopped up small
a medium-size onion, sliced
a clove of garlic, minced
a small tub of single cream

Chuck the bacon into a frying pan with a dash of olive oil, and fry until it starts to colour. Add the onions and garlic, and cook for another 5 minutes or so until they're translucent.

In the meantime, stick your pasta into a pan of boiling water, and simmer away. Chop up your broccoli into small florets, and cook in another small pan of water (or if you're really eco-friendly, steam it on top of the pasta). Whip the broccoli out after a couple of minutes, as soon as it's al dente.

Chuck the broccoli into the onion/garlic/bacon mix, and add the best part of a small tub of single cream and lots of black pepper. Simmer for a couple of minutes, until (a) it starts to thicken and (b) the pasta is ready.

Drain the pasta. Empty the sauce over the top. Mix. Eat with lots of cheese grated on top.

Purple sprouting broccoli, lemon and tuna pasta

You'd been at nursery all day, pootling about, and were starving. So this was a variation on an oldie (but a goodie).

You'll need (for two adults and one small person)

a couple of handfuls of purple sprouting broccoli
a tin of tuna in sunflower/olive oil
a clove of garlic, finely sliced/smashed
a lemon
lots of parmesan cheese
pasta

Stick the pasta on to cook in lots of boiling water.

Drain the oil from the tuna into a frying pan. Once it's heated up, add the garlic, and cook for a minute or so. Add the purple sprouting broccoli, and swish round and round in the pan for 3-4 minutes, until it's turned a dark greeny-purple colour. Add the tuna to the pan, breaking up any large chunks. Squeeze the juice of a lemon on top, and let it heat through. (If you like it really really lemony you could add some lemon zest at this point too.)

By this stage, your pasta should be cooked. Drain, mix the whole lot together and serve with lashings of parmesan cheese.

Purple sprouting broccoli with sesame sauce

You could put this sesame sauce with anything green I suspect - spring greens, pak choi, ordinary broccoli, red Russian kale...but maybe not peas.

You'll need:

enough purple sprouting broccolli for 3 (a couple of large handfuls - it doesn't half reduce in size when you steam it)
a couple of tablespoons of sesame seeds
half a clove of garlic, crushed
a teaspoon of dark brown sugar
a tablespoon or so of soy sauce
some sesame oil

First of all, you need to toast your sesame seeds in a dry frying pan. Swish them about on a high heat (quickly, so the ones on the very bottom don't get burnt). Once they start to brown (maybe a minute or two), fish them out. Plonk the lot into a pestle and mortar, together with the crushed garlic, brown sugar and soy sauce.

Take out your frustration on the pestle and mortar. Yes, you could do this in a little spice grinder, but it wouldn't be as much fun. The mixture should turn to a paste - you then turn it into a drizzling sauce (of whatever consistency you fancy) by adding more (or less) sesame oil. I probably added another tablespoon of soy sauce as well, because I quite like the salty effect with the greens.

We steamed our purple sprouting broccoli on the stove, using a steamer (essentially a glorified colander with a lid that you balance over a pan of boiling water), but you could equally do it in the microwave.

Once the broccoli's done (which should take a couple of minutes, tops), drizzle the sesame sauce on top, and serve immediately. We ate this with some grilled pork steaks and root vegetable mash. But beware - it's quite a garlicky way to eat your greens!