One of the things I really enjoy, but rarely make the time to do, is cooking.

I used to be more of a baker (currently obsessed with GBBO!), but back in July I was lucky enough to go on an intensive 3 day cookery course at Cookery School in London, and this is where I learned that cooking is actually really easy and I really enjoy it.

A good friend cooked this for me once and I was hooked, stole the recipe off her and it's now one of my go-to favourites.

There are many excellent things about this recipe, it's super quick to make, only about 20 minutes in total, perfect if you've got home late from work and want something substantial to eat.  It's really easy and completely customisable to your tastes.

The only warning I have is to not eat ALL the Parmesan cheese before it goes into the pan - on numerous occasions I've been nibbling away and had to grate a whole load more cheese to use in the pasta!!

Ingredients:

• Penne pasta
• Peas
• Parmesan cheese
• ~8 sun dried tomatoes
• 1/2 tub of cream cheese
• 3-4 tsp green pesto

Put your pasta on and set the timer for 10 minutes.  I'd recommend that you use a big pan, as you'll be adding to this later.

While the pasta is cooking, chop the sun dried tomatoes (I like to take the excess oil off the tomatoes just by dabbing them with kitchen roll) and grate the Parmesan cheese.



When the 10 minute timer goes off, add your frozen peas.  Bring the pan back up to the boil and leave for maybe 3-4 minutes, until the peas are cooked.

Drain the peas and pasta

Add the cream cheese to the pasta and stir in.

Also add the Parmesan, pesto and sun dried tomatoes and give it a good stir.



At this point you can basically add more or less of anything to suit your tastes.  The Parmesan will remove some of the moisture, so if you feel it's too dry, add some more pesto or cream cheese.  Don't be afraid to add a good load of pesto, the first batch I made myself, I only added one tsp and it wasn't enough!

Voilà.  If you have any left over Parmesan, you can add this to the top of the pasta.  I sometimes have a little salad on the side, but in honesty it's amazing by itself!