pea, ricotta & herb rollini

Dinner time at our place is hectic. Most days when 5pm rolls around I am scrambling like a mad woman trying to prepare dinner, bring in washing, bathe the bubby, do a quick tidy up of all the day’s activities and finalise whatever business I can before COB. And when I’m feeling as though I’ve run a marathon and just want dinner to be on the table already I reach deep into my cooking arsenal and haul out my list of easy peasy dinner recipes that I know are absolutely delicious and can be cooked and on the table in less than fifteen minutes. Most days these recipes are my saviour and I hope they can be yours. Today’s divine dinner is pea, ricotta and herb rollini.

This pasta is truly yummy. Lovely spirals of rollini are smothered in lusciously smooth and creamy ricotta and parmesan and dotted with fresh peas, lemon and wonderfully fragrant freshly chopped herbs, I used mint, basil, parsley and chives. Also, to add a little salty goodness to the pasta, I started the recipe by popping three rashers of lovely bacon into the oven on a lined baking tray and roasted for 10 minutes, just until the bacon was gorgeously golden and crispy. I love this style of roasting bacon, not only is the end result absolutely divine, but I really love that I can pop it in the oven and not worry about it until the oven beeps, leaving me free to cook the pasta and peas and stir together the sauce.

Once the bacon was nestled in the oven filling the house with that gorgeous appetite inducing smells that only bacon can, I placed a large pot of water on the stove top and brought it to the boil. Once boiling I added the pasta, cooked for a couple of minutes then added the peas and cooked until the pasta was aldente. I then drained the pasta/peas and rinsed with a little cool water just to remove the starchy stickiness that I don’t want in this dish.

This lovely little pasta dish is a favourite of mine because of it’s no cook sauce. There is no need to chop onions or garlic, open copious cans and jars and simmer for hours. This sauce simply requires you to stir together the ricotta, parmesan, chopped herbs, lemon rind and a little juice and the sauce is done, ready to be drizzled over the cooked pasta and peas.

To finish, I piled the pasta and peas back into the saucepan, drizzled over the sauce, added the roughly chopped wonderfully charred bacon and mixed all to combine. To serve I added a little extra grating of parmesan and enjoyed in the office frantically replying to emails whilst Grace sat beside me tall and mighty in her high chair happily nibbling away at her pasta.