My page 3 fella!

You know how the local paper loves a happy story? Well after being bumped from the Friday, Saturday and Monday editions due to murder verdicts and Forest losing Steve McLaren, my boy made an appearance on page 3 of Tuesday’s Nottingham Post with a story all about how the little chef won us a trip to Italy!

I blogged about the Garofalo pasta competition in July after seeing it on Madhouse Family Reviews, and we loved making our Purple Swamp Pasta with beetroot:

Purple Swamp Pasta (serves 2 adults and 2 toddlers)

• 2 beetroots
• 300g Garofalo Pazielle Pasta
• 200g mascarpone cheese
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 3-4 sage leaves, chopped

Boil the beetroot for 35 minutes, then peel and chop. Pop the beetroot, mascarpone, chopped sage and tomato puree into a blender and whizz until smooth. Boil the pasta for 13 minutes, drain and stir through the beetroot sauce. Serve with steamed broccoli ‘trees’!

I honestly didn’t think our simple recipe was good enough to win the prize as there were so many fabulous entries (including my favourite from Madam Luxe!) – but representatives from both Good Housekeeping and delicious. judged it as the top entry so we’re proudly going to Sorrento on our holidays next year. Garofalo have also generously let us take mum-in-law as our 4th family member, so it will be a real family holiday, yay!

You can also check out the Nottingham Post article and photo online here.

Even if you’re no Masterchef, it’s definitely worth giving recipe competitions a go – it’s fun to experiment in the kitchen, and if there’s a chance of winning a prize then that’s a real bonus! The main problem for me is that the meal gets cold whilst I’m faffing around trying to take the photos…

Keep an eye on my Super Lucky Facebook page for the latest recipe comps – and get your Milkshake, Chocolate, Nut, Mushroom and Ketchup recipes ready! (…click the ingredients for the comp links!)