Bella Italia Penne Ricce Marco Polo Recipe

Ever since my family first discovered the Penne Ricce Marco Polo dish on the Bella Italia menu last summer we have always plummed for this when ordering! We don't even need to look at the menu before all we all harmoniously announce in unison - Penne Ricce Marco Polo for me please! In good ol' English it is basically duck pasta with mushroom and spring onions in a plum sauce. It is truly amazing! As we all loved it so much I decided to try and make my own version of the recipe so that we could cook it at home whenever we pleased. It was costing us too much money to go to Bella Italia every time we craved this amazing dish.

I think it's a really simple recipe. The quantity of each ingredient in the recipe is an approximation and depends on how much mushroom/onion suits your own personal taste, the ratio of sauce to pasta you like or how much of a meat lover you are. It requires a bit of trial and error and I change the quantities of each ingredient every time I make it! I truly believe the most exciting part of cooking is the experimentation. So here is my attempt with the quantities of the ingredients which I think work best together -

Recipe 
(Serves 4 people)

Ingredients 
Approximately 500g of duck strips - alternatively you can use duck breasts or a duck crown and cut them into pieces
A jar of Sharwoods plum sauce
A punnet of mushrooms - preferably button
5 or 6 spring onions
Some kind of pasta (fusilli)

Preparation

1. If not already done, cut the duck into strips or bite sized pieces/chunks and place in a large wok or stir fry pan
2. Cut the spring onions into small rings and the button mushrooms into thin slices and leave on the chopping board/in a bowl for cooking later
3. Measure out enough pasta for 4 people - I normally do a handful of dry pasta for each person plus an extra handful for good luck
4. Boil the kettle full of water and pour into a large pan, around 1/2 to 3/4 of the way full

Cooking

1. Wait until the water is boiling and then add the pasta and cook for the required time. For most pasta this is around 10 minutes but check the packet for instructions. You can use fresh pasta if you'd prefer so again follow the instructions for this.
2. Turn the wok or stir fry pan with the duck pieces in on to a medium heat and stir fry these until they are cooked through. I don't tend to add oil to the duck as it is quite a fatty meat so creates its own juices to cook in and as long as it isn't on too high a heat should cook nicely without sticking to the pan. This can take anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes but the duck will change colour when it is cooked.
3. Whilst the duck is cooking if I notice that the duck has given out a lot of juices then I tend to drain these off into a cup as otherwise it can make the sauce too thin once it is added later. 
4. Once the duck is cooked, add the mushrooms and spring onions into the pan and cook for a further 2 to 3 minutes.
5. Add the whole jar of plum sauce to the wok and simmer until it is bubbling and fully heated through. 
6. Drain the pasta once it has finished cooking
7. Remove the wok from the heat and add the pasta to the pan stirring it in and making sure that all of the pasta is evenly covered in sauce. 

Et voila, you have your very own version of Bella Italia's Penne Ricce Marco Polo for a fraction of the cost.  It works out at under £15 for this recipe serving 4 people. A large proportion of this is down to the cost of duck as it is an expensive meat so for an even cheaper alternative chicken could be used instead. It works out at around 650 calories per person so we have it as a healthier alternative to a Chinese takeaway some Saturday evenings.

My Week That Was

I took the idea for the name of this post from the company which I am interning at. Last thing on a Friday afternoon each week we all have to attend an informal meeting in the bar to highlight the highs and lows of the week. It's a really lovely idea where everyone gets together with a glass of wine or a beer in the bar at work and tells each other about the week they have had. Each team takes it in turns to tell the rest of the company the highlights of their week, their successes and any problems they have overcome, so that everyone feels informed about the happenings throughout the company. So here is my week that was...

Monday - I read an article in the Daily Mail about Amanda Holden wearing the peplum dress from Kelly Brook's New Look range that I featured in my post here and it mentioned that it was in the sale! When I got my email announcing the start of the sale last week I specifically checked to see whether this dress had gone into the sale and when I saw it hadn't I was really disappointed. They must of changed their minds because when I clicked back on it had gone in the sale, reduced from £40 to £18! Naturally it jumped straight into my basket and I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day! Also, my Graze box arrived full of more yummy goodies which I can't wait to taste. It's sitting on the table now tempting me to try something...

Tuesday - It was my mum's birthday today and it happened to fall on her day off work so she popped into town to meet me on my lunch break so we could have lunch together. It was really nice. We hadn't been able to give her either of her presents on the day because they hadn't been delivered in time so I thought treating her to lunch would be a mini present to keep her going until her others arrive!

Wednesday - For the second week running I took advantage of Orange Wednesdays with my sister. Last week we went to watch Five Year Engagement because it had a great cast but I thought the film was a bit of a let down with a predictable and unexciting storyline. This week we went to see Katy Perry film Part of Me. I'm not a crazy Katy Perry fan but I took my sister to see her Part of Me tour in Nottingham for her birthday last year so thought it would be nice to relive the experience. I'm not a big fan of documentaries either so didn't have high expectations about the film but I'm surprised to say that I really enjoyed it. I found it really interesting, thought Katy came across really well and reminded me how heartfelt the lyrics to some of her songs are. I didn't realise she wrote her songs herself and it makes you appreciate that she is a talented songwriter. It also renewed my faith in some 'celebrities' actually being normal people. She obviously has a mad life and comes across a bit crazy but she seems like a really genuine person.

Thursday - What do you do when you have an hours lunch and nothing to do? Hit H&M of course. Luckily they'd cleared out most of their old sale stuff and had brought some newer clothes in. I managed to pick up a really cute peach dress with a white collar to wear to work with tights or if we eventually get some sunshine with bare legs. I also grabbed a lovely mint and peach two-tone leather bag for just £20. They had it in two different colours and I spend ages deliberating over which one to get. The other was electric blue and neon yellow which are two colours I love together but I thought the other option was safer. I also picked up a couple of rose gold items - a necklace and a spikey hair tie - because I've been craving rose gold jewellery for a while and knew I would get a lot of wear out of them this summer.

Friday - A second graze box(?!) which was completely unexpected/unpaid for arrived on my doorstep this morning. This really was a surprise and I must have been sent it by mistake but I'm not complaining. Double the amount of goodies in one week for half the price!!! I went to my boyfriends and had a much needed TV evening to help me recover from a pretty hectic week I'd had at work.

I have a busy weekend what with spending time with my boyfriend before he goes to Thailand for a few weeks, going to watch my sister's dance show and hosting a family party on Sunday. Although I know I'll be exhausted come monday morning I'm really looking forward to it!

Oh Beautiful Betty's

The first thing my mum said when my dad told her we were going to Harrogate was 'we have to go to Betty's' and like hell did we! We managed to visit a different Betty's on each day of our break and all three were just as we had imagined.

For those who had not heard of Betty's before like me, well they are pretty legendary in Yorkshire. The first Betty's was opened in the early 1990s in Harrogate and expanded into other towns and cities in the area. It was famous for it's afternoon tea and amazing cakes and bakery. The business has been passed down through the family and is as famous and well-loved today as it was back then.

We visited to the original Betty's in Harrogate first, followed by the Betty's in York and then in Harlow Carr. The history of the tea rooms is still visible in the beautiful ornate buildings they are located in within the towns. The Harlow Carr one was a bit different as it was at a RHS Garden and was situated in a newer building but all the aspects of Betty's that the people of Yorkshire and from far beyond have become fond of were still present.

There were queues from the outside of the doors along the street at both the Harrogate and York Betty's showing just how popular they were. We didn't sit inside these two Betty's partly because we didn't have time to queue but also me and my dad aren't fans of tea or coffee so it seemed like it would be a bit of a waste to pay so much money for afternoon tea and waste half of it. We did spend a long time looking around the shop and bakery next to the tea rooms though at all the delicious breads, cakes, chocolates, jams and chutneys they had produced.

The Harlow Carr Betty's was much quieter but was just the same inside. The waitresses were all dressed in their very smart uniforms and the food available was identical to that of the original Betty's. We all sampled a different Betty's speciality cake and each was delicious but their famous macaroons really did steal the show!

Betty's was the perfect place to stock up on gifts to take back for our family and friends. Ever since we went to Paris in Easter my boyfriend has fallen in love with macaroons so when I saw a box of macaroons looking so elegant in the Betty's window I knew that they were the gift for him. They were wrapped so beautifully and looked so delicious. So delicious in fact that me and my sister couldn't resist buying an extra macaroon to share between ourselves for the walk home. We chose a strawberry one and I can tell you that it was the most incredible macaroon I have ever tasted.

If you are ever in the Yorkshire area then visiting a Betty's tea room really is a must. The attention to detail is incredible, the waitresses so attentive, the cakes so delicious and the history of the family so interesting to experience.