Presto for pesto

Although we milked an unexpected surf out of last Saturday, on the Sunday we weren't so lucky. Fortunately we had our bikes and jumped onto the Plym Valley cycle route which follows an old railway line and is flat flat flat, just how I like it. It's such a cushy ride that when you get a bit past halfway between the start and finish, there's a coffee van. As we strolled around with our cappuccinos I realised we were sitting on a goldmine. Or rather a garlic mine... There was wild garlic all over the place. So I took out a plastic bag and scored a few handfuls. This is the recipe for wild garlic pesto that I just made, found on the River Cottage website. For some reason I have begun stockpiling glass jars - clearly I am turning into my grandmother - and have sterilised one for my booming pesto production empire!

If you have managed to make some wild garlic pesto of your own, then you could do much worse than to use it in this recipe for penne with chicken and pesto that I found at Allrecipes.com. I modified it to serve two people using UK measurements (200g chicken, 1 tbsp butter, 150g pasta, 125g single cream, 1 tbsp milk and 2 or 3 tbsp wild garlic pesto).