This is one of the best inventions I’ve made this year. The feta melts slowly and beautifully with the heat of the asparagus and pumpkin.

You must use that special “top shelf” olive oil for this recipe. Something along the lines of this White Truffle Olive Oil. Mmm…truffles…

Ingredients
Bunch asparagus
half pumpkin cut into small cubes (about 2cm)
200g feta cheese, thinly sliced and cut into squares
handful of pine nuts
tablespoon butter
your best olive oil (like truffle oil)
regular olive oil
salt
pepper

Method
Heat your oven to 210. In an ovenproof tray heat some regular olive oil by placing it in the tray in the oven for about two minutes, then add pumpkin to tray, give the tray a good shake to coat the pumpkin in olive oil and put in the oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare your asparagus. Jamie Oliver showed me how to prepare asparagus. You don’t cut the ugly tips off, you break them by letting the asparagus tell you were - this may sound odd, but if you hold the asparagus in two hands close to the tip and snap it - it will snap in the right spot. Anyway, moving on…steam your asparagus for three minutes over boiling water.

While the asparagus is cooking, melt your butter in another saucepan over low heat and add the pine nuts. It’s a bit of a catch-22 here as you want high heat for the pine nuts, but butter burns at high heat, so I usually turn the butter up to mid heat as it will only need about 2 minutes to work with the pine nuts.

OK, now your pumpkin should be ready from the oven, remove from the tray and place in a bowl with asparagus, feta cheese and pine nuts in butter. Drizzle with your best olive oil and then mix really well so the heat from the asparagus and pumpkin starts to melt the feta.

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This is a really easy dish to make, and super delicious to serve as a light meal or on the side for a bbq or somewhere else where meat is involved. The only thing you have to promise to do is use really good quality olive oil.

I have two kinds of olive oil, a giant tin that I cook with and a tiny ‘gourmet’ bottle that I dress with. I don’t mean I wear it, I mean I use it to dress salads, dip bread into etc, because it tastes a lot different to the other oil (and costs about the same for about 1/10th of the size!). So if you want to impress your friends, or today, your Valentine, go and get some really expensive olive oil, like this Frescobaldi Laudemio…

Ingredients
1/2 pumpkin chopped into small cubes (no bigger than 2cm)
Roughly 4 big handful’s of rocket
2 kinds of olive oil
Handful of pinenuts
Slice of feta cheese cut into cubes

Method
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Heat some regular (cheap) olive oil in a baking tray for a minute. Add your chopped pumpkin and cook for roughly 30 minutes, turning at least once.

Heat a little regular oil in a fry pan on low heat, add pinenuts and move around for no more than a minute. Don’t walk away or leave these nuts otherwise they will burn quickly.

Put the rocket into your favorite salad bowl, throw in the sliced feta and top with the pinenuts, try not to include much of the oil. When your pumpkin is ready add that and then drizzle over the good (expensive) olive oil. Mix everything for a minute, you want the heat from the pumpkin and pine nuts to start working on the feta and even the rocket. Season well with salt and pepper.

Impress your loved one, maybe with some oysters (I know, it’s a cliché) and some champagne…

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