Based on a recipe from Jack Monroe’s cookingonabootstrap.com.

Back to Jack. Had a go at Jack’s Creamy Greek cheese and courgette pasta. One problem, not a single courgette in the shops due to floods and bad weather in southern Europe.

Interesting going shopping. Some people were staring at the vegetable section in Tesco, grumbling about how they were going to cope without courgettes or iceberg lettuces. The shop is bursting at the seams with all kinds of foods, but they could only talk about what wasn’t there. Made me think how much of the world’s population struggles to find even the basics, not to mention how many Mediterranean farmers will be in dire straits. There were plenty of carrots, however, so … Creamy Greek cheese and carrot pasta.

The ingredients:

• 1 large carrot (biggest you can find).
• 100g string beans.
• flat teaspoon each of dried mint and parsley (or fresh, of course, if you happen to have it).
• 1 tablespoon oil.
• Juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon (or a tablespoon of bottled lemon juice).
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped fine.
• 50g feta (a crumbly Greek cheese).
• 150g natural yoghurt.
• 200g pasta of any sort.

Put the carrot, chopped up a bit, and beans with the ends chopped off in a pot of cold water, bring to the boil then simmer. Remove when the carrot’s just soft enough to mash (about 35 minutes from cold). Don’t throw the water away – use it to cook the pasta.

While the above is simmering, mix the mint, parsley, oil, juice, zest and garlic. Crumble the feta in a saucepan, add the mixture just made and simmer gently for a few minutes, mixing in the yoghurt towards the end.

I don’t have a ‘zester’, so with a sharp knife I pared the skin off the lemon and chopped it up fine. Do wash the lemon beforehand to get any oils/contaminants off the surface.

Mash the carrot in the bottom of a dish and put the beans on top, followed by the pasta.

Reheat the sauce to make it runny – add more yoghurt or milk if it goes too sticky – and pour it over the top. And there it is! Delightfully colourful. Tasty, tangy and very lemony – could leave out the zest if you think the lemon flavour is going to be too overpowering for you.

I found this delicious when freshly made, but after a couple of hours, perhaps because the pasta absorbs the moisture, the flavours had diminished and it was less special.

With a cup of tea or coffee, including electricity and washing-up costs, three means for 77p each. No where near Jack’s 28p, so not one for the ultra-budget bracket (< 50p a meal).