A satisfying pasta bake

This was another veggie meal - not sure why we're having so many of those at the moment. This was nice - we did a sort-of bake with mozzarella on the top and had it with salad. We had some sunblush tomatoes that were a bit old, so we bunged them into the sauce, with onions, lots of garlic and a red pepper, mixed the lot up with cooked brown penne pasta, sprinkled cubes of mozzarella on the top, then grilled it until the mozzarella was bubbling and beginning to brown. Why is it that by just making it look like a bake, it looks like so much more of a meal than just a pasta, veg and sauce?

I've put a photo of it in the dish, where it looks fairy attractive, and another one of it on the plate where it was a bit of a mess. Messy food is often the nicest, anyway. That's my excuse.

And for lunch on Friday, I had...

Penne pasta with pesto, pinenuts and parmesan. And veg, but that doesn't begin with a 'p' so I thought I'd put that in the next sentence. Alliteration - every writer's friend. The veg included an onion, a courgette and a tomato. The pasta was brown, so I felt full for longer - I'm assuming I did as that's what you're supposed to find with brown pasta. I just like the more fibrous flavour and consistency, if you cook it al dente - a bit like brown rice versus white rice, as brown's just more interesting.

Anyway, I was full and felt better. I've got a cold at the moment, and as my mother always told me, 'feed and cold and starve a fever'. I tend to feed both, but I'm sure it doesn't matter.

Update on the week's eating - Thurs to Sat lunch

I can't believe I haven't blogged for an entire week. It's gone so fast. And I'm finding it difficult to remember everything I've eaten, which is most unusual for me. Lets think:

I had this prawn and noodle stirfry one day last week - I think it was probably Thursday as we'd been out till quite late and wanted some fast food. It was nice - I used a Blue Dragon oyster and spring onion sauce, some big prawns, chopped up veg including carrots, onions, courgettes, peppers and a lone leek, and we shared a block of sharwood's thin noodles and sprinkled it with fresh coriander. It was tasty.

On Friday lunchtime I was starving and wanted some energy food, so I made a pasta with pesto, an onion, a large courgette and cubed mozzarella (the 'light' version from Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself - which was fine in this). Hmmm, I might have pasta and pesto today, I do fancy that.

For friday supper we had salmon, poached in the microwave in my fish steamer with semi-mashed, garlicky new potatoes, leeks in white sauce and broccoli. Sadly I don't have a photo of this meal - I must have been tired and hungry.

At the weekend my aunt came round for lunch and we gave her chicken fajitas. They were good and I realised how long it had been since I'd had fajitas. When I was a student I used to make myself veggie fajitas regularly for lunch - it was a quick, nutritious meal and tastes so good. Expect to see more tortilla-based platefuls on this blog soon!

Saturday supper - a not-so-healthy meal

We spent most of this afternoon going through papers and cupboards and tidying as our flat needed a proper blitz. My dad rang in the evening and told me about two curries he's had recently - I was starving and that didn't help matters much. So we nearly got a takeaway to reward ourselves after all the work we'd done. But we had a Vietnamese on Thursday and we try not to have them too often, and reluctantly I cooked a pasta supper.

To save time I used a Sacla tomato and marscarpone sauce, which we had with extra onions, green pepper, courgette, garlic and a few halved cherry tomatoes. At the last minute, when I drained the wholewheat pasta (which I now prefer to white pasta, unless I'm making a cream-based sauce - I think you need something spicy to stand up to the stronger, more fibrous flavour of the wholewheat variety), I added a big load of cubed mozzarella (hence the not-so-healthy meal). I grated parmesan on the top and added a bit of black pepper. I thought it was a bit flavourless, but I've still got a bit of a cold so I hope that's why. It was big and warm though, which was just what we wanted.

Veggie pasta supper

On Thursday night we'd had a big tapas meal with my family, and we guzzled a lot of Spanish wine. The tapas included bruschetta with smoked salmon, white anchovies and pimento pepper, asparagus wrapped in proscuttio, marinated garlic cloves, king prawns wrapped in bacon, then in a sliver of courgette, served hot, meatballs in a tomato sauce, omlette and new potatoes lightly mashed with lots of garlic and olive oil. Sadly, I didn't take any photos, and I was far too drunk to blog about it later. But we had lots of the tomato sauce from the meatballs left over and I took this away with us for a quick supper. On Saturday night we had it, with aubergine, red onion, yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, more garlic and penne pasta. Very filling.

Warming chorizo pasta

This was my late lunch on Friday. Hungover again (damn this Christmas party season), we had had Christmas champagne at work about 11 o'clock, and by the time I reached my parents' house at about 3.00pm I was starving and needed something big. I made myself a pasta dish - penne pasta, chunky chorizo sausage, onion, red pepper and my mum's homemade tomato sauce from the freezer. It was just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. My mum asked me what I thought of the tomato sauce - I was honest and said it was delicious but very lemony (surprising as it only had a dash of lemon juice in it, I suppose to add a bit of a fresh tang) so I don't think chorizo was the best match for it. With prawns it would be fab. Great!

Beefy pasta supper

I have eaten meals that aren't based on beef this week - honestly. I had stirfried prawns in a tamarind sauce with rice the other night, and a mackeral salad last night (healthy guilt-food after a few glasses of wine - come on, you know you've done that at least once). And I had a panini with mozzarella and roasted peppers for lunch today - lovely and filling.

But tonight we finished the beef. We had brown pasta with a sauce made of mushrooms, red onions, a carrot, garlic, the end of the joint of beef with its juices, a bit of red wine and a Sacla sundried tomato and garlic stir-in sauce - I couldn't be bothered to make my own tonight as we wanted fast, warming food and I was feeling lazy. I added parmesan shavings (after this photo was taken) for a bit of extra oomph.

This is what you need before a Saturday night out...

Something to line the stomach. Wholewheat penne - keeping you full for longer - a rustic-style tomato sauce with a bit of chilli, herbs and garlic, lots of veg to make it interesting (peppers, onions, courgette etc) and cubed mozzarella, added at the last minute so it's melting gently. What do you get? A delicious mass of filling, flavourful, warming food, served a little messily in a bowl for easy eating. That's home-cooking. And I didn't even crave pizza/kebabs/curry on my way home. Ideal.