Well, I've been really bad at blogging about stuff (as I warned Mark I might be), but today I thought to myself I should write about the topic that excites me every day - and that's FOOD.
I love the stuff. I love to cook and I've recently discovered I like to grow it, too. If I could talk the other people in our apartment building into it, I'd have chickens in the yard! So here's my latest invention, a pasta sauce that even I thought was pretty darn good.
To begin: I needed a portion of roast vegetables, which I do and freeze regularly as a time-saver. It's pretty much anything that roasts well, including sweet potato (do the Americans call these yams?), eggplant, zucchini, carrots, onion, garlic and bell peppers in multi colours. I put parsnip in last time which was a mistake, I should have par boiled them first because they ended up hard little rocks in my veggie mush. Anyway, after peeling and chopping things that need it and chucking them all into a large baking dish, I drizzle over extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and some fresh or dried herbs. Roast till tender and freeze in portions to suit your family size.
Toni's yummy fish sauce for linguine or spaghetti
Boneless fillets of firm white fish (I had snapper and used 1 fillet per person)
Corn flour
Paprika
Salt & pepper
Tinned tomatoes (1 tin per 2 people)
Roast vegetables
Fresh basil (optional)
Pine nuts
Cut the fish fillets into cube-type chunks. Put a couple of tablespoons of corn flour, one tbs of paprika and salt and papper to taste into a clean plastic bag; add the fish chunks and toss well to coat.
In a deep-sided non stick frying pan, heat a small amount of oil and a knob of butter or margarine to medium-hot. GENTLY add the cubed fish and fry well on all sides. Add chopped tinned tomatoes (use all the juice in the tin) and roast vegetables, stir gently and reduce heat to low. Simmer while cooking your pasta and toasting the pine nuts (don't let them burn!) either in a dry pan or on a tray in the oven.
To serve, place sauce over the top of the well-drained pasta, top with toasted pine nuts and finely chopped fresh basil. (I'm growing mine so I add it to everything now, but I appreciate it's not on hand for everyone.)
More recipes will follow...