Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Pasta Night
We had our monthly Tesco delivery tonight and
as a result our fridge is overflowing with food. So what do I decide to make for dinner? Pasta! No, my creativity has not gone down the drain, nor have I finally lost it. The decision was influenced by a number of factors, all of which make perfect sense: the delivery time, the stuff already in our fridge and my mood.I wasn't in a bad mood, but I felt quite lethargic when I got home. We're very busy at work at the moment and I spend a lot less time that I would like drinking coffee and doing fun things. All that has been relegated to the time after 5. And tonight I just preferred surfing the net, watching telly and playing poker to cooking.
It didn't help that the delivery man didn't show
until after 6 o'clock - too late, really, for me to use any of the stuff he brought. And believe me, he brought lots of stuff. I had spent over €100 and filled our small kitchen with 5 crates of food and drinks: Spinach, onions, butter, cream, mineral water, canned tomatoes, spaghetti, Oxo cubes, puff pastry, filo pastry, dried pears, several different kinds of nuts... The list goes on and on. Plenty of things to make a number of yummy dinners. But not tonight. Tonight I had to start before I received anything.So I had to work with the things I had bought on the weekend. The choices here were simple: Mexican, Mediterranean of some sort or chicken burgers. The first takes quite a while, though, and the last is best with potato wedges, which again drags out cooking time and keeps me away from Great British Menus. This really only leaves the middle option. I decided to pull everything I had out of the fridge and just see what the jumble of stuff would inspire me to concoct. And, as you can see from the picture above, this looked very much like a good old-fashioned pasta. In fact, it looked like two different pasta dishes. Lofty was not too keen on the artichokes in oil from the market and I dm no fan of salami, even good quality Italian salami from my mum's fine food store. The solution was to cook enough noodles for two, but toss them with completely different accompaniments before serving - Spaghetti with leek and salami and spaghetti with artichokes.
enough pasta for 2 people
For the salami mixture:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot (or ½ onion), chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
½ leek, cleaned and sliced
a handful of mushrooms, sliced
4 to 5 cm salami, chopped
50 ml white wine
4 to 5 sunblushed tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped (these are only partly dried and retain a lot more moisture than sundried tomatoes; you can substitute them for one another, but remember that the latter are more intense in taste and not as juicy)
a handful of spinach, cleaned
1 tsp fresh basil (or ¼ tsp dried)
1 tsp fresh thyme (or ¼ tsp dried)
1 tsp fresh oregano (or ¼ tsp dried)
1 vegetable Oxo cube (alternatively enough stock granules for 200 ml liquid)
½ buffalo mozzarella, chopped or ripped into smallish chunks
salt and pepper to taste
For the artichoke mixture:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot (or ½ onion), chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
a pinch of grated lemon peel
50 ml white wine
4 to 5 sunblushed tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped
a handful of spinach, cleaned
4 artichokes in oil, quartered
1 tsp fresh basil (or ¼ tsp dried)
1 tsp fresh thyme (or ¼ tsp dried)
1 tsp fresh oregano (or ¼ tsp dried)
1 vegetable Oxo cube (alternatively enough stock granules for 200 ml liquid)
½ buffalo mozzarella, chopped or ripped into smallish chunks
salt and pepper to taste
a bit of butter (optional)
Cook the pasta according to package instructions. Drain (do not blanch) and set aside.
Heat the oil for the two mixtures in two pans over medium heat. Add the shallots and leeks and cook until golden, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic and, in the case of the artichoke mix, the lemon peel and continue to fry until fragrant, about a minute.
Pour the wine into the artichoke mix and bring to a simmer. Add the mushrooms to the salami mix and fry until they have released their moisture and are beginning to brown. Add the salami and fry for another minute before pouring in the wine. Add the tomatoes, spinach and herbs to both pans. Cook until the spinach has collapsed, then toss with the pasta. Crumble in the Oxo cubes/stock granules and stir in the mozzarella chunks. Add some butter to the artichoke mixture if that appears dry. Dish up before the mozzarella is completely melted. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Christine at 8:41 pm
