Sagey pumpkin pasta

The sage is going OFF in a pot in the backyard. The leaves are enormous. I haven't done a post for a while, and well.... as much as I do love it, sage doesn't come up that often in the cooking repertoire. There's a kind of piggy-earthy- bitterness to sage that is a little bit full on sometimes and means to me it's just not as versatile as other herbs like basil, parsley, rosemary that get used more regularly in my dishes... But wow, it really is wonderful when it's with the right ingredients. It's crying out desperately to be paired with pork and in this dish I would have loved to add something like proscuitto or pancetta if I'd had any on hand. But hey, it goes fantastically well with pumpkin...  I do love to make a burnt butter sauce, pop the sage leaves in and get them crunchy- then pour the sauce over any kind of pork product, pasta, pumpkin or roasted nuts... orrrrr yeeeah.  

sage, sage, sage

Sagey pumpkin pasta

Ingredients

a few good handfuls of sage leaves

one birds eye chilli

half a pumpkin (I used a JAP I think)- reserve the seeds

almonds

a head of garlic

a block of fetta

olive oil

a packet of large pasta shells

butter (optional - for sage sauce)

Method

Scoop out the pumpkin seeds and reserve. Chop up the pumpkin into about 2-cm chunks. I don't bother to de-skin it. If you have a Steve, get him to do it (I hate chopping pumpkin). Chop the bottom off a whole head of garlic... 

Put the pumpkin chunks into a roasting dish, along with the garlic, have the pumpkin seeds and some of the sage leaves scattered throughout the dish. Season with salt and pepper. Douse it with olive oil. 

The roasting tray goodies

Put in the oven at around 170 C. After 30 minutes or so add the almonds- just scattering them throughout. I didn't really keep track of how long it was in there for so I couldn't be exact, I'd say it was an hour or so? just check it periodically to see how it's coming along. When it's done, squeeze out the garlic from it's shell and discard the shell.

When the pumpkin is looking close to being done, cook up your pasta in a large saucepan of salty water. Drain it when done

Chop up the fetta into about 1 cm cubes and slice up the chilli

in the same saucepan as the pasta was in, fry up some butter and add the rest of the sage (use olive oil instead if you prefer).

Toss all the ingredients together.

Squeeze a little lemon juice on this if you want a little sourness to break up that richness!

Get it while it's hot!

Like I said before - pork would be wonderful with this, add in bacon, proscuitto, pancetta at your leisure :-) 

This was a nicely textured dish, with the softness of the pumpkin, slightly melty cheese, and a nice bit of crunch from the almonds and pumpkin seeds. 

Steve's Bastard RataCousBean

This might be cheating... I didn't cook this one and it doesn't have any new ingredients... but  I thought it was deserving of a post because it used cous-cous in a bit of a new way, and, well, it was so damn good I wanted to share!

Cous-Cous

It's often the case that when we have hardly any food left in the house, the best cooking comes out. Steve is the master of this "surprise chef" cooking- making something creative with what's at hand.  I've decided that there's ABSOLUTELY no shame in canned beans and pulses - super-quick and easy. Plus our dog Polly likes to steal the empty tins from our recycling bin and lick out any remaining bean-spooge.

Polly thinks that canned bean-spooge is delicious

Zucchinis are a bit of a staple around our house, and in our (currently very tatty-looking) veggie garden we have loads of eggplant growing, plenty of green chillies that aren't all that hot, and the basil's doing pretty well too....

baby eggplants

green chillis

basil

So there was enough stuff around the house that Steve thought he'd make a kind of bastardised "ratatouille", which we've named "Rata-Cous-Bean".... a slowly cooked vegetable and bean stew that was mighty delicious. The vegetable flavours were rich and the amalgamation of olive oil, garlic, herbs, beans and veggies with the cous-cous made for a lusciously creamy, strangely risotto-like consistency that melted away pleasantly in your mouth. Let me tell you it was satisfying and very easy to eat multiple helpings of it. It's just nutritious, health-giving comfort food. It makes you feel incredibly special to have food like this cooked for you, thanks Steve!

Bastard RataCousBean ... (the photo doesn't do it much justice!)

Bastard RataCousBean
These sorts of bastard peasant dishes are never cooked the same way in our house - it's always ad lib . . .  bit of this, bit of that . . . you develop a feel for the dish, so writing down a recipe is actually quite difficult.  Here goes, with dictation by the surprise chef himself.

Ingredients:

Lots of olive oil
400gm can of canneli beans
400gm can of brown lentils
400gm can of good quality Italian plum tomatoes - whole or diced, makes little difference
A cup of instant cous-cous

As much garlic as you like, finely diced (Steve used 6 cloves)

2 medium brown onions, cut into 8ths lengthwise (Steve thinks this seems to make them sweeter and tastier, might have to put Heston on the case to check this empirically)
1 large eggplant, cut into 2cm cubes
2 zucchinis, also cut into 2cm cubes
A handful of green chillis, finely chopped
8 roma tomatoes, roughly chopped, skins and all
A few bay leaves
A small handful of dried rosemary

A teaspoon of sweet paprika
A good handful of basil leaves, torn

Grated parmesan to serve - best quality of course
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1) Sweat the onions in a good lug of olive oil on medium heat.  When they are translucent, add the garlic, chopped chilli and bay leaves, topping up the oil if it looks a bit mean.  Stir around the pot until the chilli fumes stop hurting your eyes.

2) Add the eggplant and give it all a good stir to get the pieces nicely coated.  Stir around with the onions/garlic/chilli, until the eggplant pieces have taken up most of the oil (around 5 mins).

3) Add the drained can of lentils.  Over the course of cooking the dish, they break down and become saucy.  At this point, turn the heat down to a low flame.  We'll be simmering the rest of the way.

4) Add the tomatoes (fresh and tinned) and about half a cup of warm water, then add the paprika and dried rosemary.  Cook, stirring, for about 15 minutes.

5) Add the canneli beans and zucchini.  Cook for another 15 minutes, stirring often so that nothing sticks to the pan.  By now the eggplant should be cooked through with no more dry, spongy parts.  The stew should still be pretty wet. 

6) At this point, Steve had the unconventional idea of adding the cous-cous instead of simmering the stew down and doing the cous-cous separately as we'd usually do. I think it really added something to the texture of the dish to do it this way. Add the cous-cous and stir until it has taken up the remaining moisture in the stew.  This should take around 5 minutes.  Stir through the chopped basil, scoop into bowls, top with parmesan, salt, pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice.  Even better the next day (when the chillies started to add a mild kick to the dish).