Pasta cheat!

Sometimes, I walk past my local Italian restaurant and all I can think is alio olio alio olio alio olio...vongole...
Then I get home and realise that all my recent travel has meant that a) I have no alio b) I've killed my basil plants and c) I have not been shopping in ages and I have no fresh seafood. Like last night.

Fortunately I had a full tub of Chunky Basil, Cashew and Parmesan dip (do you remember, back in the early noughties when these first started appearing on supermarket chiller shelves? What a godsend!), a few squashy old mini-Roma tomatoes, half an onion from who-knows-when, some instant spaghetti (cooks in 8 minutes!) and my usual pantry staples.

So I boiled up the pasta and at the same time drizzled olive oil & balsamic vinegar into a frying pan and blackened the tomatoes with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and powdered garlic. I then added the chopped onion and cooked through until translucent to get the flavour out of its sorry bones. I then smooshed the tomatoes hard with the back of the spoon. The basil dip tub was unceremoniously dumped into the pan and then the pasta was done so I mixed it all up in the frying pan to coat the strands and hey presto! Alio olio tomato pesto.

Vongole (or let's be honest, any shellfish) Linguine (or let's be honest, any long pasta)

Here's a time-travelling one for you. I recently had a conversation with my lovely bestie Woffles. I'm not entirely sure how we gave her that name between today and all those years ago in Year 5, but it is definitely spelled with an "o" as in the Woffles, the talking rabbit in the Enid Blyton books - not with an "a" as in the foodstuff; and it certainly suits her. Anyhow, I was out walking with her by the river and we were talking about my love of molluscs, in particular bivalves - I often go to the markets and buy the freshest live mussels or clams that I can find and work my dinner plans around them. A very useful recipe I have tucked away in my recipe file is this gem for Spaghetti Vongole - yet another Neil Perry / Qantas Magazine recipe. My preferred long pasta is Linguine with Vongole but Fettucine (good with mussels) or Spaghetti or otherwise works just as well. I also refer to this recipe when cooking shellfish and just use the first part of the recipe as a reminder of cooking times and accoutrements. I can't seem to find my picture of the first attempt (and thus most faithful to recipe version) but will look through my other computer just in case. In the meantime here's an adjusted, musselicious & pastaless version of the recipe:

I believe these were live Mornington Peninsula mussels purchased that day from South Melbourne Markets in honour of a parental visit... and quite delicious, if memory serves...

Kangaroo Ragoo

{First official bignomslittlenoms blogpost}

I learnt something new with this one, namely that Ragu is Italian for Ragout (French, from ragoûter). Given that I was using Kanga Bangas (yes, that is what they are called), I've decided that it's Roo Ragoo.

Loosely based on my first port of call for most ideas, a quick search on taste.com.au, and the fact that I am on 13 hour shifts and only had some Kanga Bangas in the fridge to start with, I decided to construct my late night dinner (after Iron Chef of course).

The process went something like this:

Pull kanga bangas out of fridge (500g packet) to rest.

Boil water in kettle, pour into saucepan, salt liberally, chuck saucepan on stove on high heat.

Wash and finely chop broccoli - I quartered the florets and diced the stalk to 1cm cubes. Pop in microwave, set for "fresh vegetables 0.3kg".

(Sing along to Kasey Chambers and hubby's country-banjo infused duet version of Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head).

Put handful of dried pasta into saucepan - I used wide curly fettucine, because there was an open packet of it in a jar in the pantry. Note time, sort of, and mentally remind self what the time will be in 14 minutes - because that is what the packet told me was the "cooks in..." time.

Get another larger pan, pour olive oil in.

(Be grateful nowhere near as large and emotionally distressed as US Biggest Loser contestants).

Roughly chop garlic and chuck onto olive oil. Wonder why there are no onions anywhere in the house. Separate kanga banga sausage meat from skins (slice lengthways, unwrap) and smoosh with hands into oil in big bits. Best to wet hands first so meat doesn't stick. Meh. Wash hands.

(Tsk tsk at the Black Team for using their luxury prize to booze with its thousands of calories, and get on the gaspers!!!)

Liberally apply dried thyme, oregano, chili flakes, black pepper and then also freshly grind on fresh black pepper. Go nuts with the wooden spoon to break up all the bits of meat into little chunks. Give up on wooden spoon and switch to mega-spatula, which does the trick nicely. Splash some light soy sauce and balsamic vinegar over the mix.

Suddenly remember to attend to pasta which is boiling over, stir and unlid.
Open microwave because it is shouting at me regards the broccoli.

Back to the mix. Meat is browned, add a sort of cupful of water from the still-hot kettle, add a beef stock cube. Mix for a bit, allow to simmer while wrestling with pasta sauce jar lid (chunky tomato and herb a la that was the brand on discount du jour). Plop whole jar of pasta sauce in, with extra hot water into jar (quarter jarful-ish) to shake out all the claggy bits stuck to the insides of the jar and add that to the mix. Chuck in the broccoli bits, stir well, put lid on.

It's probably been 14 minutes and the pasta seems done, so turn gas burner off, pour into strainer. Curse self for forgetting to keep some of the starchy water to add to mix a la Jamie Oliver - next time. Keep warm over saucepan with lid on. Live in fear of bacillus cereus spores popping open at room temperature in grain foods.

Mix is boiling and looks a bit pale. Decide to add tinned tomatoes, same trick with hot water to get all the gooey goodness out of can. Pop out to balcony, freeze tits off, pluck a handful of flat leaf parsley, consider marjoram but hands are numb so back inside and shut the door! Wash and chop parsley, sprinkle some on pasta, some on mix. Be glad stirring boiling mix is warming my hands up. Grab jar of olives, rinse about half the jarful. Halve some, bivalve some and leave the rest intact and add to mix. Add a heap of grated parmesan (like, two big handfuls) and watch mix start to take form.

Give up on perfect consistency of "Ragoo" and decide to eat now as "Pasta Sauce" consistency. Refresh pasta with a pour of boiling water through the strainer. Serve pasta with generous spoonfuls of Roogoo atop, toss to serve and sit on couch to watch next segment of Biggest Loser. Decide to put rest of pasta in fridge, and get more black pepper for my bowl whilst I am up. Leave mix on stove on simmer to further consolidate into "Ragoo". Pop that into separate box in fridge after having finished my delicious dinner. Nom.

(Be glad I have had a balanced healthy meal that is hearty and delicious without whining or being SHOUTIER THAN A MICROWAVE AT A CELEBRITY PERSONAL TRAINER WHO IS REALLY JUST THERE TO HELP or concerned about my Blue or Black top or being weighed on national television).

Time for bed.

- There were requests on fbook for a picture, but despite being delicious it is not really a pretty sort of meal! I am reheating some today for lunch at work, if I can make it presentable I will take a photo for you...

Creamy broccoli pasta: the photo that launched a thousand blog posts

**backdated post

This is the photo that started it all. Prior to the Kangaroo Ragout, this humble photo of my crazy-eyed, hunger-fuelled, put-it-all-in-a-wok experimentation for dinner was posted on F&c^book and someone asked for the "recipe" at work and I didn't really have one. In fact I then commented on the photo with: "Papardelle with (Latina fresh/cheat's) creamy carbonara sauce with shredded butter & lemon burnt chicken, smooshy broccoli, chili, pine nuts, pancetta strips and approx half a block of Parmesan. In a wok."

A similar (blurry, hypoglycaemically framed) photo was also greeted with enthusiasm by friends and workmates:

I've always loved a creamy broccoli pasta dish, inspired by my very beautiful local Italian restaurant which is a blink-and-you-miss-it hole in the wall which just so happens to be in the Good Food Guide, and was the site of my very beautiful thirtieth birthday party. Their dish is usually long pasta or orecchiette with creamy broccoli sauce or just a simple olive oil, chilli and broccholi quilt for the pasta. (They don't have a set menu, just specials for the day that update throughout the day according to freshness and the chef's creativity.)

So here we go, a beautiful but basic broccoli bite for a home cooked dinner:

Boil broccoli pieces and pasta (wide long and flat is good eg papardelle, fettucini, linguine or even use lasagne sheets and slice them into extra wide noodley strips) in a big pot of salted water.

Meanwhile heat up another pan (or wok) - toast some pine nuts on the surface as it heats up. Then add a generous amount of butter and/or olive oil with lots of lemon juice and dried chilli flakes & cracked pepper. In this mix, brown some chopped up chicken, with optional chopped onion. By now the broccoli and pasta should be cooked - drain and add them to the chicken pan. Pour over some store-bought creamy sauce (eg Latina Fresh or jar-fresh) over and mix. Grate or slice over a huge mountain of Parmesan. Top with optional roasted crispy pancetta (or proscuitto) strips. Fresh herbs on top as you wish and hey presto, a substantial almost-one-pot wonder (if you cooked in serial instead of parallel you could just use one pot). For vego just omit the chicken (and pancetta).

Enjoy!