Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

I'm afraid this post is just going to be an edited hightlights of the last two weeks' food, as I have been a bit slack photographing and posting of late. My computer went funny, one thing led to another and I almost fell off the blogging wagon. But today I was doing my usual food porn thing, looking through food blogs and trying not to lick the screen (although I was sorely tempted), and I thought, NO! I must blog! School's out now (yesss!!!) so hopefully I'm gonna be blogging a lot more from now on. Sooooooo....



My sister was away last week, and my dad was at work, so I got to cook all sorts of good things for me and my mum. Monday I chucked together some roasted ratatouille pasta, which was goood. So good in fact, I feel a recipe coming on...

Roasted Ratatouille Pasta (serves 2)

Ingredients

6oz/175g pasta of your choice, fusilli loves chunky sauces though (use more if you're hungry, there'll still be plenty o' sauce)

Sauce
Just over half a 400g/15oz tin of tomatoes in juice (tomato juice, mind, not pineapple or apple and mango)
Dried oregano
A couple of sprigs fresh thyme, picked from your garden mere moments before
1 tbsp Tomato puree
Pinch brown sugar
S&P (salt and pepper, if you don't do acronyms)
Splash balsamic vinegar
Olive oil

Veggies
Half a medium aubergine (eggplant)
2 small courgettes (zucchini), snaffled from your sister's veg patch (ssshhh!)
Small yellow pepper (bell pepper)
Largish red onion
2-4 cloves garlic, plus 1 extra clove


Method

1. Preheat oven to 190C/375F, Chop all the veg into medium chunks. Bash the garlic cloves. Chuck in a roasting tin with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and seasoning. Place in oven and roast for about 20-30 minutes until slightly crinkly and yummy.
2. Crush the remaining clove of garlic and fry briefly in 1-2 tsp olive oil in a medium saucepan. Add the remaining sauce ingredients and simmer until you have a thickish sauce. Season to taste.
3. Cook the pasta according to pack instructions and drain. Stir the the cooked veggies through the sauce and toss with the drained pasta. Eat.



Teriyaki tofu stirfry with a load of veggies (I was cleaning out the fridge). I just marinade pressed firm tofu in some yummy organic teriyaki sauce I scored at Waitrose, which I sweetened with a little maple syrup ( I don't eat honey anymore-like it just fine, hate how it's produced). Served over brown rice. MMMM.



It's not often that I cook elegant meals, as I'm more a big bowls of pasta and soup gal. So this was fun. Mum and I bought a load of stuff from the market/M&S (beets, peaches, tomatoes, leaves), and made a "salad bar at home". There's a raw beet/carrot salad with spices fried in oil and tipped over, with a squeeze of lime, a peach and pistachio nut quinoa salad with lime and mint, and some mixed leaves (chard, spinach, little gem lettuce). Plus feta cheese which I nibbled some bits of (I can only eat cheese in nibbles, unless it's on pizza. It's too strong and salty for me) and cherry tomatoes (piccolo, my favourite).



Here's my plate, although in hindsight I should have photographed my mum's (she always arranges hers much more prettily than I do mine, for some reason). So light, tasty and beautiful, perfect on the first summery evening for what seems like years.

It was fun cooking for my mum all week. She and my dad are really supportive about my vegeatarianism and always willing to try new foods and flavours. Last Saturday we had sticky balsamic chicken/tofu and dad asked for tofu instead. That was pretty cool, except I made nowhere near enough for him!

So see you all soon. I'm think gonna put on the chef's hat that Pie brought me from Italy (it has my name embroidered on it and it's so cool!) and bake some vegan cookies (vegan baking rules, even though I'm not fully vegan yet) this weekend. I'll post some pictures (taken with a good camera, promise) so that you too can lick your screen.

Byeee!