Just a quick post about lunch yesterday and today while I’m nicely drugged up because my back is giving me grief (recurring problem, not too bad – give no advice, it will not be heeded).
Yesterday I spent the morning installing drip-line in our front garden and planting out some tomato seedlings and, for some reason, cutting up about fifty cardboard boxes with a stanley knife so they’d fit in the recycling bin, which all took ages. I’m doing a gardening post about the drip-line etc later so I won’t go into that here.
ANYWAY, because all that took so long and I was distracted I didn’t realise that I’d gotten so hungry that I was about to fall over. This happens to me all the time, especially if we’re on holiday. People may feel a chilling sense of familiarity with this scene:
it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon, Kate is in a heap on the ground, weeping very slightly at the injustice of having to continue living
Andy: Did you have any breakfast?
Kate (looking at Andy’s shoe): …I had a coffee
Andy: do you think maybe you’re hungry?
Kate: …no. I’m never eating again, I hate food.
So what I had for emergency right now lunch was:
Toasted pita bread with cheese and chili and pickled onions (half-arsed quesadilla)
This really doesn’t deserve the status of a recipe but it was so great and it’s the kind of thing I often have for lunch if I can’t be shitted actually thinking about food.
1 big pita
some grated cheese – I used a combo of tasty and maasdam, don’t use anything too fancy
chilli paste
two pickled onions, sliced in thin rings (I like Blue Banner picked onions, they’re from Tassie and they’re the absolute greatest)
put bread on sandwich press, put things inside it, fold in half, toast until cheese melts out the sides. Add or omit ingredients to your taste.
………………..
Today I just wanted an excuse to have chilli and butter and as I felt I couldn’t quite justify spreading just butter and chilli paste on bread for lunch I had:
Pasta with Chilli, Herbs and silverbeet
Pasta – whatever you’ve got*
Chilli paste or that wobbly chilli you’ve had in the fridge too long
knob of butter
herbs, chopped – I used parsley and mint
1 clove of garlic, minced
skerrick of sesame oil (not essential)
S+P to taste if you want
parmesan
2 leaves silverbeet/chard, chopped – this only went in because it was eyeing me moodily from the garden and made me feel guilty
Boil water for pasta, put plenty of salt in the water – do not stint on water when cooking pasta (or potatoes), it will somehow manage to be both stodgy and undercooked, and half of it will stick the bottom of the pot. When the water boils put the pasta in, follow the cooking time on the packet. If you are using two different kinds and one of them takes less time than the other put the slower one in first, set a timer for the difference then whack the second lot in when it goes off.
put the chilli, butter, herbs, garlic, sesame oil and S+P in a bowl. Chuck the silverbeet in with the pasta for the last minute/30 seconds of cooking. Drain, throw in bowl with other stuff, stir until combined and the butter is melted. Eat with a wee grating of parmesan.
*This is the perfect time to use up those two or three ends of packets from which you’ve kept 15 strands of spaghetti and half a handful of shells – Why? Why do I do this?