Cooking 101 - Keeping It Simple

Pasta is a staple food in the kitchen, it’s probably one of the most common meals in our weekly menu. Pasta is simple, quick, versatile and cheap. It’s also something I make sure is always in the pantry so that when we’re not feeling too creative can whip up a simple dish that is made with no fuss and minimal ingredients. The past two weeks we learnt to make our own pasta which was fantastic and entertaining. This weekend however we had several other things that needed doing which meant not much time left for the kitchen.

Sunday night’s menu included pasta with onion & mushroom and for dessert a chocolate brownie. I started with the brownie and while that was baking managed to finish cooking dinner before the timer on the oven went off.

Just three ingredients – onion, mushroom & ham
(plus the fourth – pasta)

Chop them as desired and fry with a bit of oil

Honestly, I could eat pasta every day of the week and just add different ingredients – tomato base, cream sauce, seafood, vegetables, onion, bolognaise, three cheeses, etc. With pasta you can pretty much do whatever you like and in no time at all.

On your plate with a bit of parmesan in less than 20 minutes

Pasta is usually a no-no on all crazy diets, think all those carbs hanging around. Maybe if I stopped eating it I’d drop the last few kilograms to get me to my dream weight, but would I still have the energy to run 20k? Probably not. So I’m going to indulge in my carbohydrate rich pasta whether it’s home made or store bought, and enjoy every mouthful in moderation. I do hold off on the brownies though, I don’t mind them but I usually make the dessert for my family’s benefit. They love sweets while I prefer the savoury. That might explain the personality differences too, hehe.