In between blogs

Sorry for the lack of bloggage lately. 

Here is a little in betweeny blog.

I’m working on my next one that is not a recipe, entitled Expectations.

I am also working on some new recipes which I made up on the plane home from Bulgaria. 

We visited Kardjali last weekend and had a hectic weekend driving around the mountains in a 4x4; I think they say in Bulgarian, ‘bomba’ (courtesy of Borris), which means excellent.

On the last night we had an awesome feast in the hotel, Greek salad, really tasty kebab type things with rice and what kinda looked like fajitas with mince, but they were actually pancakes.  

So I have got some experimenting to do with mince coming up shortly with a couple of different sauces, savoury pancakes and some different types of rice.

I am also cooking cauliflower and potato soup tomorrow with halumi as I’ve a shit load of cauliflower left over and I don’t like to waste things.    

One last thing, I watched Shutter Island last night and it was AMAZZZINGGG – watch it!!  

Spaghetti with spicy bacon

200g spaghetti

6 slices of bacon

1 onion finely chopped 

1 garlic clove (pestle and mortar)

150-200g mushrooms

1-2 birdseye chillis

Jar of pasta sauce

Handful coriander

Cheese to finish (cheddar or parmesan) 

Garlic bread optional

Grated carrot optional

Serves 3-4

Prep time 10 mins

Cooking time 25 mins

I saw this recipe somewhere years ago but I’ve added some bits of my own.  It’s just a quick, easy one I have always remembered how to cook. 

Prep everything and then get the pasta going.

Fry the onions in a large pan with oil.  Add the bacon, garlic and chilli and cook for 1 or 2 mins.

Add the mushrooms and sauce and cook for around 15-20 mins.

Check how long your garlic bread takes.

Drain the pasta and gradually add to the sauce pan.

Serve with a sprinkle of coriander and grated cheese (and the garlic bread if you’re hungry). 

These aren’t the best pics, I grated some carrot on this occasion and sprinkled around the plate. 

You could try adding a bit of chopped carrot into the mix if you prefer or try celery.   I make this dish a lot, so just a few ideas to make it different.

Another quick and easy one to do similar to this is sausage pasta.  Swap the spaghetti for shells and use either Mattessons horse shoe sausage or frankfurters and I’d probably swap the mushrooms to peppers.

Enjoy