Monday 15 June 2009: Vegetarian Lasagne

Oh it’s been a while. We had the best vegetarian lasagne last night (and this morning, I couldn’t help stealing a cold slice from the fridge). The “meat” of the lasagna was made of lentils, garlic, chopped onion, green or red pepper, tomatoes and tomato paste, chopped celery, zucchini, and olive oil and dried oregano. Again, Sarah experimented as she couldn’t get ricotta cheese for the white sauce (I believe the term is béchamel? bleh) so she used a mix of normal cheddar. She’s really waxing the white sauce bit, which is really hard because you have to get the temperature and stirring technique just right otherwise the consistency turns into a pubescent British teenager’s face, all lumpy and pale. For the cheesy top she used a pizza topping mix (mozzarella and cheddar) which was perfectly crunchy and gooey, again hard to get right as we have a very shallow baking oven but all I could do was droooooool again and wolf it down. Nyumnyum.

Tuesday 3 June 2008: Pasta Amatriciana ala Sarah

I play football on Tuesday nights so I come home pretty late and pretty exhausted, so it’s awesome when I see Sarah and she’s cooked up something super ngon (delish – this is actually more of a mental note when I reread this in years to come and can’t remember any of the Vietnamese phrases I’ve learnt). Well, this Tuesday was no different. Pasta Amatriciana ala Sarah. Awesome tricolore pasta again, with bacon, shitake mushrooms, which, even though Sarah had her doubts, turned out to work just fine in this Italian dish – and a whole bag for only 20 0000 vnd! Lots of fresh tomatoes, mixed herbs and pitted olives, and some grated cheese to finish it off. This was so good with a nice green salad of capsicum, tomatoes, lettuce and capers drizzled with some balsamic vinegar. The special thing about this meal was that Sarah cooked it all out of her head and knew what to add from her own experience, which as she says, is how really good cooks do it. They just know what goes with what and what goes in when. Our gastronomic future, my friends, looks as shiny as a cooked, glazed leg of ham.

Monday 26 May 2008: Tuna Cheese ‘n Pasta

I’m like a kid on Christmas when it comes to this one. Sarah doesn’t often cook it anymore due to the unhealthy intake of white sauce, pasta and well, more white sauce, but when she does I push the veggies aside and gobble it down like a Jew in a concentration camp. This is one in her repertoire of “stodge meals” – i.e. stodgy meals being cheap and filling – like when you’re a student scraping together whatever cash you got to go buy a kilo of rice and some cans of tuna, but usually end up spending the tuna money on a few ciggy’s and a litre of cheapest booze you can get your grubby paws on so you end up just eating the rice! The best is when she cooks it with the shell pasta as they act as little pails in which the tuna and white sauce get caught creating little bubbles of joy. Three more vital ingredients – spring onions, garlic and a lot of black pepper. Need I say more?

Friday 23 May 2008: Tuna Pasta

Okay, this sounds simple, but the way Sarah makes it is awesome. This is another one she’s made once before for me (I think once before that for herself too), and it’s super healthy (except for the cheese and pasta bit). I think it’s also quite cheap to throw together – we’re a bit deprived of monetary funds this month as we’re saving – so it also fits our pockets well. I think Sarah steams some veggies – carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, beans, tomatoes that sort of thing – cooks some tricolore pasta, and throws them together with a bit of butter. Then she adds capers, the shredded tuna (just your everyday from-a-can tuna), a lot of balsamic vinegar and gives it a toss. Finally some grated cheddar cheese over the top and viola! Not only is it really fresh and tastes damn good, but the different colours of the pasta and veggies makes it aesthetically pleasing too. Yum. If she’s gonna make this every time we run out of money, I’m gonna start spending like a fiend.