Farfalle with bell pepper sauce

Today I looked at BookDepository to find that they're giving away free ebooks! I looked through some, searched on something I'm planning on doing (and I'll be sure to post!) and got to some Italian recipes of pasta. All of it combined, got me to make a little experience, and a well succeeded one:

I'm almost finishing the chickpea burgers staple and those fish fingers have been on the freezer for more time than I wanted them to, so this time I tried a different approach: instead of pan-frying and deep frying the fish and the burger, I baked them. The burgers were brushed in a little olive oil because they had no fat in it but the fish fingers didn't so I added nothing. Baking is a bit more useful to make 4 meals at a time than frying because you do it all at once plus you have the fat amount reduced which is a plus.

With the farfalle, I cooked it but there was colour missing (there still is, it's all golden brown green-ish but) so, inspired by the Italian food videos/articles, and the lonely bell pepper in the fridge, I made a little invention which turned out nice. Here's the recipe of it:

- 1 green bell pepper chopped in small pieces;

- 3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped;

- Olive oil;

- 1/2 teaspoon of fine chopped basil ( I didn't have fresh basil but I bet it would taste a lot better);

- salt, pepper and a little sugar to taste;

- 4 tbspoons tomato sauce (or if you can, replace it for a fresh medium-sized tomato);

Heat the olive oil and when it's hot enough, put the garlic and be careful so it doesn't burn! Don't mince it or it'll burn really fast. When the garlic is golden brown, put the bell pepper and wait for it to cook, remembering to steer it. When it looks cooked, add basil and the tomato sauce and stir frequently until some of the liquid evaporates. Taste it and season to your liking. I had to put a bit of sugar because the tomato sauce was too acid, I use this trick on tomato soup as well to reduce the acidity. After seasoning it, turn off the heat and pour it over the pasta and mix it until all of the pasta has a little of the sauce. Serve warm and it'll taste heavenly ^^

Oh, and please ignore the background, this is something I have to improve because when I take pictures of the food, I usually forget where it is and there were some dishes/silverware drying where I took the pic.

Snowman

I still haven't given up! Turns out I looked at the ingredients and by instinct did it:

There's not much to say to it, but the fact that made me happy to create something out of nowhere. I steamed the veggies, cooked some couscous, fried a chickpea burger and put some fresh cheese on top of the couscous.

Unfortunately my bf couldn't eat it all because of X-mas excess of food. His body is refusing any more to get absorbed.

In the meantime, since the year is almost finished I thought I'd start thinking of next year's resolutions and To-do's. Do you have any you'd like to share? I'd love to see what resolutions you have for 2010. I'll post mine a little later on the week ^^

Burger Cooking

Remember those burgers I made and froze? Already made use of some of them:

The left one is mine, the right one his. This was about the second or third time I cooked for myself but ended up not eating this time.

Both types of burger tasted heavenly!And looked quite good too.

Of course the meat ones got a bit too small, I hadn't tasted a juicy meat burger in a long long time, tender meat, onion flavour... I'll try making them a bit bigger next time!

I am never ever going to buy hamburgers again after making these. They consume some time but the taste and to know what's in there compensates for the time used.

Until then, I'll try not to devour these while my sweet is away :P