A lazy dinner...

... with aubergines.
I tried to warn you about my aubergine-obsession....

Sometimes a simple, but still nice pasta dish is all you need. For me, pasta has - and probably always will be- a comfort food. Pretty high on the list are Lasagne and Bolognese. Both of these dishes take quite a while to prepare and cook, at least if you attempt to do them correctly. (Yes there is a correct way of cooking a Bolognese... and it takes time. A lot of it.)

Naturally, I am in love with pasta sauces that take not much longer to cook than it takes to boil the pasta.

So here is my newest addition to the comfort-pasta list:

Penne with Asparagus

Hey, little brother...

... I'm sorry that I neglected this little blog -again- for some time. I was busy with studying, lab-time, a trip to France (I'll write about that) and finals are coming up.

And now that I'm back, the first thing I post is a recipe with asparagus. You must be a little disappointed, but I guarantee this pasta dish doesn't taste that much 'asparagus-like'.

This recipe is actually what happens when I am to busy to go to the grocery store a planned ;)
I bought the asparagus a couple of days ago and almost forgot about it. So before it got to waste I decided to try the typical 'student-like' way of inventing a new dish (read pasta-sauce).

I found some bacon, cherry tomatoes (I  don't really now, if that is what they are called in English, but I'm talking about the little, almost sweet tasting tomatoes) and the asparagus - of course - in our refrigerator.

Adding those things together might sound a little strange, but my thought-process went as follows: asparagus tastes good with bacon, and bacon and tomatoes are the main ingredients in my favourite pasta-sauce..

Easy, right?

So here it goes...

Tortiglioni Peperonata.

I don’t know if you noticed or not but lately I’ve been inspired various recipes by Jamie Oliver. If you stick  to his recipes they always turn out really good (though – probably thanks to the lack of the necessary tools in my kitchen – I can’t seem to get the 15-minute- and a few 30-minute- meals done in time). And honestly I don’t really have the need to cook that fast, but by trying my knife skills have improved and I became a little more organized in the kitchen.

Yes, feel free to picture me in the kitchen hacking manically away on some onions, herbs and all kinds of vegetables.... Nice, uh?

The picture is not entirely true, because I actually try to use the proper methods to develope my skills. Hop over to Jamie Olivers site and have a look at the 'skills' videos. But just so you know it is really easy to get caught up in his videos and youtube-channel. I just really like what he comes up with and of course his accent J

So on to the recipe:

(please excuse the bad picture but I took the picture with my phone and there was no natural light)