pasta

Mondays can either go one of two ways.
Either I get home from work completely spent, uninspired, and want nothing more to collapse on the couch watching Project Runway.
Or I get home inspired, ready to clean the house, cook dinner, finish knitting projects that I was previously bored of, and take over the world.

Last night was the latter.
After an unenthusiastic day at work, I came home, did the grocery shopping, did a vague meal plan for the rest of the week, paid some bills, started the head of another minion, and cooked a two course meal. I even did the dishes afterwards (a rarity) so there isn’t washing up left over.

I borrowed a recipe from the blog of Food On Paper. It’s a delicious blog with food photography which I aspire to.
She posted this Mint, Pea, and Yoghurt soup a while back and I squirreled it away for a night like last night.

I was planning on trying to recreate the roasted lamb pasta which I had at the Royal not so long ago. So into the oven went a little lamb roast and some diced potatoes, carrots, and parsnip.

As I knew dinner was going to be late (roasting in the oven takes time) I thought I’d make a soup.
I’m always a bit ravenous when I get home and a quick soup seemed just the ticket.

See the recipe here.

The only variation was I didn’t have any mint! It’s a total disaster to not have an ingredient which is in the title, but it still worked. It would have worked better with some mint, but the only mint I had in the house was chocolate mint drinking powder. I decided against putting that in.

I served it up with the prescribed dollop of greek yoghurt which really made it something special. Accompanying it on the plate was some (store bought!) scones which had gone in the sandwich press to melt the parmesan cheese over the top.

To be honest that would have been enough. If I didn’t already have the roast in the oven I would have been quite content with just the soup and scone.

But the lamb was in the oven so once that was cooked it was rested until it was able to be sliced.
Into a hot pan went some garlic olive oil closely followed by some chopped onion. Then went the sliced lamb and the roasted vegetables.
On top of that went a bottle of passata, (I thought it was the closest match for what I had tasted at the royal), and then some water which rinsed out the jar.
That then came to the boil and then simmered until the pasta was cooked.

For the pasta, I used fresh lasagne sheets which I tore into rustic looking sheets.
I know why I don’t always use fresh pasta (it involves going to the shops more often) but oh how I love fresh pasta.
One of my dreams for when I have a bigger kitchen is a pasta maker.

Delicious! Even though he wasn’t hungry, Mr Sparklesness went back for seconds.
It’s a lamb roast, in a bowl, hugged by pasta.