Coming out of the closet.

I am in a confessional mood this evening. The Kitchen has been wrecked by my recent rampant workaholism and I have been bad at finding time to cook. I did however manage to make a quick pasta supper this evening which went down well. To make this really good I recommend that you make your own sausage meat. This is a lot easier than it sounds and I will get round to posting on this in the future.

Sausage and creamy tomato sauce with Pasta

Olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 dried chilli
300g sausage meat
1 400ml tin of tomatoes
1 red onion
100g mushrooms
75ml double cream
Pasta
Parmesan
Salt & Pepper
Thyme

Heat some olive oil in a pan.
Chop the garlic and the chilli and fry gently.
Add the sausage meat and red onion.
After a few minutes add the tomatoes and the cream.
Season with salt, pepper and thyme.
Cook gently for 10 minutes or so.
Put on a pan of salted water and when it is at a rolling boil add the pasta. I like to make this with penne but can you go with whatever works for you.

Mix and serve with parmesan and pepper.

This dish is a great base for midweek suppers. You can speed it up or slow it down according to your evening. It is also very forgiving with other ingredients: peppers and mushrooms especially but I can imagine some black kalamata olives adding a nice bite or some spinach wilted into this working really well.

******

Lots of things have been keeping me out of the Kitchen recently besides work including reading "If nobody speaks of remarkable things" by Jon McGregor, writing some fantastic songs for the new Pebble album, learning Finnish and going back to the confessional mode that started me this evening(what is about blogging that encourages this?) my burgeoning addiction to the latest season of American Idol and Bones.

******

No movie night tomorrow night as I'm taking my team out for a thank you meal and boy have they earned it. I intend to drink a glass of red wine and relax and Friday is a free day and Saturday we are going to make an unusual foray into the world of premier league football. We have been promised beer which should work as a lovely sedative. Next week is the Helsinki beer festival and they will be featuring Danish Microbreweries which should be an excellent day.

Waste nothing and learn Finnish