Savouring 2012

It's the first day of a brand new calendar year, however unlike my school days, a new year means little besides switching my desk calendar to a brand new one (I think I'm going with a word a day calendar this year...) as everything else remains the same. Mayhaps I'll start tracking a change in calendar years based on my birthday. Every 22nd September will mark a new year, otherwise it's business as usual, peeps!

However, I do have one thing I'm going to try and promise, or rather suggest... this First of January 2012: Share more savoury recipes in addition to the desserts. I love my desserts and sweet things, but my younger brother called me Jelly Belly the other day... which I don't appreciate. So it's time to cut down on my sugar intake (and make everyone else around me eat more of those) and find alternative, healthy (... ish) staple foods.

For this first time, I'm going to share my go-to lazy pasta lunch or weeknight dinner recipe. This is suuuuper yummy, and contains all my favourite tastes, and I've been whipping up variations of it since my uni days. It can be eaten hot or cold, though I prefer it right off the hob, sometimes I'll pack the leftovers in a container to be taken to lunch at work the next day.

Pasta and butter, trick I picked up from Jess

Roast Vegetable Pasta 

• 2 cups (or thereabouts) of instant pasta (I like Fusilli, though it's your choice)
• 1 eggplant, sliced thinly
• 1 zucchini (though for the pictured dish, I used japanese cucumber due to lack of resources)
• 1 cup of cherry tomatoes (you may use 3 normal tomatoes, quartered), sliced in half
• 2 sundried tomatoes, diced 
• 1/2 cup pitted olives, sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced or crushed
• 1/3 cup olive oil (plus extra for drizzling at the end)
• 1/4 cup red wine balsamic vinegar (plus extra for drizzling at the end)
• 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Preheat your oven to 180C 
2. Slice and dice your vegetables of choice, and place them in a baking tin (mine pictured here is ugly and dented and probably as old as I am... which isn't very old at all), pour over the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and salt and pepper
3. Then get in there with your hands (wash them first, you dirty wee scrag) and toss them around to ensure every slice of vegetable gets a good coating of the "dressing" 
4. Pop the tin in the oven and allow it to roast for a good 20 minutes, or until the vegetables get toasty around the edges. Yum. 
5. While waiting for the veggies to roast, boil the pasta in salted water, then upon draining the water when it's done, toss in a sliver of butter to mix with the hot pasta. I assure you it smells SO good, you'll be salivating at this point
6. Pour the prepared pasta into a medium sized serving bowl or plate, followed by the roasted vegetables then toss to mix. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and season to taste
7. In the wise words of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore: Tuck in! 

I've really got to start writing proper instructions, without the constant commentary. On those nights when you've just about dragged yourself home from the office, are too lazy to defrost a chicken breast or even order take out, this is the perfect recipe to quell the hunger with. 

Hope you enjoy it, and happy new calendar year! 

x Nabs

Zucchini Bread

Coming back to reality was a lot tougher to do this week than it's been for a while now. Probably due to the fact that I went out two nights in a row, which is a bit of a rarity, at least... since I've been at this job. Friday night was our firm's sports club dinner, which isn't what it sounds like, and things got kind of hectic as I was on the committee for the thing. Although the committee after party was well worth the trouble, and getting a free room at the hotel might have been as good a payment as I could have hoped for.

The Usual Suspects

I realized I'm getting older when it took me a full day to recover from a night out... but still young enough that I woke up from my nap, slapped on a "night out" outfit and went off to the city again. Though I paid for it on Sunday... with a free spa day courtesy of the firm.

Hello, Cutie Pie x

I know, I know, I have no right to complain... as the only reason I'm knackered this morning was my weekend folly. And also because the Zucchini Bread took half an hour longer to bake than expected.

It's been a while since my last update here, not because I haven't been baking but rather due to my being too lazy to resize, watermark and upload photos. So this morning I made the effort to whip out my iPhone and snap a few quick ones before leaving. Yea... it's exhausting work, that. However, I felt this was a recipe worth sharing, one I adapted from two seperate recipes I found online and made some tweaks to.

Zucchini Bread

• 3 cups self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda (optional)
• 3 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground dried ginger
• Pinch of salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini (use a big grater so it's less watery)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional, I didn't go for it this time around)

1. Preheat oven to 160C, grease your loaf pan - I used aN 8" x 4" pan, however the recipe can be split between two... I just like a taller bread
2. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt. Set aside
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, vegetable oil, sugar and vanilla
4. Add the flour mixture to the wet mix in one go, beat on medium speed for a 3 minutes or so, just until fully incorporated
5. The zucchini goes in last, mix either with a spatula or if you're lazy like me, whizz at medium speed on the Kitchenaid
6. Bake for 60 minutes (meant to be, but since I poured it all in one pan, it took 1 hour 30 mins), or until a skewer poked at an angle to the bottom comes out completely clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then pop it out and let the bread cool completely on the cooling rack

Excellent bread! Though I have to figure out a way to tweak the recipe further, need less sugar in it. The combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger powder made for the best smelling thing I've ever produced in that oven. Next time, I may even add the lemon glaze halfway through the baking process to add a little extra zing! Though this will probably be more suited to an afternoon tea party, for breakfast the plain bread is best.

Although I find that not many people are willing to try out zucchini bread... which I don't get. Hope you try it out though.

x Nabs, Queen of The Nile