lockdown lunch lesson

Afternoon eKa CIRCLE,

One of the best life lessons of gratitude for me was losing everything! WHAT??? Yep you heard me… we lost an awful LOT yet I learnt to be extremely resourceful.

Sometimes without a drastic lesson we really do not understand the value of the provision of Yah or the Universe. An invaluable mindset is to be able to make do with what one has. To live in that perfect moment and give a lot of thanks. Because of these hard knocks I can literally feed an army from nothing much at all in the pantry. Today I do not have visitors; I am just not bothered to be going out for non essentials- besides I detest the wearing of a mask- it brings back anxiety that is not welcome in my temple body house.

So lunch today is simple pasta with a weird little collection of things that actually really worked well and tasted fabulous. Hubby bought some cabbage last week and we already had one in the fridge so in that goes with a collection of other things.

While in Italy I learned why it is ideal to undercook the pasta a little – known as “al dente” it lowers the glycemic index and actually makes it easier to digest for you as it becomes lower in GI. So al dente carbolicious with some yummy burnt butter (there’s a video below to show you the colour.) I then add some garlic and some silverbeet from my garden and tossed in a few other very random things. I did dream of some walnuts but I didn’t have any in the house, so I used pepitas instead.  Finish it with a grate of parmesan cheese and a whole lot of thanksgiving. Pasta is not the devil just choose good quality durum wheat and undercook it.   Italians are the experts at making a simple lunch dish like this with very few ingredients from the garden. I do kind of like the idea of having the heavier meal in the day time where possible.

The trick to foaming butter as you take it to a nut brown colour is add a little salt and make sure everything else is chopped and ready to go before you do that. You need to work quickly so as not have the butter burn too far as then it be bitter.

Enjoy.

See my recipe below.

love & light

M + E

Cabbage & Artichoke Spaghetti

1 pkt spaghetti

150g organic butter

4 cloves garlic, sliced

handful of roughly chopped cabbage

handful of roughly chopped silverbeet

1 small jar of artichokes, drained

sprinkle of chilli flakes

2 tbsp pepitas

freshly grated parmesan cheese, optional

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and cook the pasta until it is just tender and firm to the bite. Drain.

Heat the butter in a heavy based pan or pot and add a good grind of salt. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two until it is a nut brown colour. Add the vegetables, chilli and pepitas. Season with some pepper and toss over heat for a few minutes until just beginning to soften. Stir through the warm pasta and serve with some grated parmesan cheese.