mellow light
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009I love autumn mornings. We are still on daylight saving time and it only gets bright at about 7am, as the days grow shorter. Our room faces north-east and i love to get woken up by the sunshine pouring into the room, through the light curtains.
I went to the beach for a swim after work to regain my sense of equilibrium in the world. When i opened the door to my house at about 5.30 in the evening, i was greeted by the early evening sun, casting shadows in my hallway. It was a beautiful sight and the light was just delicious. I had a nice, warm shower and then started preparing dinner. As the sweet potatoes and red capsicums were roasting and the red onions were caramelising on the stove, i made a cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table with an orange and two squares of dark chocolate. It was a lovely way to start the evening.
Dinner turned out to be amazing and i thought i’d share the recipe with you.
Pasta with roast sweet potato (or kumara), feta and basil (adapted from this recipe):
500g sweet potatoes (cut into 1cm slices)
2 red capsicums (bell peppers)
3 red onions
300g fettucine
125g feta cheese (crumbled)
1 cup basil leaves
Dressing:
1 t. lemon zest
2 T. lemon juice
2 T. olive oil
Roast sweet potatoes for 25 minutes and capsicums for 40 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees celsius (about 400 F) with olive oil drizzled on top. Heat a frying pan with 3 T. olive oil and cook the onions until caramelised with some burnt bits for good measure. This took me about an hour. Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water until al dente. Put all the dressing ingredients together and whisk. Combine pasta, roasted capsicums, caramelised onions, feta and basil together. Add the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Stir through sweet potatoes and serve. We had this with a warmed fresh baguette from the bakery and real unsalted butter (none of that low-fat nonsense we usually have). SO YUM! I think it would be a nice spring-time meal as well. My neighbour commented as he passed by our house that something smelled amazing. And the house did indeed smell wonderful when all this was cooking.
I was in a baking mood and whipped up some brownies for dessert whilst Jon was at church for band practice. He just got back so we’re going to enjoy the brownies with some hot chocolate. Oh, how i love good food.





