First off, i should firmly declare that there is nothing wrong with pasta.

i love pasta and would probably be fine eating pasta every day if it was allowed.

‘Pasta is life’ as i imagine the Latin Americans say, or more accurately, ‘Pasta la vista, baby.’ Or something.

But i have found that for me [and possibly for Val’s sister and bro who we live with at the moment] pasta becomes the default easy go-to meal.

There are at least two days every week in our house where we cook for each other and then eat together. And it is as if i have gone creatively dull because every time it is my time, or especially if there is not a lot of time to plan and make food, i tend to whip out ‘Ye Olde Pasta and Mincemeat meal’ and sure i surprise it up a little with secret ingredients which have ranged from honey to coffee powder to chocolate sauce [all of which surprisingly worked], it can tend towards sameness.

THE REVOLUTION

So this week we decided to shake it up. Firstly Ro [older sister of tbV] decided to raise the bar by attempting her first ‘Toad in the Hole’ [which for those of you who don’t know is basically sausages in Yorkshire pudding, which for those of you who don’t know is not pudding in the same way as ‘Transkei mud’ is not in any way related to the Transkei] and Boom, she completely nailed it.

There was no way i could revert to pasta after that and so i decided to try some crumbed chicken breasts [hee hee, i wrote ‘chicken’] but there were none in the shop and so i decided to try crumbing some steak fillets, cos, you know.

Easy as Google [that’s a saying our children will learn in school. No, we still don’t have children. ‘Our children’ here is a metaphor meaning ‘Your children’. Be okay with that]

And it really actually is that. There is no reason to have to stick with the three meals you make. i wrote a little bit about that in my post titled, ‘Bachelor Food: Yes you CAN!’ which i don’t think manyone read last year [and you don’t have to be a bachelor for it to apply, i know a bunch of couples who simply eat out most of the time because they ‘can’t cook’]

I subscribed to a regular recipe list thing when we were in Americaland and tbV and i had decided that at least once a month we were each going to cook something new [what an INCREDIBLE decision – you should totally do that!] and so either through that or simply googling your ingredients [what you have available] or a meal you love and have never tried [can be as simple as cauliflower with a white sauce, or as complex as ‘Coq au vin’ [hee hee, i said ‘au vin’] but it is easy and it is out there and the only thing condemning you to boring eating is you.

Budget is not an issue [you can google cheap meals] nor is difficulty [simple meals] and time does not have to be either [quick meals] – all it takes is a decision to try something new and then go for it.

How about you do that this week? Pick a night when you have a little extra time to experiment if you do, have the Delivery Pizza place number on speed dial [just in case] and google something you have never made before [or ask a friend for a recipe] and make it and HOWEVER IT TURNS OUT, take a photo and send it to me. If i get more than three i will do a follow up blog on this. [brettfish@hotmail.com]

I can’t wait to hear and see what you come up with.

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