Blowing a BIG trumpet.

Last night I entered the kitchen in what could only be described as a disinterested state of mind. But I left the kitchen singing my own praises. Singing them to myself in my solo apartment, but still singing nonetheless.

You see, I’ve long been in denial about two specific chapters in the cookbook. Whole fish. And fresh pasta. The whole fish chapter (there’s also a filleted fish chapter, which doesn’t rate highly either, but it’s not dire) has lots of pictures of fish that still have their eyes. Enough said. The fresh pasta chapter just spells hard work and eating dinner late.

So in order to avoid a glut of mediocre and uninspiring recipes in the final stages of my experiment, I am forcing myself to grow up and get started and am this week attempting to do one recipe from each of these two chapters.

Open Stained-Glass Lasagne with Roasted Squash

The first thing to do was get the pumpkin on the go, so I sprinkled it with ground up fennel seeds, coriander seeds & dried chilli, some cinnamon, S&P and a drizzle of oil, covered with foil and into the oven for 40 minutes til really soft.

Then I made the pasta. I halved the pasta recipe this time, because I always end up wasting loads of pasta dough. Good decision. As was the decision to take things easy and follow instructions. I think on the two previous occasions I’ve made the pasta, I’ve always been in a bit of a rush and didn’t quite give it the love it clearly needs. Well not this time. There was so much love.

Once I’d rolled out the pasta to the perfect thin-ness and cut it into lasagne size sheets, I placed sage leaves and flat-leaf parsley leaves on half of each sheet. Then folded over the other half of the sheet and pressed down to seal in the leaves.

Then I worked it through the pasta maker one last time, to create the best looking stained glass lasagne sheets you’ve ever bloody seen!

It was amazing. I was convinced that it would be a total disaster (and I will admit a few sheets hit the skids) but it actually worked perfectly. I was also pretty impressed with how much the herb leaves stretched! Giant sage leaves, oh my!

So I threw the pasta sheets (gently) into a pot of boiling salted water, mashed the squishy baked pumpkin and layered them onto the plate – pumpkin mash, amazing stained glass lasagne, pumpkin mash, amazing stained glass lasagne. You get the idea.

What a sensation. And yes I am blowing my own trumpet, but I don’t care. I absolutely rocked the kitchen last night. Sadly there was no one there to see it. Oh wait – yes you all are!

Xx

PS – have you been watching My Kitchen Rules? I’ll only admit this here, but it makes me feel pretty smug. But I suppose they are cooking under a lot of pressure…

PPS – Yes, I know I’ve gone OTT with the photos. But toot toot. James Morrison eat your heart out.