Maremy's Blog

The above question was posed to me by Jeremy as we ate dinner tonight. My reply was "I made it up as I went along". Actually, I made it up on the way home. What did we have for dinner? Whole wheat penne with Roma tomatoes, onion, mushrooms & olives. Considering I made it up and it was my first time making it, it turned out pretty good!

I boiled the roma tomatoes in a big pot. As I was boiling them, I cut up mushrooms, onion and olives. I put those in the oven on the broiler setting. Once the water reached boiling, I removed it from the heat, drained the water and mashed the tomatoes. I didn't have enough Roma tomatoes so I had to add tomato paste. This really thickened the sauce up. I added various herbs/spices (Basil, garlic, oregano, parsly, celery seed, paprika, cumin, etc) and heated it up in the microwave.

I stirred the veggies that were in the oven and turned the broiler off; about 15 minutes was all these needed. I did keep them in the oven, however, to keep them warm.

I put the pasta on. I added two tablespoons of Basil to the pasta, along with some extra virgin olive oil and garlic. Once it was done cooking, I drained the water, added the onion, mushroom and olive mixture. The last thing I added was the roma tomato sauce.

The verdict? Jeremy really enjoyed it! It's also definitely one I'd make again. Yes, it's a little bit more elaborate than the usual pasta I make (pasta with diced tomatos with various spices/herbs) and probably more of a weekend thing. I got home at 4:45 today so I had time. We were finished dinner by 5:45 tonight.

As I said in a previous entry, I LOVE baking and cooking. Coming home and cooking a meal like this is actually a huge stress reliever for me. I know cooking meals like that is not for everyone but each to their own, right?

And what's on the menu for tomorrow night? Blueberry pancakes. This time I'm going to make them from brown rice flour. In Florida, Karen made us pancakes this type of flour and they were delicious!

I'll be sure to post on how they turn out...