Oct 24 2009
An October-ish Tea
(As I began writing this post, wordpress suggested I entitle it ‘An October-ish Picnic Lunch’. Clearly I am not as original as I like to think. I wonder what I was writing about last year? That lovely meal with Ol and Soz and KK, I think)
It was dreich and chill yesterday, and I was working from home for once, so felt D deserved a)a break from cooking and b)a hearty feed befitting the inclement environment. I had a browse around on the internet for an inspiring pasta bake sort of recipe- something that would give me an excuse to put the oven on but with loads of rich flavours.
I didn’t really come up with what I was after, but did pick up on two principles, namely: layering is possible, you don’t just have to dump it all in a pot and MOZZARELLA. Seemingly North Americans put melty cheesy on top of most everything that goes in the oven; seems very sensible.
I went out late morning to buy a text book (Martini’s Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology, £49.99 in blackwells, £44.99 on amazon.co.uk, $196 on amazon.com, no wonder US medical students have so much debt!) and picked up a courgette and aubergine and the all important mozzarella while I was out. Whilst taking a lunch break I griddled the veggies. Time consuming and very smoky but I’d like to think it will have added to the flavours. I left the veg to cool with the window open to clear the smoke and went back to work.
A little before D got in from work, I put some pasta on to cook and whipped up a simple tomato sauce. I was planning on making it vegetarian but at the last minute decided it needed some pancetta just to oomph it up. Good call I feel.
Then I began to layer. First aubergine, then pasta, then courgette…you get the idea!
The finishing touch was the cheese on top- I’d also read of using gruyère so I mixed the two before bunging it in the oven whilst we had chips and dips and a wee glass of vino.
It tasted every bit as scrummy as you might imagine, with a wee leaves and tomato salad on the side, and the really brilliant bit is that we’re having an exact repeat tonight. Yippee for left overs!
Gosh! looks dead yummy.
I *do* hate griddling… all that smoke is a bit tedious, especially down in the cold part of the year. Unfortunately, they do taste good. Hey ho!
Damn, it looks good. that’s the trouble with food porn when you are hungry x
Oh my God does that look delicious. And yes, North Americans are obsessed with drenching everything in melted cheese. Which is fine with me, as I live in the Dairy State (Wisconsin).
It’s thanks to Tosha that I know what Courgettes and Aubergines are. In the US, they are called Zucchini and Eggplant. Learning this did a world of good for understanding the BBC America restauranty shows we watch.
What does “Dreich” mean and how is it pronounced?
@SquidWidget:
As far as I’m concerned dreich means nothing more and nothing less than … dreich, but this dictionary suggests ‘dreary’ though I might go as far as saying ‘very dreary’. :-)
It’s pronounced “dreech”, with the -ch being the same used in Bach, loch, etc. Apparently this sound is called the voiceless velar fricative which Helen can probably understand since she’s been doing some mouth/throat stuff at university! The -ee- sound is approximately the same as leek, reek, etc.
I tried to find a good audio demonstration on the internet. This* one is not bad, giving the scottish pronunciation and the alternative “anglicised” version with a hard “k” sound at the end. The problem is that the “-ch” sound can be relatively soft; here the demonstrated word is “loch” and the emphasis is on the vowel; the “-ch” kind of disappears. Perhaps that is why using a “k” sound is so wrong!
*http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=loch&submit=Submit
(note to Dougal: how does a simple chap like me create links in blogs?)
ken, good link although I recommend going for the example below ‘loch’ which is ‘loch lomond’ which seems to me a more natural bit of speech. The next again, ‘loch ness’ begins with an anglicised pronunciation, not right at all. If you put dreich into the search box (as perhaps you found) it comes up with reich, not right at all!
@Squid- I’d say dreich (which is usually a word describing the weather, I’m not sure i know of it in another context) means really damp, nasty, cold and miserable. It’s the sort of weather that you *probably* don’t get in Wisconsin and is the reason that even tough types like you- or my friend Dr V from Toronto- find Scottish winters hard. It’s not the temperature we drop down to, because it never goes that low- it’s the insipid draining chill that sleeks into you!
A poem, Kidspoem/Bairnsang by Liz Lochhead that I rediscovered the other night, translates it into English as ‘really dismal’. Rather underselling the matter, I feel (but then that’s rather the point of the poem!)
er Helen… can you advise how to add links to blogs? It was only addressed to him as the writer of the preceding comment.
As long as you don’t get caught by the spamtrap, it should be possible to use ordinary HTML links:
producing
PS I just had to remove this comment from the spam folder. :-)