Raiding the fridge/pantry: Pumpkin, Rosemary, Cabanossi, Penne, Tomato, Spanish Onion and Viena Bread (June 2008)

        This was one of the best meals which Ryan and I threw together way back in June 2008. I didn't want to go out and was trying to save us some money so we raided his fridge and pantry to see what was lying around that we could cook with. We ended up with some cabanossi, a packet of penne, a few sprigs of rosemary, some pumpkin, a few tomatoes, a spanish onion and a loaf of viena bread and some cream. With a bit of creativity we managed to put together a 2 course meal, with just what was lying around in the fridge and pantry. Simplicity at it's best.

        Penne with Cabanossi and a Creamy Rosemary Pumpkin Sauce. Ryan made the sauce for this. He roasted the pumpkin with the rosemary and then blitzed it in a blender with a touch of cream and seasoned it with salt and pepper. It was gorgeous! Sweet from the roasted pumpkin, the rosemary added another dimension to the sauce and the cabanossi added the savoury and meat component. He's tried to replicate the sauce a couple of times since then because it was so good.

        We absolutely adore bruschetta so decided to make some with the tomatoes and spanish onion and viena bread. I still remember the pasta till this very day. It's pretty awesome when we cook dishes with just what seems like a bunch of random ingredients. You do need to understand food and how different flavours and textures work together, the basics of cooking pretty much but once that is down packed you can cook anything your heart desires. And consulting different cookbooks and watching cooking shows helps too, my mind is so full of ideas sometimes what I think is an original idea in the first place ends up being something already tried and tested - I just wasn't aware of it or didn't realise that I probably got the idea from somewhere which I had forgotten about.