chorizo & sun-dried tomato pasta

The colder weather has taken me back into the kitchen and I've been flipping through my recipe books bookmarking recipes to try and end up with some many bookmarks that I may as well have not done so to start with! It has given me some ideas though and I'm keen to do a little project and cook my way through a cookbook - and well, not just any cookbook but one of the ones I picked up at last week at Basement books (my latest love) - 'In the Kitchen' by Allan Campion and Michele Curtis. FYI: This book contains more than 1000 recipes and well, I don't really know what's gone in the thought process to decide on this one but somehow it appealed to me. Anyway, let's see if this project comes into fruition.

Upcoming projects aside, I did manage to get into the kitchen last Sunday and cook up a batch of pasta for lunch. The base of the recipe came from Good Food Magazine - it was meant to be a Sizzled Sausage pasta; base ingredients being pasta, sausages, sundried tomato and parsley. That morning I'd been reading NQN's blog where she had cooked a chorizo pasta and that's were I get the second half of my recipe. You see, failing to find sausages at the supermarket and there being no deli in sight, I decided to substitute the sausages with the chorizo. Thanks NQN!

Zafarelli pasta was on special at Franklins! 3 bags for $3. Here's one of the bags. Aside from chorizo, the sundried tomato and parsley was already in my fridge.

This recipe is so easy to cook, it's light on the palate and won't leave you feeling too full. Heat  2 tbsp of the oil from the sundried tomatoes, cook the sliced chorizo until browned on both sides, add the sliced sundried tomatoes, toss in the cooked pasta and chopped parsley (I've taken after Nigella and actually use scissors to cut the parsley in - it's ingenious!) Top with a generous dosing of cracked pepper.

I had these on reasonably small plates and ended up eating about two. J had another two and leftover was just enough for two takeaway boxes of which I had one for lunch on Monday. It still tasted great after reheating it in the microwave.

You'll find that I tend to cook a lot of pasta recipes. Number of reasons - I love eating pasta, it's hard to go wrong with a pasta recipe and thirdly, pasta is great for bringing to work and reheating. I suppose a fourth reason is that pasta is actually quite expensive when you buy it outside. Although occasionally, as a treat, I do like using fresh pasta at home which can get quite expensive (but trust me, tastes so much better!)

Anyway, that afternoon I actually got back into the kitchen and made brownies - post to follow.