Dreaming of fantasy

I never used to like bell peppers. I consider myself to be a pretty omnivorous (and passionately so) person so I don’t like to let myself fall too easily into food prejudice. I just, try as I might, could not get into bell peppers’ bright crunch. I would assiduously pick them out of pizzas and salads, and would poke at them morosely when I would spot them in an omelet, their crunch unfazed by the brief stint in the skillet. I know they are wonderful and beloved by many, but for me, unfortunately, the attraction was just not there.

That is, until the first time I had them roasted. Roasting turns the capsicum into a luscious and mellowed version of its formerly peppy self. The slow deliberate heat renders them sweetly smoky, and in my book, much more appealing hong kong avenue of stars. This I could eat by the truckload…and from the very first time I roasted a pepper, I have been doing so (ok, maybe not a truckload…more like a small SUV portion).

Roasting (and peeling) peppers is one of the easiest things you can do in your kitchen. It is also immensely rewarding – not just because the peppers you roast yourself will taste so much better than anything you buy in a bottle (and it will…oh how it will!), but also because there is nothing quite so satisfying as successfully peeling the charred skin off a pepper in one whole piece (akin to getting a chestnut out of its shell whole). Any way you look at it home roasted red peppers are a winner tube amp.

I like to buy a bunch of peppers at the market when they are looking really red, shiny, and tempting. Just the red ones mostly, sometimes the orange and yellows, never the greens. No matter what you do to them, there is no saving the green peppers for me. Anyway. I like to roast them as described below and then stuff them in a jar topped with olive oil. I keep the jar in the fridge and use the peppers throughout the week, and let me tell you, it is an absolute godsend. You can use them in salads, sandwiches, pastas Cosmetic Central, stews, as part of an antipasti platter when you have the neighbors over for drinks…

And in this spread.

Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Spread

3 red peppers (about 400 grams in total)
150 grams goat cheese
Extra virgin olive oil
Freshly cracked black pepper
Optional: pesto, basil oil, pine nuts


- Slice each pepper lengthways into quarters, removing the stem and the seeds. Lay the peppers skin side up on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast in an oven with the broiler on. You want high heat from above to char the skin and I’ve found this is my favorite way to do it.
- When the peppers’ skins are blackened, this could take anywhere from 15-20 minutes (less if your broiler is strong so be vigilant and don’t go wandering off!), take them out of the oven and immediately transfer them to a bowl and cover tightly with clingfilm, taking care to make an airtight seal. When the peppers are cool enough to handle, remove the clingfilm and peel the charred skin of the peppers. The skin will slide off easily.
- Place the cooled and peeled peppers together with the goat cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and some freshly cracked black pepper in a food processor and blitz until smooth.
- Transfer the mixture into a crock or a bowl and drizzle with pesto or basil oil, and sprinkle with pine nuts nuhart.

Not only is this a delicious way to use roasted peppers, this is also a really versatile spread to have around. Since I’ve made this I’ve already use it in everything from simply slathering on crackers to splodged on some roasted eggplant (with a chickpea salad on the side). I’ve also used it with these chickpeas, stuffing both into a pita (from a new vendor I tried at the Legazpi Sunday market) with some torn basil tucked in.

You don’t need to add the pesto or pine nuts but they really make a good accent, so I’ve added them as optional here. But really all you need are the peppers and the goat cheese and you are good to go Shopping in Hong Kong. I’ve used Malagos chevre here. Malagos is a lovely local cheese maker with some really great cheeses under their belt. Their cherve is one of my favorites, along with their Blue Pepato. I absolutely love that we have some awesome artisan cheesemakers on our shores and I highly encourage supporting them!


It’s now Sunday night and I’ve spent a fantastic weekend with family and neighbors and friends. Simple times, but wonderful times. And a lot of the time…that is the very best kind. Hope you spent yours in a likewise fashion Maid Agency!

Serves one. Why is it that I hardly ever see a recipe that “serves one”? I only really started cooking (and loving it) when I lived on my own, and more often than not, I was cooking to serve one. Aside from learning how to cook, I was also learning to reduce recipes to the smallest serving. I didn’t want to be eating the same thing for weeks (I discovered the hard way…with two weeks of beef kaldereta) so I trained myself to shop, market, prepare, and cook for one. I got really good at it vacuum tube.

I never went to culinary school; I wasn’t learning to cook as a profession. I didn’t learn to cook growing up to feed a large family. I learned to cook because I was far away from home and I was hungry. My whole cooking experience, my love for food and everything about it, no matter where it is now, or where it will go in the future, started with just the one: One ravenous me. And I loved it…I reveled in it. Cooking for myself excited me…eating what I cooked excited me. I looked forward to dinner. I ate by candle light. It was a gastronomic love affair with myself. I cannot recommend this experience enough.

This is why, no matter who I cook for now, or will cook for in the future, there will always be times when my hands will itch to “serve one” again, when I will want to cook something just for me. Culinary Me Time. This is also the perfect opportunity to make dishes that I have been wanting to try, but are not really C’s cup of tea. This pasta is one such dish.

Crispy Sage and Brown Butter Pasta
(adapted from Donna Hay Magazine, issue #32)

100 grams fettuccine or spaghetti noodles
25 grams butter
Juice of ½ a lemon
10-12 sage leaves
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

- Cook pasta as per package directions in a saucepan of generously salted water. Drain and set aside.
- In a skillet, heat the butter until melted.
- Add the sage to the butter and let this fry until the sage is crispy and butter is browned.
- Stir in lemon juice, pasta, salt and pepper. Toss until combined and pasta is coated with the brown butter mixture.
- Top with freshly grated parmesan to serve.
- Serves one.

This is a very simple dish relying on a few flavor elements – the nutty-ness of the browned butter, the heady aroma of the sage, both tempered by the tang of the lemon. I really enjoy these types of pasta dishes g-suite cardinal manchester, but if you are one who loves more complicated sauces laden with ingredients, this may not be for you. C’s taste runs towards tomato based sauces so this isn’t for him either. It’s for me :)

back to schoolThis is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a fantastic event created by Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen. This round is hosted by Ellie of Kitchen Wench. You can learn more about sage in the link above, or here.

You may think this quite a strange post coming at the heels of my anniversary, but every marriage is sweeter when you’ve got quality “me/alone time”…and just because C is at work, doesn’t mean I have to eat leftovers NuHar! ;)

There are recipes we get from books and there are recipes we get from life. These are recipes that are cobbled together over time, perhaps never really settling into what one might call a fixed “recipe”. These are recipes that reflect what we love most, or what’s almost always available in our pantry Managed Security, or what is easy and good…or any combination thereof.

This is the kind of pasta dish that is often made in our home. It evolved over the span of our marriage (still a young one at that), not consciously moving towards an actually recipe, more often just coming together when we were busy, or hadn’t been to the grocery in a while, or hadn’t really thought about what to have for dinner. It is made with ingredients that we (almost) always have on stock and can be prepared with minimal effort and fuss.

That is not to say that this is some sort of second string meal without thought or care. When we sit down to a bowl of this pasta it is still with much eagerness, and its consumption is met with many mmm’s of pleasure and contentment.

Smoky-Spicy Bacon Pasta

Olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red onion, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (leaves only…but don’t toss the stems!)
Chopped parsley stems (from your chopped parsley leaves above)
130 grams chopped bacon
1/4 teaspoon pimenton de la vera (or to taste…depends how smoky you like it)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste…depends on how spicy you like it)
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 400-gram can crushed or chopped tomatoes
1/3 cup green olives, pitted
A pinch of sugar (optional)
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
300 grams macaroni or penne, or any pasta you prefer

- Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan. Add garlic, onion, and parsley stems and sauté until the onion is soft.
- Add the bacon to the pan, toss and cook until bacon begins to curl and get golden around the edges but is still soft.
- Add pimenton, cayenne, and Italian seasoning. Toss to coat the bacon and cook a bit just until the aroma of the herbs and spices wafts up and makes your mouth water.
- Add tomatoes and simmer slowly until the tomatoes start getting thick and pulpy, and melting into a sauce and the oil starts to separate. You can help out by crushing the tomato chunks with the back of your spoon voyage hong kong.
- Prepare your pasta as per package directions while the sauce is simmering.
- Taste your sauce and season with salt and pepper as you see fit. Add just a bit of sugar to bring out the tomatoes sweetness (I do not have the privilege of vine-ripened toms). Taste again and add dashes of cayenne or pimenton if you’d like to up the heat and /or smokiness.
- Serves two.

As this is quite an easygoing dish, you can adapt and alter as you see fit. We often do depending on what we have on hand or what our fancy happens to be at that particular time. Tomatoes for C, bacon for me. The smoky heat we both enjoy. Leave out the olives if you don’t have them (we usually have a bottle as C insists we always have one on stock for “pasta”). Use more fresh herbs if you’ve got them. Adjust the pimenton and cayenne to your liking. Add some wine that was leftover from the night before. Make it your own.

Although I love pouring through my cookbooks, ticking recipes to try, shopping for the ingredients and pulling them together, and then eventually (or not) posting them here, it is dishes like this pasta that make up the building blocks of our table and our life.

The beautiful figure in the dream,

Please forgive my leave without saying goodbye,

The dream of the basket embroidery logo,

When can I see you......

It broke the calendar with the hands of dirt,

Kang the gray mend with leaves gray hair.

Who let you day and night, who let you difficult to sleep.

The Kazakh gas glass

And for whom to wipe it again and again,

It across the sky

Is that when I was a boy I wish for?

The abandoned dog

Whether in your arms cloud,

And are you scolded.

The wind is up,

Who leaves a fall,

The back garden of Poplar

Go back to the one man,

The bird is called the fall who tears,

In front of the snow footprints who swept over and over again,

The old eyes can see the roadside car

Also denied a childhood playmate.

At the end of the road there is a man in silently waiting for

The drifting smoke hut CCIBA.