Winter weekend warmer

I know I've been a bit slack with the blogging lately. It's been for the usual reasons - someone did not create enough hours in the day!!!  

In the last two weeks, Fleur and Dave's wedding has come and gone, I've managed to finish a major project at work, and we're finally on the path to getting the new kitchen. There's actually been a lot of good cooking and eating along the way, but just no time to share and even less sleep. In fact, I think I'm now over-tired because it's 1 am and I can't sleep. Why not blog?

This is one of my new favourites - chunky chorizo pasta sauce. It's warm, it's chunky, it's comforting and it's really easy to do. And it's gluten free. It's all good. Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients. Once you've washed & chopped, it takes very little time to throw it all together. It keeps well in the fridge for a few days and goes well with rice, although I really enjoyed this on toast as well. 

More from me soon, but for now, here's a recipe.

Ingredients

2x raw Spanish chorizo (about 250g), sliced

3 cups skinned & diced eggplant (about 1 medium sized eggplant)

400g can pureed tomatoes

2 large tomatoes, diced

1 1/4 cup diced zucchini (about 1 medium zucchini)

1 large clove garlic, finely chopped

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped

1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp sweet paprika

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp hot chilli powder (optional)

salt to taste

1 packet of linguine pasta

Pour about a third of the olive oil into a pan and over a medium heat, fry the chorizo slices until brown. Sprinkle the paprika in during this process. Put the chorizo aside in a bowl when cooked. 

Pour the rest of the olive oil into the pan and soften the onion. Add the garlic and eggplant and fry until the eggplant starts to soften and brown. This won’t take long. Add the zucchini and diced fresh tomatoes and fry for another couple of minutes, moving around the pan with a wooden spoon. 

Add the remaining ingredients, except for the salt and chilli, and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Don’t overcook or the vegetables will go mushy. Stir the cooked chorizo through. 

At this point, have a taste and add some salt if needed and the chilli powder if you’re using it. Serve sauce on pasta with parmesan if you like it, although you really don't need it. There's so much flavour going on in this one without it.

OK. Probably time to try sleeping again.