Again, I find myself in the position of having a surfeit of courgettes.
They looked so nice in their little net the other day and I am determined to
use them while they are relatively nice, before they get to that pre-slime
stage.
It being Monday I had to do something quick. This is because Monday
night is band night. And given that we only have pathetically tiny baking
potatoes (based on my knowledge of potato farming this is probably because of
sub-optimal potato growing conditions recently), and that courgette doesn’t
really go with baked potato anyway it would be a pasta evening.
A pasta dish would also be a good opportunity to use up some
feta cheese, which has been open in the fridge since a friend wanted it on a
crumpet a few weeks ago. Matt, my husband, deemed that this was still fit for
human consumption.
So the pasta sauce would consist of red onion (x 2, sliced),
courgette (x 4 small, “ribboned” with the peeler), chilli (tiny bit, chopped up
really small), thyme (few sprigs, from the garden, still uncommonly exciting),
feta (about half a block, chopped in dice sized bits), low fat soft cheese
(tablespoon or so), sundried tomatoes (x 8, quartered) and black pepper (few
grinds). The most difficult part was deciding what pasta to use; the options
being twists, tubes or spaghetti. I went for the twists, purely on the basis
that there was about the right quantity for dinner for two, which would have
the consequence of freeing up a plastic canister for some pasta bows (my
favourite pasta shape).
It took longer than planned to make. Mainly because I wanted
to make sure that the onions were nice and soft before adding the rest of the
sauce ingredients. I would not be making it to band on time and so was really
hoping that my improvised cooking delay would be worth it. From somewhere I had
the inspiration to add a few pine nuts just as the sauce was nearly finished. I
would have grated over some parmesan before eating if we had some. But we didn’t,
and low fat cheddar seemed somehow unfitting.
Even if I do say so myself it was one of the best pasta
dishes I have had in ages. Based on the “mmm” sounds, Matt agreed. I was
especially pleased because I seemed to have got the chilli just right for my
husband’s delicate palate. It gave it a nice warmth, but didn’t make his mouth
hurt or my nose run. And the pine nuts were a good inspiration, giving it just
a little bit of crunch in random mouthfuls.
It was gone 8 by the time we had finished and I umm-ed and
ahh-ed about whether to go to band as I was feeling very tired. But I decided
to venture out (mainly to leave Matt in peace with his skirting boards).
It was a particularly comical rehearsal. I do my best to keep
“smut” out of these blogs but these sound bites from our fabulous conductor
just have to be shared: “Does anyone have the horn?” and “You’ve really got to
feel each other”. It would have probably gone un-noticed (not the most innuendo
loving room of people you could get) but for the clarinettist I was sat next to
who pointed these out to me and had a little chuckle. And for some reason the
mood I was in I descended into hysterics.
Having composed myself the rehearsal proceeded uneventfully
for a while. And then I got a little itch in my eye, or maybe my eyes were
feeling tired. Either way I gave my eyes a little rub. I had clearly not
removed all traces of chilli from my fingers. I think I let out a little yelp. The
chilli in the eye thing is one of those things that you always hear about but can’t
really believe ever happens, or at least not to you. Well it does. And it
really stings. It is one of the most sting-y things I have ever experienced.
This called for a quick dash out to the toilets but I didn’t
really know what to do. My instinct would be to bathe my eye in water but I
couldn’t stop thinking about when you eat a too spicy curry and water makes it
worse but beer or milk makes it better. Being in the toilets of a church I had
neither beer nor milk available to me. The stinging was clearly not going to go
away on its own. This called for a quick call to my mum. Although she was clearly
inexperienced in first aid for chilli related eye injuries she was calm in her
advice to put cold water on it and I felt bolstered to follow this course of
action. It helped. So much so that I was able to go back and join in the
remainder of the band rehearsal unimpeded (apart from my lack of skill at high
notes – there’s a reason I play 3rd clarinet).
I think I might cook the rest of the courgettes without
chilli.
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