a simple sunday dinner - a recipe from the road

I had a day long shoot in griffith earlier this week, and was grateful when the family I was filming with offered me a bowl of homemade pasta. food can be really unpredictable on the road and in the past I've eaten apples that've gone warm in the car (not recommended!), all manner of muesli bars and sandwiches whilst driving one handed (also not recommended, especially not egg ones at 110 km/h.)

this pasta was simple yet special, and the recipe was described to me in detail before I left. I recreated it for our sunday night dinner, my only day off this week! it's a slightly more involved recipe than one of our previous go-to tomato, butter and onion pasta sauce.

tomato, onion and eggplant spaghetti

ingredients

• a dinner plate of ripe tomatoes. (I probably had a kilo plus 2-3 extras)
• olive oil
• one large onion
• 3 small eggplants (finger eggplants are best)
• salt and pepper

method

• place your tomatoes in a deep saucepan (see below) and cover them with boiled water. after a couple of minutes, drain the tomatoes in a colander and when cool, gently peel off their skins.
• chop your tomatoes roughly into thirds and place them in a blender and blend.
• in the same saucepan, generously cover the entire base with olive oil on medium heat. this was probably the part of the process that was stressed the most - don't skimp on the oil!
• finely chop your onion and slice your eggplant into bit sized pieces. when the oil is heated, fry the onion and eggplant until soft.
• pour your blended tomato into the saucepan and season well. stir gently and turn to a very low heat, and allow to simmer for 2-3 hours. at first the sauce will appear frothy, but it will reduce and become a rich red colour.
• season again and serve with spaghetti, cracked pepper and finely grated parmesan cheese. yum!

^^ yup, that's a lot of olive oil!

^^ when your blended tomato goes in, it looks a lot like watermelon juice! with the eggplant, you don't have to worry too much about chopping it too small because they melt away as the sauce cooks.

and now for a handful of photos from our mini weekend. I spent yesterday working with a really talented and lovely photographer in adelong, and was motivated to dig out my dslr, charge the batteries and shoot on full manual, which I haven't done at home in a very long time.

my valentine's day flowers are still going strong! and I have a few sydney souvenirs, a new tao lin book (I love the cover design) and a ridiculously oversized tea cup from a girlfriend. I was practicing my depth of field with this mini pug.

I started making breakfast at around 9am and we didn't eat til 1pm! this is my second attempt at homemade crumpets, and while the shape of these ones was much better than the last, they're still a bit too doughy and dense for my liking. I need to work on my air bubbles! this breakfast was a bit of a throw back to a dish we used to share at the cafe near tony's old share house, which was a very decadent serving of thick belgian waffles, served with banana, maple syrup, bacon and mascarpone.

and finally, tony at home.  he did really well at the library book sale on friday afternoon, and bought some excellent art books, all of which were $1 or $2. I picked up the best book for my niece - 'how to talk to kids about art', which includes super cute and kid friendly descriptions of everything fro yves klein to picasso artworks.

wishing you a good week ahead!