This weekend I was visiting my Dad and Step-mum in London so didn’t do any cooking (lots of eating though!) so when I got home late yesterday evening I had an urge to get in the kitchen.
My fridge was surprisingly well stocked and included a very squishy avocado – this would have to be the base of my meal. Below is the recipe that followed, it was delicious! However, I made a rather stupid mistake of blitzing the sauce in a thin plastic tub with a raised bottom, this resulted in a few splinters of plastic ending up in my finished dish. I ate it anyway but in case you’re as idiotic as me here’s a warning: make sure you use a normal bowl or something – basically anything that isn’t going to get chopped up by your hand blender! I blame tiredness!
Serves one
Ingredients
Pasta – whatever size or shape you have. To measure, I always fill my serving bowl half way up with the dried pasta (it just about doubles in size when cooked)
½ Red pepper – this addition is inspired by @drunkenbutcher’s Macaroni cheese (see last post)
1 Avocado – by the time I’d cut the brown/black bits off I probably had ¾ avocado so I reckon you could stretch a full one to serve 2
1 small clove of Garlic – this will be raw in the finished dish so adjust according to taste
1 tablespoon (ish) of olive oil
Splash/squeeze of lemon juice – again, to taste
Salt and pepper
Method
- Boil a large pan of water and add a good amount of salt (apparently the water should be as salty as tears 😥 ), cook the pasta according to the packet instructions – about 10 minutes usually
- Finely dice the red pepper, heat a separate pan and sauté in a blob of vegan margarine. You just want this to sizzle away to soften and sweeten without colouring
- Crush the garlic and mix with the olive oil. I used a pestle and mortar but you can use a garlic crusher, a really fine grater or a knife on a chopping board
- Put the garlic, oil and avocado into a suitable bowl and use a hand blender to mix to a smooth paste. This could also be done in a food processor and potentially by hand in a pestle and mortar
- Stir in the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Taste at this point and add more lemon or garlic or seasoning
- When the pasta is cooked, drain and reserve a splash of the cooking water – this will help to thin the sauce
- Mix the avocado sauce and softened red peppers in with the pasta and loosen the sauce with as much or as little cooking water as you want. Serve!