Cooking today: Zucchini, pasta, walnuts

After a full night sleep, my advance preparations are ready for the show.

First, I quickly slice and heat the cold grilled zucchinis with the garlic oil. Smells nice.

During this time pasta did their job as usual: easy, predictable, perfect.

Adding the veggies to the carbs gives a nice feeling of rightness … so different, and yet so compatible…

The mix is promising. I added some of the pasta cooking water to loose the mix. I think I didn’t put enough.

The roasted walnuts/grated cheese combination is eyebrow-lifting enough, but adding them to the pasta-zucchini melange creates an interesting variety of elements.

Verdict: it was really nice, I will do it again.
Some notes:
– The zucchini were great: still firm and just tender. It was dumb luck (I didn’t plan for this), but their texture was the best counterpoint to the pasta softness
– There wasn’t enough garlic sauce. I definitely could smell it, but the taste needed a little more punch. Maybe I’ll add some grated ginger next time

Cooking for tomorrow: Zucchini, pasta, walnuts

Tomorrow is a work-from-home day, but I know I will have little time to cook.
But I still want to have something tasty and home-made …

Well let’s try some advance preparation.
I’m not used to prepare a lot of time ahead, which mean my cooking is pretty simple, come to think of it; not very elaborate …
I’ll try to change this in the months to come …

But in the meantime, I chose a simple recipe from epicurious (nice tool), and adapted to my ingredients.

First of all, roast walnuts on a fierce fire. Then crush them coarsely in a good old mortar
After such violence, let the walnuts rest with some gentle grated cheese. They will spend the night together.

I intentionally didn’t wash the mortar to crush a garlic clove in it, letting it benefit from the walnuts previous presence.

Some olive oil, and hot chili powder help the garlic accept some more grinding

And eventually, I come up with a lovely colored and rich smelling paste. The soul of the recipe, if you will.

Zucchinis are halved, and grilled with salt and pepper. It smells good, almost enough to wake my appetite again!

Here they are, ready for tomorrow. I will now cling-film all this, and write a post about this … no wait … :p