Sluttishly Vegetarian: Working Girl’s Pasta

Okay, okay, so I stole the name of this pasta from Jamie Oliver, because I was trying to think of another word for ‘slut’. But feel free to call it “Lazy Slut’s Pasta”. I frequently do. This is a super simple pasta dish I’ve imported from Australia. I learned this from the lovely Jessie Stoelwinder over at The Velvet Bow for a weeknight dinner when you feel like something un peu gourmet, but frankly can’t be arsed. I love this pasta so much, and it’s a lovely, easy, vegetarian even option for a casual dinner with pals.

You’ll need:

• 150g dry pasta per person
• 3 tomatoes per person
• 1 Spanish onion pp
• Half a garlic clove pp
• Lashings of balsamic vinegar
• A few good lollops of extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and peps to taste
• Fresh basil to serve

Make it!

• Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Cut your tomatoes and onions into quarters (or eighths if you can manage it – I can’t) and throw into a large baking tray.
• Crush the garlic cloves with the flat side of a chef’s knife and scatter between the tomatoes and onion. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Don’t be stingy it tastes wonderful! You also want the mixture to be quite juicy, as it will coat the pasta later on.
• Season to taste. Bung it in the oven for half an hour, you can pretty much forget about it, but I like to occasionally rearrange things so everything gets lovely and roasty.
• With about ten minutes to go, put a large pot of salted water on to boil. Add pasta to boiling water and cook al dente.
• After 30 mins, remove baking tray from oven and leave to cool. I find that doing this drastically reduces the chance of me removing the outer layer of skin on the roof of my mouth by way of steaming hot tomato. You’ll need to wait another 5 mins or so for the pasta to cook.
• Once pasta is cooked, drain and add to tomato/onion/garlic mix. Stir together and serve. Top with fresh basil. Tuck in.

Tips:

• Line your baking tray with aluminium foil for less washing up (see what I mean about Lazy Slut Pasta?). You can tell people that it is to ‘aid the roasting process’.
• Use amazing types of dry pasta for variations. I usually have spaghetti for maximum slurpy-ness, but last night I had spinach pasta. It was green and fabulous.