Pasta with toasted garlic breadcrumbs

This dish was adapted from a recipe on recipezaar, it was super easy and meant not having going to the shops to make dinner. Have you noticed a lazy theme with our dinners lately? I'm trying to do work like crazy on my thesis and Mr T is injured again.

• 500 grams pasta
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves,
  
• 3 pieces of stale bread chopped coarsely into crumbs
• salt and pepper
  

1. Cook pasta.
2. Meanwhile, in a large pan, heat the oil over medium heat.
3. Add the garlic and saute just until turning color.
4. Add the breadcrumbs, salt and pepper to taste, and toast to light golden.
5. Drain the pasta and place in a hot bowl.
6. Pour all but 1 cup of the crumbs on the pasta along with the water and toss.
7. Divide between 4 hot plates and sprinkle reserved crumbs over each serving.

We also added some white beans, zucchini and nooch.

Mr T said that he read somewhere that breadcrumbs were originally used as a poor man's cheese in Italy. I can kind of see why.

Elizabeth's red wine lentils with pasta and chorizo

We made this after the potluck, with a couple of leftover chorizo sausages, which we fried and crumbled. They were friends, but I look forward to trying these with the italian inspired sausages in vegan brunch. This recipe was originally suggested by Elizabeth and the converted into a recipe by Cindy. Vicki also made it and raved about it. I made a few more alterations though. I didn't use any fresh herbs and added marjoram because it rocks and I hate rosemary. I decided to skip the polenta all together and added the sauce to to pasta. The sauce was yummy and was a great change t the regular tomato based lentil pasta sauces that I normally make.

Red wine lentils sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 carrot
2-3 sticks of celery
2 x 400g cans lentils, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups 'chicken' stock
1 teaspoon dried sage powder
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon marjoram
2 large chorizo sausages (from vegan brunch)
Nooch (optional)

Bring the oil to medium heat in a frypan, then saute the onion and garlic in it for 2 minutes. Add the carrot and celery and saute for a further 5 minutes. Stir through the lentils, wine, stock and herbs and simmer the lot until the lentils are tender and the sauce has reduced a little.

Pop the sausages under the grill, turning them once or twice, until they're crisp on the outside but still tender in the middle. Slice them into generous chunks and add them to the simmering lentils.

Add to pasta and add some nooch if you feel inclined.

I've added a new label: weeknight dinner, for dishes that I want to make again on a regular basis and aren't super time consuming and this recipe certainly fits into.