I wonder if Jamie was struggling for ideas to fill his 15 minute meal pages when he got to the pasta section. It seems sometimes like he may have rigged up a kind of fruit machine system with one wheel as the type of pasta, one for the type of meat, one for vegetable base and one for sauce. As a result, although the meals are quite different on some levels, they do seem like they lack imagination somewhat. Today's offering was, basically, wholewheat fusilli, grilled chicken breast, a kind of "soffritto" vegetable mix and tomato sauce.
I've actually quite enjoyed the pasta dishes I've made so far - the broccoli pasta in particular was delish - but Lolz, who a) doesn't have the satisfaction of creating the meal from scratch in, ahem, 15 minutes; b) has the unenviable responsibility of washing up and c) makes pasta quite regularly anyway, has been less enthusiastic. To be fair, she is perfectly capable of knocking up a pasta dish in little more than 15 minutes which is cheaper, and creates less mess - and is no less tasty - than the dishes I've made so far. Jamie may frown but I'm no pasta purist - if I want something cheap and easy then I would probably turn to Dolmio - to be honest I think I spent most of university living off the Asda smart price equivalent.
As it turns out, flavourwise the sauce is kind of strange - it has a bitter aftertaste which isn't too pleasant. To compound matters, it wasn't even that straightforward. My food processor seemed to object to being asked to chop so many vegetables and so I had to do it in batches, and you have to keep an eye on several things at once. It's certainly healthy, but it's one of the few pasta dishes that doesn't have some kind of side salad.
Lolz, underwhlemed, gave it 7/10 and nearly had a nervy b when she became aware of the scale of washing up. I generously leant her a hand. Difficulty rating 5/10.
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