Use it up Meal #2

Last night's meal was L-A-M-E. Lame lame lame. Not a total disaster, but still...Lame. Due to the limited ingredients in my fridge and cupboard and a complete lack of creativity poor David was faced with booooooring old pasta with tomato sauce for supper. Poor him and poor me!

Now credit where credit is due...I did make the sauce from scratch (fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, tomato paste, a bit of hot water, spices and balsamic vinegar)...it wasn't too terrible,but I definitely have no shame in admitting that there is a reason why jarred pasta sauce comes in so many varieties, it tastes so much better!!! I am not talking run-of-the-mill Dolmilo sauce to add to mince....I am talking proper Llyod Grossman or Bertolli....they have the experts to work out the proper flavour and spice combinations (something that my limited supply and knowledge can't offer), they have the right consistency, and they are FABULOUS to add to sauteed vegetables or your own base...but alas....I had to settle for a few ALMOST ripe tomatoes.

To make matters worse the remnants of the pastas in the cupboard were spaghetti and fiorelli (like little flowers or trumpets...i would call them trumpetti)!!! I could have sworn that there was another SHAPE in there, but there wasn't! SACRE BLEU! Needless to say, supper last night was a bit of a hodgepodge of ingredients! David's reaction made it worthwhile though. He thought that the shaped pasta was like the MEAT in the spaghetti dish...not sure if I agree, but sweet regardless!!

In the end, while a LAME attempt, all was made better by the arrival earlier in the day of our dining table!!! No more eating off our laps/coffee table in front of the TV! Proper grown-up dining from now on!!! And so, hopefully you can sympathize, I felt like I was letting David down in some way by serving such a lame-o meal on what was an exciting event (our first proper meal together). But in reality he didn't mind, he enjoyed the sauce and thought the mixture of pastas pretty funny.

The pasta wasn't photo-worthy....a splodge of red stained, miss-matched pastas....ugh, no thank you. I did, however, spend some time during the afternoon baking (with all the supplies already available to me I proooooomise)

CINNAMON CHOCOLATE CHIP BUNS!!

I adapted the recipe from Jamie Oliver's new American Road Trip cookbook and my Canadian Classics cookbook, using Jamie's dough (which doesn't need egg or butter) and the Canadian Classics method for the filling. The sweet dough from Jamie's recipe wasn't as nice as I know the Canadian Classics to be, but when filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and chocolate chips I couldn't really complain!!!