Finally

Without wishing to brag, I finally cooked something with a hint of invention and tastiness to it yesterday. Actually, I may as well be big-headed and say that I think I made two things that were pretty good and I can also imagine how they might be improved. The first was a mix to plonk in some mini croustades, consisting of some Total yoghurt, finely diced spring onion and Pecorino Tartuffo di Toscana. This truffled cheese is without doubt my favourite ingredient in the world at the moment - the cheese itself is fine but the truffliness is just something else, something that's hard to describe but it certainly has that coveted nail-polish taste once well identified by b.

The other dish was a plate of pasta without pasta; in other words, pasta fillings without the pasta itself, for those rare moments in life when you don't actually want the pasta but just want the sauce. I'm not sure when such moments are, but working on the assumption that they may in theory exist, my three sauces today were: balls of spinach, ricotta and nutmeg, cubes of roasted butternut squash, cored with a sauce of reserved squash, sage and parmesan, and aubergine rolls with a tomato, onion and parmesan filling. The nice thing about them is that they can be presented sushi style as they are all quite dainty and look nice on the plate.

Now back to my usual slovenly ways with a bag of Doritos and guacamole on the sofa...