Tuna Pasta Bake

After a fair few drinks last night and a disappointing breakfast courtesy of the Olympic Food Challenge, Z and I decided that we needed a bit of a hug and some vegetables.  The only fresh vegetables that we had in the house were salad ingredients, everything else was frozen.  As I was definitely a few pints over the drink drive limit, a trip to the shops was out of the question.  We raided the store cupboards and resurrected a student stand-by; Tuna Pasta Bake.

A simple tomato sauce is made using onion, garlic and a tin of tomatoes.  From there you can season the sauce to your whim.  I added a glug of red wine vinegar, dried basil and oregano and some chilli flakes.  After the sauce had bubbled for about ten minutes I chucked in frozen peas and sweetcorn and a tin of tuna.  All that was left was to stir the sauce through some cooked pasta, dump some grated cheese on top and bake for about half an hour.

This is not the nicest, prettiest, or most worthy dish that I will ever cook, but it was perfect for the moment and a great reminder that food doesn't need to be complicated to be good.

Tuna Nicoise Salad

Today was the first day of this year's Leeds Waterfront Festival, a couple of days of activities along the Aire as it passes through the city centre.  With Z's mum visiting and a toddler to entertain it seemed rude not to pop along for a nosey.  We had planned on getting to Granary Wharf in time for lunch but, somehow, we managed to get out of the house in good time so we arrived just after eleven when things were just getting set up.

R enjoyed toddling around the place and was fascinated by the boats and stilt walker but we can only keep him in one area for so long as he tends to get bored*.  We wandered along the waterfront taking in a classic French car display, craft market and boule demonstration before getting to Clarence Dock where the main event of the day was taking place, the Dragon Boat Races.  I don't know if it's the fancy dress, the overall excitement of the races or the fact that the theme from Hawaii Five-o is played during each race, but I love the whole spectacle.

After a couple of races, including the inevitable Pirates verses Vikings race, we needed lunch and so made our way back along the waterfront to Brewery Wharf, where we stopped off at Azucar for tapas.  Never having eaten there before I asked the waitress about portion size and she suggested two to three items from the menu each would be plenty.  She wasn't wrong.  For the three of us, plus R, we ordered seven items and we couldn't finish all of them.  There is clearly a huge difference between Spanish tapas and Yorkshire tapas.

For the record we ordered; calamares, croquetas de bacalao, chorizo al vino, jalapos, tortilla espanola, huevos rotos and patatas bravas.  The food was good, not that expensive and it came out fast, which is always a bonus if you are ever out eating with R.  With hindsight we needn't have ordered the huevos rotos.  They were nice but unnecessary.  We were then faced with a dilemma.  We had decided, before leaving the house, that we would choose what to cook for the evening meal after eating lunch.  With such a varied meal behind us we were scratching our heads a little.

A quick tour around Kirkgate market, forced partly by the need to get out of the rain, gave us the inspiration we needed.  With such a large lunch, all three of us wanted a salad and with green beans, free range eggs and fantastic tuna all available, a nicoise salad made perfect sense.  I won't try to teach you how to boil an egg.  I won't describe the process of searing raw tuna.  I'm not going to tell you what dressing to pour over the salad, which should include green beans, tomatoes and olives.  I will suggest in the strongest terms that you give this a go.  Fresh tuna is as far away from tinned tuna as you can get.  It is not cheap but it is fantastic.

*I can't imagine where he gets that from.

Pasta with Tuna, Pesto and Green Beans

"Parting is such sweet sorrow".  Shakespeare tells us that Juliet utters these words to a departing Romeo after he has wooed her on the balcony.  I can only agree with her today.  It's wonderful to be back home, after a long weekend with the in-laws.  But it was great to see them and we always have a good time and eat like kings. However, there's no place like home.

The sorrow at parting was amplified by six hours at the wheel.  The trip should have taken three and a half hours, possibly four with a snack break, but every man and his dog was on their way home from visiting family for Christmas.  I like driving, even along the M1 (the most tedious road in England), but crawling along after four days of three course dinners tried my patience and belt buckle.

We had expected to be back in good time to do a spot of food shopping.  That didn't happen.  We needed a quick, light meal (I need to consider my figure).  Z managed to pull together a cracker, filling, healthy and without the richness of the festivities past.

Green beans cooked with some pasta and then tossed in pesto, tuna and cherry tomatoes, was just what we needed.  We now have a couple of days before the next big food event; the final one of the year, during which time I intend to eat a lot of veg and less meat.  Let's see what happens.