28.09.08: Spelt penne with veg and tomato sauce

When Sunday means simple: She stirred up some panetta cubes, shallots, portobellini mushroms, capers, and an orange pepper with some glugs of red wine and a basil-tomato sauce from good ol' Lloyd to coat some spelt penne pasta (it's back in stock!). Shavings of grana padano took top honours, while a salad of figs, toasted sunflower seeds, avo and mixed leaves peered over the edge.

SHE SAYS: Soothing and subtle, nothing you shout about, but something you quietly enjoy and linger over. And it's all the more endearing for being easy and quickish. I do think pancetta cubes are not the world's most exciting seasoning - there's a shallow undercurrent of hamminess, not a smoky or salty surge of it. Capers gave us the most interesting note, as they tend to do. Sunflower seeds held their roasty own against the playfully seed-textured figs and creamy avo.

HE SAYS: Funny, unlike Her I thought the sauce was pretty rich and bold. With the cheese, capers and red wine it was, to my taste, salty and tangy (two flavas I especially enjoy). The spelt penne was lighter in texture, also less glutinous then it's wheat cousin and did a good job of holding and delivering the sauce to me gob. Agree with her that the pancetta did not add too much to the plate and we probably could leave it out next time without forfeiting taste. The inclusion of the figs always brightens up the salad, their appearance reminds me of passion flowers, which are also sort of beautifully alien looking, but figs are probably nicer to nibble.