This.
What fresh hell is this?

This is classic procrastination bull shit, in true ‘I-should-be-doing-something-else-right-now’ style.

I have the brand new cookbook Brave New Meal – which is friggin awesome by the way – and as soon as I set myself the challenge of cooking all the recipes in it within a year, a little part of me freaked out, and I started scrolling the Bad Manners blog instead of sticking to the task at hand. *cue eye-roll*

BUT…how could I NOT make this dish?! I mean it’s so heaven-sent it’s literally got the word paradise in its name!

Grains of Paradise Miso Pasta.

So I still have 122 recipes left out of 124. Argh.

But as long as I admit that I’m procrastinating then maybe its okay? Then I’m not in denial. I’m keeping it real.

But this is a form of self-sabotage for sure! And not because it’s full of delicious flavours and caaaaarrbs. *salivating goodness* More because I should be cooking more recipes from the Brave New Meal book because otherwise I’ll run out of time. I’ve been here before. Panic doesn’t suit me.

Oh well, colour me crazy, but everyone has a little self-sabotage in them, and it’s not about how many times we fall down, it’s about how many times we get back up. So fuck it, let’s eat!

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I’d never heard of grains of paradise before (have you?), and couldn’t get my hands on any where I live so I subbed with the pepper, coriander and lime zest like the bad mannered chefs suggested. (This seem a bit weird for half a sec because they’d said it tasted like cardamon, pepper and citrus, nothing about coriander…but fuck it I trust those clever bastards to know what they’re doing.)

This dish was fuck-fabulously easy to make. Just chop some veggies, roast them while you cook some pasta, and throw some sauce on. Done! Ba-da-boom! When they said that dinner would be ready in 35 minutes they weren’t kidding.

The thing that takes the longest in this recipe is chopping the veg, and that’s simple enough so you can let your mind wander while you do it. Cooking as therapy, as you process your day. It gives you time to unwind before your evening really kicks in. What’s not to like?

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It was so good! I will be making this regularly for sure. Even my kid enjoyed it, and I’ve never seen eggplant anywhere near his tastebuds before. Okay, granted he bathed it in ketchup (which I still feel is a punishable offence – I threatened to tar and feather him for even suggesting it) but still. The vegetables made their way from his plate to his tummy. #PARENTING_WIN!! #KetchupFrenzy

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As for me, I got to enjoy the leftovers at my desk (aka the dinning room table – I’ve been ousted from the office) the next day. It was still ferociously good.

Bad Manners (previously known as Thug Kitchen) said this pasta dish meets you where you’re at, and they don’t lie. This dish works as a hot dinner, a cold lunch, or left overs straight from the Tupperware you scraped it into. I might even go as far to say that it tastes even better cold the next day. This pasta dish has like a little zesty zingy taste about it. Very fresh, very moreish. Very easy to eat.