Kath was giving a percussion workshop last night after work, didn't know
when she was gonna be back, so she called me when she had an idea, and asked
if I'd make a quick meal as she wouldn't be long.

Well, nearing the end of shopping week, there's not much in the house, so
this is what I threw together, and it came out really tasty - 'Another
winner!' she told me <G!>

I medium diced one large yellow onion, and put it in a pan with some basil
infused O/oil (had no basil in the house), and left it to slowly cook until
slightly translucent and some caramelised, along with the rinds of 4 slices
of smoked short-back bacon for the extra flavour (gets taken out later on),
adding when nearly done, 4 cloves of minced garlic, some of my home grown
chiles - 1 finely chopped (totally heatless!!!) jalapeno, 2 small Bolivian
rainbows, and one >tiny< Jamaica Red Hot (like a red hab), and the 4 slices
of bacon, cut into small squares.

When the bacon was mostly cooked through, I added fresh ground black pepper,
the zest off about 1/3 small, thin skinned lime, stirred for a few minutes
over heat, then 1 tin chopped tomatoes, 2 tbsp stock (mixed meat and veg.,
very jellied/conc.), ~1/2 tsp of the (Swiss?) powdered, all natural veg
stock, then the juice from that 1/3 lime, small pinch 'mixed herbs' (mebbe
18th tsp), brought to a strong simmer then turned down the heat and left to
reduce slightly while the pasta shells were cooking, served over the pasta
shells and done! Whole lot from picking up the knife until finished was no
more than 1/2 hour.

The lime worked REALLY well in this - I often use some lemon juice with the
lighter/less 'cooked' tomato based pasta sauces as I find it just adds a bit
of the freshness back to the tomato taste, the lime did that and added an
unusual and delicious twist to the flavour too and especially married with
the slight chile heat and flavour.

Not been spending near as much time in the kitchen lately as I should, been
missing the creativity!

',;~}~

Shaun aRe