Pappa al Pomodoro e' Pasta Zucca

Italian bread tomato soup and pumpkin pasta. A nice meal tonight, just as well because I suspect the freestyled semolina bread I have rising in the oven will not have been a good experiment. In my opinion, semolina breads just take so damn long to proof, I always underestimate, especially when using a levain. Anyway.

Pappa al Pomodoro

• ripe roma or any other kind of tomato
  
• basil
  
• 400g tin of tomatoes - chopped, dice, wholepeeled: it don't matter.
  
• five cloves of garlic (or more! I usually go to town!), thinly slice
• olive oil
• water
• preferably stale bread - roughly 400gms, but don't be too obsessed about it.

Slice the romas in half, season them, tear in some basil, drizzle on some olive oil, and into a 180' oven for 20-25 minutes. Meanwhile, fry off the garlic and the chopped stalks of the basil, after a few minutes, add the tin of tomatoes, plus a tin full of water. Boil it for 15-20 minutes. Add the bread, torn into small chunks. and simmer for another ten minutes or so, and then add the tomatoes from the oven, plus some more torn basil. Garnish with a little cracked pepper, maybe some parmesan - delicious!

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Pasta Zucca (Creamy Pumpkin Pasta)

There's some carbonara elements to this, smooth, and subtler than you might think.

• four drumsticks
• a small butternut pumpkin half
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 4 small onions, or two big ones
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
  
• fresh oregano
• small container of light cream
• two medium eggs
• 40 grams or thereabouts parmesan
  
• a sploosh of dry white
• Whatever pasta takes your fancy
  

Dice the pumpkin into finger sized segments, cut the onions into wedges, then combine them with the chicken, garlic, 3/4 of the oregano, salt and pepper, and olive oil, and bung it in a 180' oven for 20 minutes or so.

Put your pasta on now if it takes more than ten minutes to cook.

When the chicken is cooked, scrape the meat from the bone (skin is up to you, I didn't use it), and chuck into a pot with the rest of the oven mix, and put it on a low heat after giving it a vigorous stir witha fork (we're trying to break up some of the pumpkin here).

Add the cream, eggs and parmesan. More vigorous stirring (now we're trying to mix up that egg and cream).

After it has mixed, add a sploosh of white wine to taste. Don't let it get too hot!

Spoon it into the pasta - it's rich, so don't go nuts. In my opinion, people tend to oversauce their pasta in general. Garnish with the remaining oregano. Yum yum!