Day 157: Fusilli with fried onions and olives

Dear Husband must have been thinking that he was in the bad books with yet another meat-free dish. It was now the turn of Fusilli with fried onions and olives. The truth is is that I had left a lot of the dessert and vegetarian recipes until last. And, well, if Dear Husband wasn’t in the bad books at the start of this recipe, he was most certainly in them by the end. Here’s how it all went…

I began by pouring olive oil into my large frying pan and, when hot, I added finely sliced onions and seasoned with salt and pepper. I let them cook for almost 20 minutes until they were soft and golden brown. About 10 minutes into cooking the onions, I put on the pasta to cook and I used fusilli pasta. Once the onions were ready, I added in olives, anchovies and rosemary. Knowing that Dear Husband isn’t keen on olives, I couldn’t avoid them especially when the recipe had the word olives in the title; therefore, I thought I’d pull a fast one and get my mini-chopper to work. I thought I’d chop the olives into oblivion and hope that he didn’t notice (if only!). Once the pasta was ready, I drained it and then tipped it into the onion mixture and stirred. I served it up with a grinding of black pepper.

The verdict…

Hmmm, where do I begin? I’m not exactly proficient in typing out the eugh-ing and yuck-ing noises that emerged from Dear Husband’s mouth but at least it was semi-comical. I just wasn’t in the humour for him not liking the dinner this evening as it had been an extremely busy day and I have the worst head cold ever and the last thing I wanted was to make yet another dinner to replace the one that he didn’t like! I just can’t admit defeat at times and must make something 'nice'. Always. Right so, the verdict was…wait for it… zero marks. Yes, no marks…nada…zilch. Whatever you want to call it, it wasn’t exactly my greatest culinary moment. Thankfully for me though, the fact that it had anchovies in it meant that I was able to steer well clear of it. Yes, and Dear Husband went on to say that it ‘tasted like seaweed’ and reminded him of a time many years ago when he went camping with his friends, then caught their own fish and almost gave themselves food-poisoning from eating their under-cooked catch. But I do have to hand it to Dear Husband, he tells it like it is. Most of the time, that's what I rely on. Just not this evening. Thankfully though, he wouldn’t hear tell of me starting into another dinner but did say he wouldn’t mind beans and toast. Alleluia!

Overall, it was an extremely easy recipe and an extremely quick recipe but I won’t be making this one again! On the positive side though, at least I know that, at times, I can be as bad a cook as Dear Husband is…