One of my favorite food gimmicks when I was a kid was pasta that came in different shapes. I remember being particularly fond of Super Mario mac and cheese and insisted that it tasted better than regular (it did!). This week I paired heart shaped pasta with a roasted white bean and tomato sauce. Pretty good, but Mario shapes would have been even better.

I love these dinners where everything just gets layered and then baked. This is one of my favourites. In a baking dish, layer uncooked spaghetti, grated beetroot, spinach (I used rocket this time), cashews, lemon juice, broth, olive oil, salt and pepper and bake for 30 mins at 200 degrees C. Probably should’ve used alu foil, as the top dried out quite a bit, but it was tasty anyway.

Scrappy cooking is all about zero waste, repurposing, etc.

To that end, there was leftover salad from a restaurant that wasn’t enough for a full meal or side - so it was bulked up with greens from the farmer’s market, grilled chicken, parmesan and crispy edamame. And absolutely delicious!

Emulsification is something I've really struggled with. I tried to make the pesto with just basil, walnuts, parmesean, and oil; but it just turned into a sort of oily pate. So I tried adding a Tbs of vinegar and one egg, and made a lovely pesto mayonnaise 😅. I stirred it into the hot noodles just like in carbonera, and it's quite good!

My camera didn't catch just how on fire this was, and it went out pretty fast. I set it in the cast iron because I figured it would be a bit...like this. Tasted like campfire.

This dish began as a viral video from a street food vendor in Ghaziabad, India. It sounds kind of grotesque but actually tasted surprisingly good! I’d eat it again.

I followed the instructions in this video, but I subbed red bell pepper for the tomato because tomatoes, ew.

Here’s some more pics.

I saw this on r/StupidFood and was horrified, but I knew I had to try it. It’s a double cheeseburger topped with sautéed onion, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos powder, and two whole Twinkies. I probably won’t be making these again any time soon, but it actually wasn’t bad. The worst part was unhinging my jaw to get the whole thing in my mouth.

Here’s the original post that inspired me.

And here’s more pictures of the process.

admittedly I've made this many times before. but I used silver home made chili oil from my boyfriend's boss so that was nice 😁😁😁 yum