Cooking With Fred

Here we see a current Fibonacci favourite under way in the kitchens. My imaginary cook allowed me in to take this picture before shooing me out of the door. I had asked her to prepare something nutritious yet frugal, and quick; particularly if she wanted to keep her imaginary job. She has come up with this, which I must say works rather well.

To eat like Fred you will need: an onion, two courgettes, big fresh field mushrooms, two stalks celery, a red, yellow and green pepper, eight peppercorns, two cloves garlic, sea salt, two or three of Ron Combo's Patent Dried Chilies, tablespoon olive oil, three drops hot chili sauce with indecipherable label from the Syrian deli at the other end of the block, sunflower seeds (optional), anything from the back of the fridge that you should have chucked out days ago but found yourself incapacitated with guilt at the waste, My God The Waste! but not that dodgy cream bun. Pasta.

Get the pasta going. Heat the oil (yes of course in a different pan). Chop the onion, garlic and two chilies into wafer thin slivers. Chop up the rest of the veg into quite large chunks. Add the onion, garlic and chilies and cook until soft and sugary. According to Cook, the garlic and chilies will burn the moment you turn round to prepare your second Plymouth Gin and tonic so stay alert. Add the peppercorns and let them go for a couple of minutes. Turn up the heat before adding the roughly chopped veg, the third chili and the optional sunflower seeds. The extra heat should add a bit of colour to the veg before turning it back down to cook. Wait until all this is as al dente or overcooked as you like; drain pasta, add the above, eat. Chicken or prawns also work very well with this, the chicken should be cubed, the prawns can go in whole. They should go in after you've softened the onions. If it all looks a bit lost chuck in a tin of chopped tomatoes. If you do this be sure to let them simmer a bit; they'll lose that 'just opened' look and reduce to a satisfyingly rich sauce in no time at all.

Time taken, start to finish: equivalent of one and a half large gin and tonics from first chopped vegetable to sitting down at the table, which should be properly set, with crisply folded linen. (Have Mary the maid do this, if you haven't already let her go.) To accompany the dish; a crisp white, any will do. Good luck, and do let me know if it works as well for you as it does for me.

Yours ever

Fred