Food, Friends and Frantic Essay Writing

If you want to spend some quality time with a friend, then cook for them. Wow them. Talk about your skills, your recipes and then any gossip you've missed.
I'd invited a friend and her husband (husband, how grown up does that sound?) for dinner with me and Sam and served up a simple red pepper and roasted tomato soup with ciabatta loaves, pork and chorizo sausages and a side salad.
My partner in crime and assistant chef, Sam, tackled the sausages and if I'm perfectly honest (with absolutely zero bias) they were the best part of the meal. The chorizo gave the pork mince a whole new dimension and turned sausage meat into a slightly spicy experience which warmed up the meal and seemed to waltz in your mouth (as oppose to mosh in your mouth, which sometimes happens when you attempt to heat things up a little too much!)
Ciabatta soaked up a simple soup that hit the spot. I firmly believe that most of the time, simplicity is key.
It was so easy, all I did was roast some red peppers in the oven with a splash of olive oil for an hour. When they were finished, I popped the kettle on, sweated an onion, 3 garlic cloves and chopped up my red peppers and threw those in there too. Then, I poured my boiling water on the veg just until it was covered and (asked Sam) sprinkled a vegetable stock cube in to the pan. I brought it to the boil, let it simmer for 15 minutes and then whizzed it with my stick blender.
Red peppers are naturally very sweet which married perfectly with the acid tomato and warm chorizo. Altogether, it was a bit more of a rave on my mouth, buzzin'.
I made sure that I made more than what was needed so I could throw some in the freezer for when I was feeling lazy/pressed for time. Which I anticipate will be quite often as uni is back in full swing. It's going to be a tough term so it was lovely to just chill out over a bowl of soup before all the hard work begins.
It's not all doom and gloom though, Sam had last weekend off which somehow turned into some form of Asian-fusion weekend. Starting off with another great Wagamamas lunch on Saturday and then making our very own katsu curry and sushi rolls on the Sunday, once again, Sam shined and made some pretty perfect looking sushi rolls. Asian food is tasty and pretty damn healthy, I should attempt it more often but I think I'll stick to simple salad and soup for a while.