Last night, after 18 hrs ‘on the road’, we finally arrived on our little island in the middle of the Aegean Sea. Seeing it with fresh eyes we both went to each other: ‘how the heck did we end up living here?!’ After the extremely warm (although cold temperature-wise) reception of the never sleeping Krakow and Warsaw, middle-of-the-night Paros, with only a handful of passengers stepping off the ferry felt a bit like a desert island!
It is so nice to be home though, in your own bed. Our cat, Tina, showed up in the window as soon as she saw the lights and graced us with her presence on our sofa. Things are far from perfect, but we think that she is moving into forgiveness for saving little Lupo’s life. At last! This morning, we got up late (it’s amazing how much travelling takes a toll on you, given that most of the time you spent sitting on your behind and reading a book) to a beautiful sunshine and blue sea view and we remembered the reasons why Paros became our home! Despite the sun, it is still rather cold here, as the Siberian wind continues to blow so we are not digging our flip flops out just yet 🙂 . On the menu today is a simple vegan pumpkin pasta with coconut bacon (have you tried turning coconut flakes into bacon yet?) and fried sage leaves which I picked myself in the Paros hills. Pumpkin and sage is a great old combo and this is one of the weekday dishes I make regularly as I am a sucker for savoury pumpkin dishes. If you happen to be a fan (it’s one of our most loved recipes) of my last year’s pumpkin pasta (recipe here), give this one a go too and you may end up liking it even more 😉
3-4 tbsp / 45-60 ml olive oil 20 small sage leaves (I used wild sage) or 12 large 200 g pasta (use gluten-free if you are gluten intolerant) 1 red chilli, finely diced OR chilli flakes to taste 2 garlic cloves, finely diced 700 g / 1 lb butternut squash / pumpkin*, cubed small 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted on a dry pan juice of ½ lemon salt and pepper to taste
