An accidental masterpiece

So here I was stuck with an extra half a box of cooked lasagna noodles, what to do. Somebody online suggests cutting them up into fat fettucine noodles. What the hell, I give it a shot and end up with uneven, "interestingly shaped" pasta. At least the sauce needs to be worth the effort now. So I sizzle some garlic in olive oil, saute cremini and reconstituted chantarelle mushrooms, deglaze the pan with the mushroom stock and red wine, and top off with some marinara sauce and parmesan cheese.
Add the "fettucine noodles" and, my what an amazing dish, if I might say so myself. Smoky, and creamy, with all those intangible flavors of the bordeaux (thank you Zagat wine club!) adding intrigue to the overall taste. A mushroom lover's dream. Sometimes a five star meal is an accidental surplus of pasta away!

Chili chili chili

We went to the Koloa Farmer's Market today where a guy with a whistle and a long welcome in Hawaiian announced the beginning of the market aka food fight, and the huge crowd of tourists and locals waiting under trees raced to sample and buy the wares. Under the hot Kauai sun, local farmers sold an astonishing array of exotic fruits and vegetables. We sampled Acelia cherries, fresh coconut water and some funny kind of green beans. We bought starfruit, dragonfruit, mountain apples, lychees, custard apples, tropical tangerines, mangoes of 3 different types, tree tomatoes (taste like mix between guavas and passionfruit) and papayas ($1 for 4!). We also bought the freshest eggplant ever, baby bok choy, buckwheat sprouts, a giant avocado, bunches of mint and basil and these miniature red and orange chili peppers which the lady selling them assured me were relatively mild. I even got a macadamia nut for free. All in all, a true vegetarian's paradise!
For dinner, I whipped up a stir fry of the eggplant, bok choy and water chestnuts with mint and basil in oil flavored with garlic and about 10 of the miniature red peppers. The result is the hottest, most interesting Asian fusion dish I have ever tasted. While Hemanth and I cried and sweated our way through the rice and veggie combo, we exclaimed how good food picked that day itself tasted. Perfect for building an appetite for a fruit breakfast and hike on the North Shore tomorrow!