Well, we switched our Meat-Free Day to today to accommodate our guests, good friends Natalie Wassung & her fiancé Marek Mayer.

Natalie is a fellow ‘greenie’, though in her case it is a vocation as much as a passion, having just completing her masters in sustainable development. She is also a vegetarian, hence the the change from Meat-Free Tuesday to Meat-Free Monday (confused yet?).

On top of all that she is also wheat intolerant, which meant finding a wheat free pasta. We went with the Glutagon^TM branded Penne since we couldn’t find a wheat free rigatoni (actually I struggled to find rigatoni period!)

The salad was up first and really simple to put together… if you are paying attention. I got sidetracked and ended up putting the dried oregano in with the avos instead of the lemon juice dressing… so had to start over… nobody likes stick like dried herbs IN the avo. Also using a frying pan to grill ciabata is a bad idea…

A highlight were the sweet red onions. These were bought fresh from the Earth Fair Market from local farmers and tasted so good: fresh, sweet, tangy, though the tang was prob in part to being marinated in a red wine vinegar. Both meals were topped off with Woolies Organic Feta.

Next up was the Rigatoni arrabiatta. I’m always dubious about wheat free anything, having had bad experiences in the past, but I was pleasantly surprised now much better it tastes these days and I’d be hard pressed to say that one was THAT much better or worse, just different.

A very simple ’20 minute meal’. Once you have your ingredients prepared and ready, the pasta takes 12+ minutes to cook, then it is a matter of adding in the prepared sauce, tearing and mixing in the sweet basil, serving and garnishing with feta.

Judging by the fact we polished off BOTH meals, I think we had a winner.

We ended off the evening with a fresh bowl of in season fruit with a little ice cream on the side.

All in all a wonderful evening.