So the kitchen renovation is about 9 days away. Dani and I have been thinking quite a bit about where everything in the kitchen is going to go whilst the renovation goes on. What is perhaps more important is just how we are going to cook whilst this work is being done. Our contractor hopes to be done around Thanksgiving, but was rather happy when we told him that we might not be here for Christmas… To be fair, he is doing a lot more than just the kitchen, thanks to some great ideas he had for the sitting room off the kitchen. We were planning to do this reno in the summer, when we would be able to BBQ easily, but somehow that just didn’t pan out. Work got busy, time got away from us. So now we are into the rainy season, and we don’t have a covered deck. Still, a little bit of rain never stopped me from cooking!! I think we will get a portable gas stove thing, and have that along-side the BBQ. That should do us for a couple of months!

That means that we have started to think about clearing stuff out of the kitchen cabinets, and especially our pantry cupboard (sounds flash, but it is just a kitchen cupboard that we jam a lot of food stuff into). Clearing out the fridge is much needed too! So this is really what I came up with. You might notice from the photo that I use two different pastas here. You would be right.. like I said, we are clearing out the cupboards! I have always seemed to collect packets of pasta that have just a little bit left in. They end up sitting there for months, and never get used. Not today! Some sun-dried tomato linguine, and some regular linguine are in this one.

 And for the fridge, three heads of fennel are used here, along with half a large red onion. There… the fridge bins are looking a lot emptier already! To this a few slices of prosciutto are used, along with a handful of chopped sage.

 What resulted was a really great little pasta dish, that came together in a flash, and really REALLY tastes of Autumn.

Linguine, Prosciutto, Fennel, Red Onion and Sage

Handful of linguine pasta

Four slices of Prosciutto (you could use pancetta or bacon here)

3 medium heads of fennel

1/2 a red onion

1 small handful of fresh sage, chopped

1 tablespoon of butter

1 glass of white wine

Start by getting a large pot of salted water boiling for the pasta. Remove the leafy head of the fennel, and any stem area left. Cut this in half vertically. Carefully slice out the tough core. If any of the outer rings of the fennel look dry and tough, remove those too. Slice these halves across, so the slices are about 1/2 inch thick. Slice the red onion.

In a large pan over a medium heat, warm up some olive oil and throw in the fennel and onion slices. Cook this on a medium/high heat until they just start to caramelize – about 10 minutes or so. Throw in your pasta into the water, and cook according to packet directions.

When the fennel/onion mixture is just about done, tear up your prosciutto, and throw it into the same pan as the fennel/onion along with the fresh sage. Cook this until the prosciutto is just cooked through – about 3 minutes. Crank up the heat under this to high, and add the white wine. Scrape around, getting any bits off the bottom of the pan (deglazing). Let this wine cook down by at least half, and then add the butter.

Drain the pasta, and toss with the fennel/onion mixture. Serve immediately.