Tagliatelle with tomato, chilli, garlic and cream - or why guilt is a waste of time

Here's the thing.

When you've had a long hard day at work and all you want to do is have a curry, you should have a curry.

What you should not do is:

i) feel guilty about eating a curry when it's only Monday and you didn't go for that run...

ii) try to recreate the excitement of curry through the medium of pasta, by chucking in loads of chilli and garlic and not enough else.

Actually pasta with chilli and garlic would have been fine, but I attempted some tomato technique, as per Italian guru Marcella Hazan.

Marcella Hazan is brilliant; the fault was mine.   She says that when using fresh tomatoes you should either blanche and peel them (too tired) or put in a covered pan for ten minutes and then put through a food mill.

So far so so.  I milled them and came out the other end with a pretty, pure looking tomato sugo:

I then fried garlic and chilli in butter and olive oil. Too much chilli, in retrospect, but I was hoping for spaghetti that tasted like a medium-strength madras.

I then added cream to try and quench the fiery chilli, making it more korma than madras...

Emergency rescue - resorting to parmesan to save the day...

And a touch of basil to distract the eye / brain...

It was fine.  6 out of 10 fine.  Life's too short for 6 out of 10 pasta.  Next time I'm having curry.