The flavours are strong and punchy which I love, and the cooking time relatively short – which I love even more, especially mid week when I have Grays Anatomy to watch! It’s also an incredibly nutritious and filling dish with a very low calorie count (before the pasta that is!). Although having said that, with a very generous portion of pasta, I worked out my meal to be around 450 calories (by using caloriecount.com) which I think is a pretty healthy amount for dinner – don’t you?

I didn’t have everything at hand tonight – like the fresh herbs and the onion, which surprised me as I always have onion at home, but it still turned out to be pretty good! Like I say, if you are a lover of those strong mediterranean flavours, this could be the recipe for you :)

Pasta Siciliana – Women’s Weekly magazine, serves 4

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 small aubergine, chopped
• 1 small green pepper, finely chopped (I used red as that is what I had at home)
• 45g anchovy fillet
• Milk
• 10 black olives, roughly chopped
• 1 tbslp capers, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 can whole tomatoes, 400g
• ½ tsp dried basil (I would prefer to use fresh basil if I had it at home)
• ¼ cup chopped parsley

Drain anchovies and cover with milk for about 10 minutes, then drain well (this takes away some of that harsh saltines)

Heat oil in a pan and add the onions, aubergine and pepper, fry until the aubergine is soft.

Add the minced garlic, canned tomatoes and basil, cover and allow to simmer for 30 minutes (as I used a tomato sauce and not canned whole tomatoes, I cut the simmering time down by half)

Meanwhile finely chop the anchovies.

Add the anchovies, olives, capers and parsley and season with pepper, cover and cook for a further 5 minutes.

 Serve together with the pasta of your choice, although I tend to think linguine for this kind of dish and enjoy!

A word of warning though – you really do not need to add any salt while you are making this, as there is enough of that in both the anchovies and the capers!