The dinner dilemma

It's an eternal dilemma for me,starting around five in the evening just after tea I start to think of what to cook up for dinner. The husband and I have this discussion with unfailing regularity but because he wants the easy way out the suggestions are always chapatti or pasta. Now this doesn't say much does it as the chapati needs a side dish and the pasta needs a sauce. It then falls on me to get creative. Once again today the suggestion was pasta with a condition attached....pls make it tasty he says (like I ever make anything tasteless). Trolling through food blogs and websites told me how woefully ill equipped I was. The closest I had to Parmesan was a very very poor relation in India being palmed off as a cousin. Having had the misfortune of eating in Europe and buying home made small farm holding parmesans which taste like heaven on earth,it's a sad state of affairs to have to settle for this local version but beggers not being choosers and all that I decide to use it. Some olives at the end of a bottle and some jalapeño peppers (yes I know that's more Mexican than Italian but we are inventing here with limited resources) make my task a little easier. Tomato the one thing that's easily available here has shot through the roof in terms of price and as a form of protest I am using tomato purée. Not for me the passata or the cherry tomato,not for me some good white wine but then again I never claimed to be making authentic food did I?. Raiding the fridge is rewarding sometimes so I find some chicken bits and some stock....now the ideas are falling into shape. I toss up some garlic and onions in well heated olive oil and throw in so,e dried herbs. Don't ask me what herbs the label has long since faded but it smelt fine to me so in it went. The aromas were kicking in so that's fine. The chicken went in next followed by olives and peppers and plenty of chilli flakes. Then I threw in the tomato purée and let it simmer gently. The pasta was cooking away merrily on the next stove and when all of it was mixed with the sauce,dinner was ready. To serve I used loads of the poor relation cheese and while it didn't do much to the flavour it did make for a decent meal. Ofcourse the final verdict rests with the husband who has developed a rather refined pallet . Well the meal is done the verdict is that it was fine and when he asks for the ingredients one can be sure it may have been just a notch above average.....the dinner dilemma for the day is over and so on to tomorrow