It's a rainy/snowy-isk day here in Canada and will be for the next few days. Which I don't mind at all. I am sitting in bed trying to figure out a few things and planning a trip to California to be with my Mom and Dad. As much as I don't want to leave the boyfriend here in Canada he can't get away from work. It will be the first time in four years that we will be apart and it will be a little while. I know that it will go fast...but still.
I was reading some magazines in bed earlier and remember how Sky would jump up and lay on them as if I didn't own them and he could do as he pleased with it.
I just want my pawprint from the animal hospital and hope it is ready soon.
I will be posting more recipes today and I am also going to be researching fat burners...as I have no idea what the hell is up with my weight and it is really beginning to piss me off!
Since I have an obsession with Italy and Italian food I am going to share some recipes from David Rocco's cookbooks that I got recently.
These cookbooks are really great and have a rustic feel to them which I love. Then again, as I said, I love everything about Italy.
There are a few books that are out there that I would love to get before my trip and read away...some fiction, some Italy inspired ones, etc. I will share that with you guys maybe later if I feel up to it.
Hope everyone is doing well on this overcast Thursday - I keep thinking it is Friday.
The one type of food that I love beyond anything and wish I could eat on a daily basis without gaining any sort of weight is pasta. I love it, beyond anything. It is my favourite and I need to really keep it to a once a week or even once every two weeks type of thing especially when you are trying to lose weight, but it is so scrumpdiddlyumptious and I just wish there was like, ZERO calorie pasta. Seriously.
There are so many different pasta dishes out there and sometimes the simplest are the best. I remember my Mom and Dad used to make what I called "white spaghetti" which was just stringy pasta with mushrooms, oil and ground black pepper and it was so delicious {obviously we would have parmesan with it - yumm}.
So here is one recipe from David Rocco's book - "Dolce Vita" - can be found on page 221. Looks simply delicious!
Bon Appetit!
Spaghetti Aglio E Olio
Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil
When I was growing up, sometimes my parents would go out for the evening and come home with a group of friends for a midnight snack. One of my parents would go into the kitchen, still dressed in fancy clothes, and whip up spaghetti aglio e olio. Suddenly, my parents seemed glamourous. To me, there's something so dolce vita about this memory and this dish.
Aglio e olio is what I call an "un-sauce". But I don't take it for granted. There's more of a technique here than you might expect. I've known really good cooks who've messed this up simply by not paying attention. This is a great example of how consciousness and connecting to the food are really important. To make this properly, you're going to do things that are counterintuitive to what you do when making most other pasta dishes. Still, this is probably the fastest sauce ever! Get it right and you're minutes away from creating magic - a little midnight dolce vita in your own kitchen.
Per 4 persone.
1 lb {500 g} spaghetti
Salt, QB
4 oz {125 g} dry bread crumbs
1 small bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup {125 mL} extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Dried chilli pepper flakes, QB
Start by cooking your spaghetti. Make sure you salt the water very well. The pasta cooking water is an important ingredient, so when the pasta is done, reserve 2 to 3 cups {500 to 750 mL}. While the pasta is cooking, toast the bread crumbs in a dry saucepan over medium heat until the crumbs are golden. Set them aside.
On medium heat, slowly fry your garlic and chili pepper in the olive oil. You don't want the garlic to cook too fast in oil that's too hot or it will become bitter. When you want is to coax the sweetness out of it. This, of course, will be done way before your spaghetti, so get it off the heat and set it aside.
Once your spaghetti is cooked, you're ready to finish the dish, and this is where you have to pay attention. Traditionally, you'd throw in your pasta and reduce the sauce so that it adheres to the pasta. But if that happens here, you'll dry out your spaghetti and end up adding more olive oil, making the dish way too heavy. So what you're going to do this time is add 1 to 2 cups {250 to 500 mL} of the reserved pasta cooking water to the garlic in the pan, then put in your pasta. Cook this over medium heat for about 1 minutes, stirring or tossing it os that the pasta finishes cooking and the starches come out. You've heard that oil and water don't mix. Well, watch this: as the pasta water cooks, it's going to combine with the oil to create a flavourful sauce that coats your spaghetti. Once that happens, you're done.
Divide the pasta among 4 plates. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture on top. E basta!
Now that my appetite is coming back this sounds delicious!
Btw, the QB that is up there in the ingredients, I just guessed for whatever reason that it means quanto basto or basta...whichever, I googled it and it means pretty much "to taste". So there ya go in case you didn't know.
I am having a hard time trying to figure out what e basta means, but I am guess "that's it"!
Anyways, just try this recipe and let me know what you think.
Yum.
-S.*
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