Cooking as Stress Relief

There are only two things that I enjoy so completely that I am transported away from the minutia of daily life. Music and cooking. The acts of making music and of cooking are both so self-involved and yet therapeutic. After rehearsals I have come out of them thinking, "Wow, for the last hour I haven't thought about how much I have to do (or all those emails I haven't responded to, or the all the mistakes I've made in the last week)." The same goes for cooking. A close third is a joy-ride.

For Memorial Day we squatted with a portable Weber grill in the alley behind my apartment and grilled! Jacob is the actual grill-master (I probably couldn't even light it) but I prepped everything for him and kept him company while he manned the grill. We made beer brats by sauteeing them in butter and onions and boiling them in some Heineken. Then we finished them on the grill. I had a craving for asparagus and zucchini so I tossed them in olive oil, pressed garlic, and salt & pepper before getting them nice and caramelized on the grill. Yum.

Jacob has a favorite recipe for grilled corn from growing up, which is just tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with Lawry's seasoning salt. When I was younger I was a purist when it comes to summer sweet corn. Why waste a good ear of corn? I also didn't like anything charred, so it would seem my tastes are broadening. It'll be a while until I eat a piece of burnt toast though.

Happy Spring!

If you've been wondering why I've been absent, it's because Jacob is back! We're stopping to smell the flowers.

Spaghetti all' Amatriciana

If Bon Appetit magazine taught me anything this month, it's that I am already awesome at making pasta. But let's face it, I've had a ton of practice. I've always had a weakness for pasta and as a college student it's been my weekly staple. The first thing I ever tried to cook was a recreation of a recipe I saw on Lidia Bastianich's show on PBS. This was even before the days of the Food Network. I did it mostly by memory and with a little guidance (and well-meaning intervening) from my dad. It was an all'Amatriciana recipe that took a little different form: prosciutto, rotini, canned tomatoes painstakingly quartered. I made it this way for years...until this year when I realized that this was too much work and that regular bacon is friendlier on the pocket-book. Also, if you're trying to woo a man with your cooking "bacon" is an important word. "Prosciutto" is not.

Last year Jacob took me to Trattoria DOC on Evanston's Main St. and he ordered Bucatini all'Amatriciana which came with crispy chunks of bacon. This is what made me realize that my recipe was close to something great, and was in fact more work than it needed to be. So I followed Henry David Thoreau's wise words and Simplified!

So this is truly a recipe I "wrote" on my own, but turns out there are pretty similar recipes out there. Like in this month's Bon Appetit for example. I'd like to say I did it first, but there's no point.



Ingredients:
6 slices of bacon (or half a package), cut crosswise into strips
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can whole tomatoes, chopped with a food processor
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for serving
1 lb thick spaghetti
salt

Directions:
Set a large pot of water to boil. Add about a tablespoon of salt. (This seems like a lot, but it's not).

Cook the bacon in a large saute pan until crispy. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Discard the bacon grease, leaving all the brown bits in the pan.



Add the olive oil to the same pan. When oil is hot, add the garlic and saute until golden brown. Add onion and saute for about 10 minutes, or until translucent and brown around the edges. The moisture from the onions should de-glaze the pan.

Add tomatoes and their juices to the pan along with the bacon and red pepper flakes. Simmer for about 15 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated.



Once you add the tomatoes to the pan, this is a good time to cook the pasta. Barilla Thick Spaghetti calls for a cooking time of 11-12 minutes. I add the pasta to the boiling water and set the timer immediately for 11 minutes. The pasta is usually al dente and just right when the timer goes off.

Remove the sauce from the heat and add the cheese. Stir until melted. Add the spaghetti to the sauce immediately after draining and stir to coat.

Serve and enjoy!



The key to this recipe is the cheeeeese! This is my favorite Pecorino because it's very dry, salty, and distinctly "sheepish" for lack of a better word. The flavor is unmistakable. Also pictured is my Microplane grater which I could not live without. Best kitchen gadget you could buy and I think mine was only $12.



This is the consistency of the tomatoes I use. If you've ever watched the Barefoot Contessa, you'll notice there are a few things she swears by: homemade chicken stock, good extra-virgin olive oil, and canned whole tomatoes (versus buying them diced or crushed). The tomatoes they turn into diced and crushed tomatoes are a lower quality than the ones they keep whole. And if you have a food processor it's really fast and easy to chop them yourself. Don't worry about getting them uniformly chopped. I like how the processor leaves some big chunks on top while still achieving an almost puree in the bottom. It helps coat the pasta with tomato while still leaving those big bites.

Nostalgiattack

Maybe it's the spring weather bringing back memories of my high school days - after acquiring a drivers' license but before everyone went off to college - and the pseudo-freedom that accompanied them. It's a strange time to be longing for, but there are certain things I miss. Maybe I'm feeling a particularly intense bout of that "innocence lost" thing.

Anyway, for fear of getting too personal, I've made a mix to say things for me. Or so I can wallow in my nostalgia for a while. Either way, I hope it strikes a chord with someone else.