A Little Slice of Italy

National Pasta Days - March 15 and 16

Just reading this was music to my ears. I love pasta. It is the one food that revives me from a multitude of symptoms: when I am irritated and grumpy, spaghetti and meatballs saves the day, when have the flu, I eat chicken noodle soup (there's pasta in there!), when I am hung-over... KD is a remedy I hold close to my heart.
The problem with this love is that I cannot cook it for myself (with the exceptions of Kraft Dinner, lipton chicken noodle soup, and Sidekicks pasta dishes). My challenge for National Pasta Day is to cook pasta- all by myself.
You may write this off as "not a big deal" or "not very difficult." What I have to say to you is, "Talk to the raw muffins, dozens of singed cookies (Pilsbury included), destroyed taco and mixed green salads. They will tell you that for me to make something on my own and not royally screw it up is a BIG deal.


1:42 - The preparation begins. I went to my fridge, realized we had no Ragu sauce.. First bump in the road.


1:44- Decide to figure that out later and choose the pasta shape now. Linguine looked a little complicated, being thicker and wider than Spaghetti. Macaroni was too similar to KD. I decided to take on the bow-ties, they're cutest and I had the perfect little amount left that I thought would be just fine.


1:48- Fill up a pot with water, turn on stove, and salt it. I heard on a cooking show once that salting your water makes the noodles taste better, and the water boil faster. So I did it. Not sure how much you're supposed to do...


1:49- Stare at the pot on the stove.


1:51- Realize that I don't know how to make pasta sauce. Therefore, I will just butter and cheese my bow ties.


1:52- The water is boiling! Dump the small handful of bow ties into the scalding hot water.


1:53- Realize I am probably going to need more pasta...


1:53(still)- Pasta is just cooking away.. I am officially losing interest.


1:55- Apparently there was too much water, as the pot is officially boiling over all over my stove. Shit.


1:57- I assemble my other key tools and ingredients: Strainer, bowl, fork, butter, and grated parmesan cheese. I'm also becoming very impatient because real pasta takes heck of a lot longer than the instant stuff. 


2:01- I figure they are done now.. So I strain them, and pour them into my bowl. This is where I proceed to experimentally adding in butter and cheese until I think it looks like a decent ratio (plain and simply unhealthy).


2:02- EAT! According to my boy, they are supposed to be "al dente" tender, but chewy. Mine are just all around crunchy. I swear, you can hear the crunches!


All in all.. I give myself a pat on the back for effort. As far as taste goes, I thought it was pretty good. Could have had some minor adjustments such as being more thoroughly cooked.. but I commend myself for trying! Operation bow tie was a partial success!

WOO HOO!

Some other holidays for those who are interested:

March 15

-True Confessions Day

-Companies that Care Day

March 16

-Lips Appreciation Day

-Everything you do is right day (my personal favorite)

-Vitamin C Discovery Day

-National Quilt day

All for now,


Aimee OC