Exceptionally good spaghettini with mushrooms sauteed in garlic butter.
The challenge is always to find a great pasta sauce. The boutique grocery that makes my favourite is an annoyingly long drive away, but I was very happy with my latest choice, Stefano marinara, from my local grocery. Two things caught my eye – the claim on the label that it was “simple”, and most importantly, the fact that it comes from Montreal. Inspired by the French love of good food, Montreal is Canada’s culinary capital. My reasoning was spot on – the stuff is delicious. I was going to add minced garlic, but after doing the finger-dip test in the opened jar, I decided not to mess with a good thing.
I’ve noticed in reviews of mass-market pasta sauces, Rao’s frequently gets the top rating. Rao’s is a famed old Italian restaurant in New York which I’m sure is excellent, but Rao’s marinara as sold at retail is, to my mind, mediocre at best. Stefano is miles better!
We ended up making my husband’s idea - super-thinly sliced ribeye steaks, grilled, on a sandwich roll with sautéed mushrooms and swiss cheese. Fantastic!
It was a very pleasant evening weather wise so I cooked a stir fry of veggies and rice and we ate outside.
One too many GnTs so today is going to be a very slow day .
Parents in law over tonight and so I will be getting a lot of sushi to bring home .
Tonight is the kind of lazy dinner I like – leftover spaghetti and sauteed mushrooms – all the work done yesterday, everything dishwashed and put away. Just dump some of the spaghettini and mushrooms into a shallow pasta bowl, throw on a few thin slivers of garlic butter, nuke, sprinkle with Parmesan, and enjoy with the rest of last night’s Cabernet!
Started with a romaine, cherry tomatoes, Gorgonzola salad with vinaigrette dressing. Then chicken tortellinis with a mushroom cream sauce.
Washed down with three beers I don’t love. (A friend made me an awesome gift bucket with cheese, summer sausage, popcorn, crackers, pistachios, and six beers. Six lagers, not my favorite style. So I made three disappear tonight.)
I made homemade pizza with refrigerated dough from the store. I didn’t read the directions! I was supposed to par-cook the crust, but I didn’t. It didn’t cook in the time on the package (duh!) so I cranked the heat and kept an eye on it.
A small bowl of tomato soup with croutons, some sharp cheddar cheese slices with crusty French bread, some BBQ Fritos and a glass of ice water. For afters, homemade English toffee and a glass of milk.
Just knocked up a batch of pizza dough and will be making a big stack of individual pizzas tonight, family plus parents in law and daughter’s boyfriend. Once again the weather is awesome so we will be eating outside and I’ll be making pizzas on the fly on the grill on a pizza stone.
No doubt wine or beer to accompany, will be giving the GnTs a miss this time . Possibly.
This recipe is what I use, seems to work well just needs a bit more salt.
The holidays have our shopping/cooking out of wack, but sometimes that works. My gf combined some seashell pasta, milk, various holiday cheeses, steamed than mashed broccoli, and a piece of leftover hot smoked coho salmon to make the most amazing mac&cheese I’ve had in ages.
I feel bad because I only post here when I have a nice picture even though I check here all the time for ideas and inspiration. Here’s Steak 'n Potatoes 'n Glazed Carrots. The carrots was a made up thing of about-to-go-bad green onions, the last little bits of light brown sugar, butter and tajin because why not.
