In a perfect world (Spaghetti with sausage and vodka rosé)

In a perfect world, I'd print a recipe from the web (or find it in a recipe book), pull the ingredients out of my well-stocked pantry, and have dinner ready within 30 minutes. And the dishes would be magically done while we sat down at the table to enjoy a perfectly rounded meal at our leisure.

Sigh.

In reality however, you come home hoping you remembered to pull something from the freezer, struggle to find the recipe you planned to use and follow it. Get something on the table in under an hour (if you're good and/or lucky or both), and eat it in front of the TV while ignoring the dirty dishes until there's so many that you have to do them just to remember you have counter space. (No, we don't have a dish washer. Thank you. We'll rush right out and get one on your recommendation. And if you believe that ... ).

Last night had an added complication: I didn't want to cook.
I didn't want beans and I didn't want chicken. Having anything else in my kitchen right now requires some work. And I didn't want to work. It was 6:30 and I was hungry but the only thing that appealed was take-out.

I dug about in the freezer and found a package of bratwhurst. They're good sausages, but not too tasty. In the pantry I found an older bottle of vodka rosé spaghetti sauce. We have a ton of straight spaghetti (OK, ok, ... 2 1/2 packs ... slightly less than a ton.), but less than 1/2 a box of whole wheat rigatoni. (NOTE to self: Buy more whole wheat rigatoni, use up what I have for a lunch later this week. Hrm Vodka rosé on gnocchi with some kind of vegetable might be good too... nope. Not in the mood for gnocchi. Save the idea for a later lunch.)

I boiled the frozen sausages until they were thawed and barely cooked. I took them out and wiped the pan dry. I sliced the sausages into small rounds and tossed them back into the heating pan with a bit of olive oil. I thought about adding herbs at this point, but decided it was too much work.

I boiled water for the pasta.

Once the sausages got some color, it was my intention to add the sauce and scrape up all the wonderful brown stuff on the bottom of the pan. But I waited too long and the brown stuff went black. The sausage weren't stuck, so I poured them out and into a shallow pot with the pasta sauce.

I added the pasta (breaking the strands in half), and set the timer for 8 minutes.

Digging about in the rotter (... I mean the crisper...), I pulled out a box of spinach and 1/2 a head of romaine. A little rinsing, a little dicing, and we had salad. The dressing was an italian bottle of Wellness.

When the timer went off for the pasta, I rinsed it in the sink in warm water and returned it to the pot for a moment. As it sizzled, I turned off the heat on the stove top, and added the pasta and sausage mix to the pasta and stirred.

I served it in bowls brought into the front room where we watched back-to-back old episodes of Stargate SG-1.

Not a perfect world - but at least, a good dinner.

Ingredients
1/2 bottle of spaghetti sauce (store-bought Vodka Rosé in my case)
6 bratwurst sausages
1/2 tsp olive oil
2 servings of straight spaghetti
1/2 head romaine lettuce, washed and spun
2 cups spinach, washed and spun

Directions

1. Place the sausages in boiling water and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until gray and mostly thawed.
2. Remove from the boiling water and cut into slices. Dump the water and wipe out the pan.
3. Add the olive oil to the pan and bring up to a medium heat.
4. Add the sliced sausages to the pan and cook, shaking the pan occasionally, until the sausages gain some color.
5. Boil the water for the pasta.
6. Dice the romaine lettuce and spinach, add into a bowl for salad.
7. Set the timer for 8 minutes. Start it. Add the pasta to the water.
8. Drain the sausages of any build up of oil.
   
9. Add the pasta sauce to the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan to incorporate.
10. When the timer expires, drain the pasta into a colander.
11. Rinse the pasta well.
12. Add it back to the pot.
13. Add the sauce and sausage. Mix to incorporate.
14. Serve.
    

One frying pan pasta meal (sort of)

I bought a couple of Lean Cuisine's skillet sensations recently. They're quick and easy to prepare and are a great alternative for me on nights that I really don't want to cook (and the allure of take out beckons). From time to time I play with the concept of making such a meal from scratch. The skillet sensation is rather like pan hash, replacing the potatoes with pasta and gravy with whatever sauce you have on hand.

I grew up in a household where, if my father was cooking, it would either be something on the barbeque, a quickly opened can of Claude's Chicken Frico, eggs, or pan hash.

My father's recipe for pan hash is as follows:

Peel and dice cooked potatoes into freshly melted butter. Add diced chicken, or ham, or roast beef. Follow with a handful or two of frozen vegetables (whatever in the freezer is good), or leftover canned vegetables (do not drain). Add just enough water, or stock, or beer to keep the mess from sticking. Flavour with salt and pepper, cover with leftover gravy, and serve as soon as the potatoes have developed a crisp edge and everything is hot.

The recipe doesn't work well with fresh vegetables (I tried), but it works great with tinned meats or fish. My version's slightly different (and perhaps not surprisingly longer).

Drop a halved clove of garlic into almost foamless melted butter. Once the aroma rises, discard the clove. Add 1/2 a diced onion and cook until translucent. Peel and dice cooked potatoes and drop them into the pan. Add a cube of frozen chicken stock to the hot pan and stir well, making sure to coat the cold potatoes. Add a cup of frozen vegetables to the top of the mix. Cover for 5 minutes until the vegetables are thawed and starting to warm. Add diced protein or a full can of fish (drained and rinsed). Stir to incorporate. If it starts to stick, add another cube of frozen chicken stock. Crisp is good, sticking is not. Free with a spatula and stir. The potatoes will break up; that's OK. Season with fresh herbs (dill for fish, rosemary for chicken, tarragon for beef, oregano and thyme regardless). Dust with red chili flakes, salt and pepper. Cook until everything is hot. Serve at once.

Then I saw those pasta meals. I'm not a big fan of regular pasta (I shouldn't eat it anyways) but I've always loved pasta sauce. Its velvety textures, it's luscious smells; my mouth waters just thinking about it.

So, one Saturday night when I should have known better I tried an odd combination.

Spätzle (German egg noodles), broccoli, diced chicken, and brown sauce.

Make brown sauce. Cook pasta according to package instructions less 5 minutes. Add frozen broccoli in a steamer atop the pasta for the last 5 minutes of the cooking time. Drain (but do not rince) the pasta and add it to the pan. Set the broccoli aside to cool slightly. Season the pan with a cube of frozen chicken stock and a clove of diced garlic. Once the aroma begins to fill the kitchen, add the pasta, diced chicken, broccoli and brown sauce and stir to incorporate. Serve once everything's steamy.

Brown sauce is amazingly rich ...but bland. I'm not sure what I wanted with this. I ended up adding oregano, rosemary, hot chili flakes and pepper at the table to give it more flavour. It was good (especially with the herbs and spices) and I'll definitely try this again; only next time I'll try it using something like tomato arrabiata, or simple marinara as a sauce. Then again, maybe I should have tried making the sauce from paprika Huhn.

Once I get this recipe down, I'll go about seeing to amounts and actual instructions in some sort of structured manner. Right now, I'm playing with tastes.