House update: Wednesday

[electricland]

My aunt reports:

For lunch today, Dan, John and I had tortierre and avocado salad.
John installed a light in Jen's bedroom and did yet more work on her countertop. ("So what is it?", I said. "A grand piano?")
Dan worked on woodwork on the first floor and the windows, all of which is now paintable. (Have fun, guys.)
John and Dan are off to Rona to buy grills for Robin's laundry door, caulking and tapcones, which, I discovered, at self-taping screws for use in cement.
Cheers, Helen

I made dinner last night. ("Ooh!" you say.) I was all busy making spaghetti alla vongole and was in fact nearly ready to add the clams to the tomato sauce when I remembered The Ham, the remains of which are still sitting in my fridge.

"Hey!" I said. "I still have the ham!"

"You could do spaghetti carbonara!" said crankygrrl.

"I was just thinking that!" I said. "If you don't mind missing out on the clams."

Mad rush ensued, which would have been a slightly less chaotic undertaking if I had any spare counter space in the kitchen (really need to get that under control), but it actually worked out pretty well. I bought Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking a while back on deep discount, and hadn't used it until a couple of weeks ago when I found myself with a quarter of a spiral-cut ham on my hands and a pressing need for a pasta carbonara recipe better than my old "throw an egg and some ham and cheese into the spaghetti and see what happens" version. Hers is really good. I didn't have any parsley and I only had parmesan, no reggiano (she calls for both), but I did open a bottle of white wine specially and really it all worked out very nicely. A carbs 'n' fat extravaganza. I froze the tomato sauce.

Comments

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

sounds delicious. :::dashes off to make dinner:::

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Marcella also says, rather austerely in my opinion, that "it is difficult to imagine serving carbonara sauce with any pasta but spaghetti."

She's wrong, though, because the first time I made it I had no spaghetti so I made it with fusilli. And it was good.

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

you're creative...my cooking skills frighten anyone who has to experience them.

ps. sent you a little something today...*hugs*