When I think of cooking, I normally don't think of it as "crafting." But it is most certainly a craft. And it is one of the few that I actually feel adept at. I am not an experienced chef, by any means. Having watched both those formally trained in the culinary arts and those folks who seem to simply have it in their blood, I am well aware of my skill level. And yet I continue to cook because it is something I enjoy. You know you love something when even the failures are a good experience.
For some reason, particularly gloomy rainy days always make me want to cook. On this particular day, I decided it was too stormy to get out of my pajamas and there was no way in hell I was willing to run to the store for supplies. But one of my favorite things to make is what I call Rainy Day Pasta. It is an ever-changing, yet reliably tasty dish that incorporates whatever the heck you want it to and doesn't take long to make. What could be better?
I made this particular dish with you, whomever you are, in mind. Which is to say that since you're reading a blog called Crafts for the Uncrafty, I felt free to (1) cook with ingredients that were not in their prime and (2) cook my sauce in a wok, which I'm sure will horrify many (it was the first pan I saw and I wondered if it would make a difference - it didn't).
Here are the ingredients I used:
A few cloves of garlic, 20 or so cherry tomatoes (that were a bit wrinkly, but tasted fabulous just the same), about 10 basil leaves (straight from the garden, by which I mean the planter on the back deck), some campanelle pasta (they look like little ruffled lilies), a couple tablespoons of olive oil, some red pepper flakes and some coarse salt. Basically, you can take a standard recipe for Aglio et Olio (garlic and olive oil pasta) and add things you happen to have lying around in your pantry/fridge to it. But this is a simple dish and should be kept fairly simple. Maybe keep it under 10 ingredients? Maybe not.
First, we prep. Well, first we put on a big ol' pot of salted water to boil, then we prep.
My brother won't touch cherry tomatoes if the skin has begun to wrinkle at all. I prefer to cook them in something (with eggs in a scramble, as sauce for a pasta, sauteed with garlic then slathered on toast). I halved these ones, but there's no need to chop them up further as they'll break down in the pan.
I usually do the basil chiffonade (this prep style) toward the end, but if you don't want to have to worry about it later, just do it now. Stack up your leaves (if they're store-bought, they'll probably be significantly bigger than mine) and do NOT stack up as many as I did here - use this video instead. You see down there how there's a lot of dark green on my basil? That's because I bruised the hell out of it. Why? Because I didn't care. I was being heartless. Don't be heartless with your basil. To be honest, I minced it after this, so really just do whatever you want - you're the one who'll be eating it, after all.
I like to make lots of dirty dishes, so I put all the different ingredients in separate bowls (I would have done that even if I weren't trying to make it look pretty for you). At some point, your water will have started boiling and you should put that campanelle (or whatever pasta you have lying around) into the water. Remember that you want that pasta to be just barely al dente - it's going to finish in the saucepan (or in this case, the wok - ah ha ha ha!) and you don't want it to be mushy at any point. You know that idea some people have to throw spaghetti on the ceiling and if it sticks, it's done? Please don't do that. Unless you really like ceiling art. Also, my mother would like you to know that the oil you see in the wok (see below) is too much oil to start with.
Use a regular pan (don't heat a nonstick pan on empty) and let it heat up without anything in it. Use low to medium heat to start, but be careful on the higher end of the spectrum (we don't want to burn that garlic). Once the pan is hot, add the oil, then add the garlic for about thirty seconds. Turn up the heat (medium to medium-high) and then you can add those tomatoes. Once they break down a little, add the red pepper flakes (once or twice around the pan, depending on how spicy you like it) and season with some salt. Or you can do what I did and add everything at the same time over medium heat.
If you want to get the most flavor out of it, you should really take the steps and avoid the dump-it-all-in method. That was incredibly lazy of me. Also remember to "season as you go." You won't want to add more pepper, but check the flavor to see if the sauce needs more salt a couple of times while it cooks.
At this point, you're really just waiting for your pasta to be done. Once it is, drain most of the liquid - keep maybe a cup of pasta water. I keep that on the side, in case my sauce is too dry, but I also don't dump my pasta into a colander. Instead I drain off most of the water, then dump the pasta and remaining pasta water into the pan with my sauce. Won't your sauce be thin? Yes, yes it will. I like to actually taste the pasta - it tastes good! Once you've added the pasta and combined it with the sauce, add all or most of the basil and let it marry in the pan briefly. If you see that your sauce isn't coating the pasta, add a little pasta water.
Heat all that together for no more than five minutes, once you've added the basil. Then plate that puppy. If you're lucky, you'll remember at the last minute that you have some pecorino romano in the fridge and you can finely grate some over the top of this. I started making this dish only hoping it would turn out okay. I ended up enjoying it with a glass of Prosecco because I just really wanted a sparkling wine and didn't care about wine pairings at the time. The pecorino romano (much saltier than plain ol' pecorino) helped because I forgot to season the sauce early on. Season as you go! Buon appetito!
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