Anne Can Cook

I didn't think anyone in my family was interested in any of the weirder stuff* I cook. While I was looking around for recipes to try while I'm at my parents' house, I came across this recipe for what I've been calling avocado spaghetti. I thought it sounded interesting, and like it might be a nice, summery alternative to heavier spaghetti sauce.
My parents weren't too interested, however. Amazingly, my younger brother agreed to give it a try. Since it was just the two of us for dinner tonight, I went for it.
Since the website is in Italian, and GoogleTranslate can only do so much, I made a few guesses on the preparation. For instance, I toasted my almonds in the toaster oven, since I have no idea what pentolino refers to.
Gaps in translation aside, this was incredibly easy to assemble. I toasted the almonds and mashed up the avocado cream while waiting for the water to boil. It took me maybe 10 minutes to do all of that.
In terms of flavor, it was about what I expected. The flavor of the avocado is dominant, with hints of thyme. Running across little toasted almonds is pretty delightful, but it is apparently just as good without. My brother skipped them on his and he loved it.
The bread in the picture is a three-cheese foccacia from the local grocery store bakery. I can't stop eating it.

*includes curry, pesto, and anything with avocados.

Sounds and looks simple, doesn't it? It is, really. I wasn't looking for complicated last night when I was thinking about dinner. I just got back from my service trip, and there is very little for food in my house. I was really excited when StumbleUpon pulled up this Smitten Kitchen recipe.
The only changes I made were halving(ish) the recipe and using some Dubliner aged cheddar instead of Pecorino Romano.

I successfully used the last of my spaghetti. It's very strange to think that I have no spaghetti in my house right now.

The pasta was good. Peppery. Cheesy, Creamy. Simple. I love dishes like this, dishes that are borderline fancy because of their simplicity.

Sauces and I are not traditionally friends. My favorite way to sauce a pasta is either to fake a cream sauce with cream cheese or to open a jar. I think the only pasta sauce I ever successfully made without incident was the cheese sauce for The Pioneer Woman's mac and cheese.

Spinach and I are friends. I love spinach, and would even go so far to say that it is my favorite leafy green foodstuff. The problem with spinach is that I can never eat an entire pack of it before it goes back. Grocery stores need to sell 1/2 or 1/4 packs for people who live alone. Anyway, in an attempt to up my vegetable intake, I bought a package of spinach. I've been using it almost daily on sandwiches and things, but I've barely made a dent in it.

How else could I use the spinach? I did some pondering the other night and decided that a creamy spinach pasta would be a delightful dinner.

Well, it was not without its flaws, but it was tasty.

Firstly, I didn't put in nearly enough spinach. Secondly, I started the sauce/spinach saute much too early, so it reduced too much by the time I needed it. It was pretty tasty, though. Especially when I paired it with some warm garlic bread.
I eyeballed basically everything and I have no idea how much spaghetti I used. The goal was to use enough to for leftovers for lunch the next day, which I had. I also had about a serving and a half at dinner. So enough spaghetti for about three servings?
1 Tbsp. butter
4 minced gloves of garlic
2 cups of fresh baby spinach
3/4 cup of white wine, divided
1/4 cup of milk
1 oz fat free cream cheese
1 Tbsp. cornstarch (added because the sauce was not to the thickness I wanted)
1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Enough spaghetti for three servings

In a pot, get the water going for the spaghetti. I started the sauce before the spaghetti and it was a huge and obvious mistake. Once the water is boiling, toss in the spaghetti and let it cook for the amount of time it states on the package.
In a small pan, melt the butter. Once the butter has melted, add the garlic and cook for a minute or two. Add in the spinach and allow it to wilt down. Stir it all up. Add 1/2 cup of the wine and let it bowl and reduce a little bit.
Strain the spaghetti and put it back on the stove top on low heat. Add in the spinach/wine mixture and stir. Add the cream cheese, milk, and the rest of the wine. Stir. If the sauce doesn't thicken to your liking, add cornstarch. Finally, stir in the Parmesan cheese and serve. I ground some pepper on mine, but don't feel obligated if that isn't your thing.

Cheesy, garlicky, spinachy. I wish I had added way more spinach, but there you have it. I love cooking with white wine, by the way. There's something about it that adds such an excellent flavor.

The garlic bread was a take and bake loaf I picked up at my local grocery store. It wasn't very garlicky, but it was still quite good and was an excellent addition to the pasta.

I'm not sure what else I have planned for this week in the food department. I'm still pawing through my new cookbooks. This week, in comparison to last week, is very quiet and somewhat slow. I feel like busy week and not-so-busy weeks tend to be equally draining at the end of the day.

I have been bad about updating again, but with reason this time--I haven't really done any cooking! For shame!
I have been too lazy/tired/absorbed by the internet to really put forth an effort. Therefore, I've had copious amounts of Pasta-Roni lately.

I'm going to try and get back into the groove. It's so easy to fall out of it.

I did make a decent stir fry last week. I say decent because it had good components and bad components. The good: The chicken. I don't know what I did to make it so tender and flavorful, but it rocked hard. The broccoli was also good, but broccoli is always good in a stir fry.
My biggest issue was the noodles I tried to pan fry. I didn't boil them long enough, and so they got crusty and weird and hard and awful. I also burned the zucchini waiting for the noodles to boil, so they were mostly bitter.

You would think, after making so many stir fries, one would cease to screw them up. Apparently that isn't true.

I also (and you can laugh here since there's no technical skill involved) made some kickass spaghetti recently. I used the suggestion off the back of Penzeys pasta sprinkle. I boiled the spaghetti, drained it, and tossed it with a little olive oil, pasta sprinkle, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar! I love balsamic vinegar! I also gave it a good sprinkle of parmesan cheese, because that's how I roll. It was some of the best spaghetti I've had.

Anyway, I promise I'll do some legitimate cooking this week and not eat just pasta-roni.

And a note on the Nutella cookies--I think they may need a little more flour than the recipe calls for. They got a little sticky as they sat.