An American Macaroni & Cheese in Spain

What happens when, while living abroad, you make one of the most American foods ever, which happens to be the most important side dish of the dinner of the second most American holiday in existence¹, for a quantity of no less than 30 people from six different countries, in a house in the mountains, where eating, boozing [repeat and repeat], laughing, hiking, and fighting the dog for stolen turkey bones from the garbage commence for approximately a weekend? You get zero pictures of the finished product in all it's magnificent glory, and are forced to steal any photographic evidence of its cooked existence from other people's facebook albums. And contrary to what you may initially have thought, your Thanksgiving in Spain is pleasingly similar to Thanksgiving at home, with the hilarious exception of the entire "family" getting plastered and the addition of a resplendent mountain backdrop and a pool. Basically, my Thanksgiving in Spain was amahzing, but more importantly my Spanish rendition of Linda's [mommy] famous macaroni and cheese was a success!

For starters, I must talk about the Españification of this American classic, because while the Spaniards are quite fond of cheese, they are not quite so fond of variety or importing good American cheddar. And though my Spanish is still not where I want it to be three months into this adventure, I was still able to clearly communicate with the guy at the carnicería that a gub'ment cheese-looking block of mild cheddar was not hell what I was looking for.

Sausage & Peppers Penne Pasta

So I'm pretty sure there's a downside to my obsession with Jersey Shore. But at present, I can't name one. In my defense, I don't have a single thing in common with any of the characters on the show, so it's not like I'm in danger of being easily influenced by their fame. For starters, I'm from South Jersey, which is practically an entirely different state than the northern counterpart--which I might add is where ALL of these Jersey centric televised spectacles are filmed. South Jersey is largely a suburb of Philadelphia, and as such, is generally populated with generic, non fist-pumping white people, farmland, a few urban enclaves with typical urban challenges that the aforementioned group likes to pretend doesn't exist [side eye], and some of the best strip mall shopping in the mid-atlantic region [seriously and they're all 15-20 minutes away from each other].

Meatless Monday: City Girl Pasta Bowl

So I've decided to trademark the term "City Girl", and use it as the descriptor for my "original" recipes that I post on the blog when I can't think of anything else to call them. And by trademark, I mean, I'm going to use that term egregiously, claim it as my own, having done no prerequisite google search in order to avoid having my bubble burst upon discovering that some skank has already trademarked the term and is making a boat load of money by selling nasty food marketed to weight conscious women in our weight obsessed society. ::End mini-rant:: But actually now that I mention it, I probably should look into it, right? I mean, it's a pretty good idea--the trademarking thing--not the marketing of nasty low cal products, right? Hmm, that's something I can mull over before I pass out from a benedryl and white wine induced coma on my flight to Spain tomorrow! ¡Mañana a la feria!

Meatless Monday: Fettuccine Marinara

There's something about butter that just makes me lose all common sense, and forget that it's loaded with artery clogging cholesterol and trans fats. I'm still confused as to how Paula Deen (Hi Y'all!) seems to be able to consume it in copious quantities and not drop dead or weigh half a ton, but I guess that's a conversation for another day. I'm sure you're wondering the the hell butter has to do with a simple pasta dish. Allow me to explain. You see, several months ago, after having seen the most depressing movie, possibly of all time, I found a little piece of happiness in a Middle Eastern dish whose name escapes me, that featured lamb and rice and crispy pita pieces fried in sizzling butter. If I said it had me at "sizzling butter", would that be too cliché? I suppose that doesn't really matter seeing as how cliché or not, that's exactly what happened. Like I said, butter has this a strange power over me, I couldn't help myself.

Fast forward to Sunday evening. I was hungry, tired, and practically out of food because I refuse to go grocery shopping during the weekend for any reason other than impending Armageddon, and even then, I would still try to wait till Monday evening just to avoid the rush.  Looking at my bare "pantry", I realized that pasta was my only option for dinner, and  was less than enthused about it. That was, of course, until I had an "a-ha" moment and remembered the crunchy buttery goodness of that fried pita, that made that meal so memorable could probably do the same for my hum drum pasta. Suddenly, I was excited about fettuccine noodles with store bought pasta sauce for dinner. Because of the life enriching shortening qualities of butter, I considered substituting olive oil in which to fry the pita.  I debated back and forth with my inner fat girl about why I should use olive oil instead--but in the end, that heifer somehow talked me into a compromise to use both. She also told me to add garlic to mix. Well, my inner fat girl was onto something. Something delicious! And next time, I'm going to do the right thing and use olive oil only. We can't all escape the grim reaper like my beloved Paula (Hi Y'all!)

Ingredients
1/2 box fettuccine noodles
1 jar pasta sauce
8-10 leaves fresh basil, thinly sliced (chiffonade)
1 flat pita, sliced into 1 inch pieces
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp +1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Fresh Cracked Black Pepper
Sea Salt

In a very large pot, bring water seasoned with sea salt and olive oil to a rolling boil. In a heavy skillet, melt butter and olive oil over a medium flame. Add garlic and chopped pita pieces, coating them evenly in butter. Saute about 4 minutes on each side or until both sides are deep brown and pita is crispy. Remove from skillet and set aside. In that same skillet, add 1 tbsp olive oil, pasta sauce and basil leaves, and let simmer on low heat. While sauce is simmering, add pasta noodles to boiling water, cook about 9 minutes or until tender, but with a firm bite (al dente). When sauce is heated thoroughly, combine with pasta and remove from flame. Plate pasta, arranging pita pieces on of and throughout the dish. Top with a healthy dose of coarsely ground black pepper and grated Parmesan.  Serve and enjoy. Then eat more pasta with more pita pieces. And then eat the rest of the pita piece as a "snack" or whatever you want to call it, because you and I both know that fried pieces of bread aren't going to be so very crispy on the second day.

Meatless Monday: Pepato Farfale Pasta

It's my first meatless Monday post! I promise to fill you in on details behind this movement, but for now, let's talk about the food.

I like pepper. A lot. I like pepper in all its forms, but I especially like black pepper. As far as I'm concerned,  it's one of the spices I absolutely can't live without. I heavily pepper my scrambled eggs for breakfast, I put it in dipping olive oil, I've even made black pepper vodka! So imagine my delight when I came across a pecorino pepato while browsing the cheese aisle in Whole Check Foods. It's an intensely sharp and salty sheep's milk cheese with whole back peppercorns in it. Initially, I was just looking for cheese to eat with a crusty baguette, but when I saw that, I just knew I had to use it in the pasta dish I was planning to make.

Ingredients
1/2 cup pecorino pepato, shredded
1 box farfale (bowtie) pasta
1 jar 4 cheese pasta sauce (don't judge me, I was in a rush)
Fresh cracked black pepper
Fresh basil leaves

This was super easy and only took about half an hour to make from start to finish.

In a large pot, bring water with salt and olive oil to a boil. Add pasta and cook about 8 minutes or until a little firmer than al dente. Drain and set aside. In a large skillet, simmer sauce with 1/4 cup of cheese and a healthy dose of black pepper. When sauce begins to bubble, stir in pasta, and let simmer another 2 to 3 minutes. Shred another 1/4 cup of cheese over pasta and sauce. Serve in a bowl and stir in fresh basil leaves.

You may have noticed that there was no salt added to this dish, and with good reason. The pecorino is very salty on its own, and jarred pasta sauces often serve up a whopping amount of sodium. In lieu of this fact, next time, I'm going to actually my own percorino pasta sauce. I've never made my own pasta sauce, but I know it will totally be worth it, and I'll be sure to share when I do.

Oh and in case you were wondering, it was really really good, and completely meat free.

(Eat, Read, Rant!) NO MEAT!