Monday Night Dinner

I was going to write a post this week about how my biggest pet peeve with cooking shows and cooking magazines is that they always devote the month of November to how to build a new and better Thanksgiving. Nobody really wants a new and better Thanksgiving, they want the Thanksgiving they grew up eating. What I want is for one cooking magazine to be a rebel and say:

“You know what? If the public wants to know how to brine/grill/fry a turkey they can read one of the 8000 other cooking magazines. We’re going to be daring and help our readers out with what to do with the leftovers.”

Then I was going to talk about Turkey Tettrazini which is what my family traditionally does with leftover turkey. But sometimes Dinner throws you for a loop, and this was one of those weeks.

This week some of our friends who are always invited, but whose schedule doesn’t allow them to attend all that often emailed to say that they were able to make Dinner this week. This was exciting, except one of them is lactose intolerant, and Turkey Tettazini calls for a lot of cream (okay yes, you can make it with less cream but it’s just not as good, and I don’t think it would work without any cream). Consequently I did a last minute reimagining of Dinner.

My father occasionally asks what we talk about at Dinner. I’m pretty sure he’s hoping I’ll confess to something erudite. This week we discussed the narrative structure of Goodnight Moon, and how, much like Chekov’s gun, if you introduce a telephone in the first act you must say goodnight to it by the third act. I’m not sure if that’s sublime or ridiculous, but it’s pretty representative of Dinner.
Pasta with Greek Spices
Salad

Pasta With Greek Spices
Pasta with Greek Spices is something of a signature Dinner meal, mostly because nobody else can make it. The Greek spices come from a small Greek restaurant in Charleston and get brought back to us by my roommate’s parents. We’re not really sure what’s in them. The ingredient list on the bottle reads something like – oregano, thyme, incomprehensible Greek word, salt, paprika, incomprehensible Greek word, rosemary . . . . . and so on for about 15 lines.

If you happen to be in Charleston I recommend a visit to The Athenian Village. I also recommend picking up a bottle of Greek spices to take home with you.

The base of the recipe is always the same – onions sautéed in a little olive oil.

What comes next depends on what vegetables looked good in the grocery store that week. This week I sautéed zucchini, red peppers and some roasted chicken. I steamed the broccoli and then tossed all of that with cooked pasta and Greek Spices mixed with olive oil. I threw some grape tomatoes in at the end and let them warm through just from the heat of the pasta and vegetables. Sometimes I add some chopped artichoke hearts, but I didn’t have time to defrost the unseasoned ones this week and I don’t like the ones that come packed in marinade.

I tossed 1.5 lbs of pasta (rotelle) with several tablespoons of Greek Spices dissolved in olive oil. The more Greek Spices you use, the spicier the pasta dish will be.