Pictured: some particularly pretty mise en place for the happy pasta//Christmas dinner at the bar.
I’m still beyond relieved that we chose to stay, but I’ve definitely been missing my family today, as it’s my first Christmas away from them. To busy myself, while E was at work, I cooked all the food I’ve been thinking about and planning for for the past week.
Today I made:
A bourbon poached pear and custard tart
A winter veggie pot pie
Roasted brussels sprouts
Happy Pasta!
Happy pasta is what I call this dish that my aunt used to make on Christmas when I was younger. It’s apparently a Lydia Bastianich recipe (I just looked it up bc I wanted to see if I could find a source. Success!) It’s sweet and salty and unctuous, and a truly magnificent dish. I have only made it once before, in a dorm kitchen six years ago, and I have to say that it was much easier this time around in my own, fully stocked kitchen.
I put the recipe below the cut, if any of you would like to make it!
½ cup of extra virgin olive oil
5 plump garlic cloves, sliced
1 ½ cups of oil cured black olives, pitted and chopped into 1/3 inch pieces
½ cup of golden raisins
3 tbsp of fine, long threads of orange zest
2/3 cup of freshly-squeezed orange juice
1 cup pine nuts, toasted in a dry pan
Hot water from the pasta cooking pot
½ tsp salt, plus more if needed
3 tbsp chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 lb pasta – spaghetti, linguine, etc.
(Plunge pasta into boiling water a couple minutes before you start the sauce)
Pour olive oil into a big skillet, scatter garlic slices in the oil, and set over medium high heat. Cook about 1 ½ minutes, shaking the pan until the garlic starts to color.
Stir in chopped olives and cook another 1 ½ minutes, occasionally shaking as olives sizzle and caramelize. Scatter in raisins and stir another ½ minute. Stir in orange zest and cook until it sizzles, about ½ minute. Carefully pour in the orange juice, stirring to moisten everything as the juice bubbles and as it starts to thicken. After about 20 seconds, sit in pine nuts to moisten and mix with other ingredients.
When the orange juice is nearly evaporated, ladle in two cups of hot boiling pasta water. Boil and stir the sauce for 3 minutes or more (while the pastais cooking). When it is reduced by half stir in ¼ tsp salt. Taste and add more salt as needed. Reduce heat and keep the sauce until the pasta is ready.
Toss the pasta and sauce together in a large bowl before serving.
Oh man there have been so many! And memorable for so many different reasons as well. Ian and I made a 6-course tomato centric meal in the spring that was amazing. I also loved our rehearsal dinner, which was at an Indian restaurant near my church. They made mostly vegetarian food for the buffet and everybody gorged themselves. (Plus I was freshly back from Greece so the spice levels lit me up more than they typically would, haha).
20. What’s something you learned this year?
This is tough…I’ve spent the year realizing a lot of hard truths and learning a lot. Perhaps it’s that I’ve become more aware of how other people typically react to my intensity, in both professional and personal contexts. I’ve gotten better at not backing down when I shouldn’t, and walking away when I should. I still have a long way to go on this, though. For sure.
23. If you could send a message to yourself back on the first day of the year, what would it be?
I think I answered something similar to this, and my answer holds, which is to tell myself that I did it, I got everything done that was on my docket for the year. But, most of it took a longer than I anticipated, because at times I can overestimate my own capabilities, or I plan for things under the assumption that I’m operating at 100%. I still had (and have) a lot of healing to do and that takes time away from other things. But that’s ok, because I still got it done, and made a lot of progress on myself as well.
I was really aspirational with the things I wanted to do this year, and definitely did not accomplish all the various goals and projects I had in mind. But I finished everything I needed to get done, and I worked really hard at both school and on myself, so I am proud of all the things that I did succeed in sticking with and seeing to their end.
13. How was your birthday this year?
It was really nice!! It was a few days before I left for Greece, Ian had the day off, and we just spent it together, went out for dinner, and enjoyed each other’s company.
I had a tough year with albums, tbh. I didn’t do as good of a job as I have in the past few years keeping up and listening to new releases, and I felt underwhelmed by a lot of things that I was anticipating. However the two that I’m thinking of right now are at the top for different reasons. Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves is a stunning piece, and I think that I will be listening to it for many years to come. I love LM5 for sentimental value, and because I think that it’s fun and funky and fresh, and I’m excited to see them continue down this vein. There are some really great, interesting songs on it that are musically and lyrically distinct from so much of what’s getting radio play atm, while others still maintain their club-music vibe.
14. Favorite book you read this year?
And I Darken by Kiersten White, and the sequel Now I Rise. I’ve still got to read the third book in the trilogy, it came out when I was in Greece and I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I love well executed historical fiction, and I also love difficult female characters, and fuck does this series have both. It’s incredible.
But also, in terms of fic, I cannot scream about the Tales from the Special Branch series enough. The past year and a half of my life has been dominated by me being utterly obsessed with this series. There are 3 novel length fics, and the 4th is a WIP right now. It is THE BEST. I don’t want to spoil anything but it’s phenomenal and has some of the best long-term plot writing and development ever.
This is a really good question. May, I think. I had a few good weeks with Ian when the semester was over, before I left for Greece. I didn’t have many good months this year, though. It was a slog to the very end.
21. What’s something new about your place of residence (room, home, or general location) now vs the start of the year?
We have so many amazing new kitchen objects!!! We’ve been cooking with/in the remnants of what we had in college and various other things we acquired along the way, so it’s really great to have actually good quality equipment, given how much E and I like to cook. It’s very difficult to pick favorites, but right now I think that the big, blue le creuset is winning that competition.
