FEAST MODE: Pastalicious

I've been saying to myself for awhile that I wish I could get back to a place where I cooked 80%-90% of my meals like I used to.  Then I realized that 'awhile' has actually been the past four years.  Home cooked meals are almost always cheaper than the alternative and making a decent salary removes the necessity to actually cook.

That said, back when I did actually cook my folks used to sometimes give me gourmet magazines to draw inspiration from.  Our recipes for the rest of the weekend come from "Fine Cooking - January 2009."  This simple pasta dish is from the back cover.

It's generally a good idea to read through recipes before you get started on them.  That way you don't get caught off guard by instructions like 'marinade overnight' or 'chill until hardened.'  In this case, the recipe asks that you reserve a cup of the water that you boiled the pasta in so you can use that water to finish the dish.  Hard to recreate that ingredient after the fact and while pasta water won't make or break your dish it does add something a little special.  Bill Buford, the author of "Heat" assigns the pasta water an almost mythical quality and who wants to miss out on mysticism?  Not me.  Also, the recipe doesn't mention boiling the pasta until last but if you want to finish the recipe in a timely fashion then it's better to do the pasta first while you prepare the other ingredients.  Do so in salted water.

The recipe calls for Orecchiette (pasta).  I don't know what that is.  But the picture looks like shells and I found something like it on the shelves.  As I said before, I like to make sure the primary ingredient in my recipes is quality, so I bought a good quality dried pasta.  I think they make a pretty big difference in the final outcome.

Next, roast half a head of cauliflower and a pint of grape tomatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper.  Pro tip:  'roast' nearly always means a temperature between 400 and 450 degrees.  In this case, 425 for 15 minutes.

Before roasting

While that's in the oven you're supposed to pulse four cloves of garlic and 9 leaves of fresh sage in a food processor.  I have three thoughts about that.

1.)

When you buy fresh herbs, you pretty much always wind up with more than you need.  Fortunately, most fresh herbs actually freeze pretty well so at least you can do something with them rather than throw them out or try like hell to use all that fresh sage.

2.)

When you buy garlic, try to buy a head that has paper that's tight to the garlic.  That means it's fresh.  Also, fresh garlic is purple in color so if you can find some in the store that has a little purple in it, that's a good bet.

3.)  Food processors are big and take a lot of space in your kitchen.  If you're going to buy one, get in the habit of using it a lot and right away, otherwise you're wasting your money.  I have the little one that's pictured and it triples with other attachments as a submersion blender and a motorized whisk.  I love it and use it all the time when I'm cooking.

When the garlic and sage has been diced in the processor, add about 3oz of prosciutto.  I feel about prosciutto the same way I do about bacon.  It's great as a flavoring agent but not really meant to be the main attraction of the meal.  

Add that to the cauliflower and tomatoes once their done and roast for another 5 minutes.

Roasted

By the time the roasting is done your pasta should also be done.  You'll want to mix everything together along with a little of that pasta water to add mysticism plus about 3/4 cup of parmigiano-reggiano cheese and 5 ounces of arugula.  I don't know how much 5oz of arugula is so I just added a couple of handfuls and called it good.

By the way - this is really fucking good.  I mean like - wow!  Add a little of that Red Table Wine and you have one fantastic dinner!

(Also, the roast is setting pretty at 87.2 internal degrees)