Big Fat Ostrich

Look at all that pasta! Look how it tilts crazily towards you! It’s mesmerizing and that’s what happens when Dan, Mike, and a bunch of food ingredients hang out.

The plan was like last time: cook dinner, and come up with a new Bobbipins storyline. And you know what? I’ll save you the goddamn suspense and just say that the plan worked, ok? Three times in a row we get together with the idea of eating and brainstorming, and all three times we came away with gold.

So yeah, if you want your dinner to look just like that delicious, succulent bowl of pasta over there, this is what you gotta put into a saucepan on medium high:

a few teaspoons of olive oil
1 diced small onion and 2 cloves of crushed garlic (when these guys are golden brown, add the following)
1 red bell pepper
some mushrooms (sliced)
half a fresh tomato
pepper (use your intuition)
salt to taste

Now about the salt…well, I don’t have any! But under the pressure, Dan grabbed a handful of salted cashews and crushed them into the mix. It was a close call, but supper was saved!

So while all this was going on, there was a big pot of fusili pasta on the boil. It’s really boring to talk about, but it happened, ok?

Now that your mix of vegetables and onions and shit are nice and cooked, here’s the best part: stir a few heaping tablespoons of quality sundried tomato pesto. The one we used was called “pesto rosso“. Yeah really. If you can’t find that specifically, just use a quality pesto and you can’t go wrong.

And you know what? You just made a sundried tomato veggie sauce that’s ready to be mixed into your fusili, which is ready now if you timed it right! Did you time it right? DID YOU?

Now eat it. It’s delicious.

What a day!

I spent 8 hours fixing the ‘ternets! 8 goddamn hours. With like, 30 minutes for lunch. They even removed my shackles just long enough so that I could go to the bathroom. In the bucket next to my desk!

But I survived. Yes I did.

On my way home, I plotted my victory dinner: I’d throw some cheese tortellini into a pot of boiling water. In a small saucepan, I’d cook up a light tomato sauce, with fennel seeds and dill. A bit of garlic too, with slices of yesterdays shallots. Yes, I deserved this. I’d eat my dinner like a king. With a beer. While watching Lost.

Except I was out of goddamn tortellini!! And tomatoes!

God. How could I be so stupid? Thinking that the freezer was chock full ‘o delectable cheese-filled-tortellini shaped tortellinis. What an idiot  I was. And the water was already on the boil! What was I to do?

I had to think fast.

I checked the time: 8:50pm. Lost would be starting soon and I needed to eat. No, prunes and sour cream would not suffice. Not this time!

I looked in the pantry. Half a bag of Rotini! I threw it in the pot. But dammit…no time for sauce. No time!

Then it hit me.

Tuna. A can of tuna was definitely going in the pasta. In fact, the pasta was ready. A little Al dente, but ready. The after boil will take care of it.

I strained out the pasta, threw in the tuna. Will fennel work? It goddamn better, so I took the chance of my life. I mixed in the fennel and the dill, but it was all too dry, so I went fucking crazy.

I added a teaspoon of mayonnaise. And you know what?

It worked.

I was totally starving, but it was perfectly edible, filling, and flavorful. Do not ever underestimate the power of fennel and dill.

Ever.