Sunday, January 13, 2008

Kafka Shopping

Have you ever noticed that when a man offers to do the shopping--not a professional of course--he comes back with more of everything than you asked for as well as a few items unasked for that just caught his eye. Also, one important item is often missing.

I know; be grateful; don't bitch or do it myself.

Friday had the guest list that I used to think was from hell: one vegan, one gluten intolerant and one lactose intolerant. I now realize that these kind of dietary problems are par for the course. There are many gluten-free pastas of varying pleasure. Go to the web site's (bkafka.com) food tips for my favorite. I used a terrific olive oil--not a merely aggressive one. While you are there look at the other tips; maybe they will help.

I cooked lots of sliced onions until soft over lowish heat, added sliced mushrooms and continued cooking until they began to give off liquid. I added sliced zucchini and yellow squash and cooked until just under done. I turned off the heat until it was time to actually make the pasta. As the large pot of pasta water was coming to a boil, I cut up a large eggplant into two-and-a-half-inch chunks and thinly sliced two red and one orange bell pepper and sliced off the top of a head of garlic.

I salted the water. I put a good dose of the olive oil in a large wok and stir fried the eggplant until it looked translucent along with the garlic. I threw the pasta into the water. I added the peppers and continued cooking until less than raw. I added a pint of tomato sauce (plain) that I had made during the summer, but a good jar of marinara sauce would work as well. I cooked this until the peppers looked fairly cooked but not limp. I pushed in the onion mixture, added some good oregano and stirred and drained the pasta. It all went into a huge bowl and got kosher salt and pepper.

Everybody ate heartily; drank red wine and it was fruit for dessert.

To make the this use equal volumes of of cut up vegetables--about two cups each. It will liberally sauce a pound and a half of pasta, or put some of the sauce in the freezer for another day and make less pasta.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was just glancing through your blog, and for one who seems to be conscientious about eating packaged food should also be aware that out-of-season ingredients have to be flown in from distant places and this too greatly increases the carbon footprint, so to speak. I noticed in your blog dated January 13 your preparations call for zuchini, red & orange peppers, eggplants...all veggies plentiful in their peak season: August. Your ingredients are SO last season.

Barbara said...

YOU ARE SO RIGHT. i HOPE THAT i ATONED A LITTLE BIT WITH THE FOLLOWING DAY'S RECIPE, for acorn squash soup. I find it difficult to feed vegans without using anything out of season; but--with you correcting me--I will try to do better. Give me another chance.