aglio e olio buono e presto

Cooking is ARTS!

Aglio e olio

A coffee mug is set in the sink and filled with pasta water when the noodles are drained. The salted water clouded with starch from the pasta forms a sauce with butter and olive oil heated with a short splash of wine in the same pot that cooked the noodles.

A very fast meal for when you come stumbling in. 

From drinking? 

No. Just your regular stumbling, you klutz.

Spaghetti

Aglio e olio dontchyano.  

Flash and basil plant. 

For the last three months I've been using these basil sprigs to cast shadows by flash into my photographic work space. I want to show this plant before it goes to basil heaven. 

Aglio e olio

Odd after all that I would have a large block of Parmigiano Reggiano around, but I do. This is the valuable cheese that appeared so far gone as to be unsalvageable. It was then wrapped in wet paper towels as a damp funeral shroud and returned to the refrigerator. Within a day it was revived just fine. Now it appears nothing unfortunate no neglect at all had ever befallen it. Damp paper towel wrapping + sealed plastic bag + cold refrigerator = Stargate sarcophagus for dried Parmigiano. I never knew that Parmigiano is Goa'uld.

I have been looking forward to having aglio e olio for a long time. It's a comfort food. It's the sort of thing we have when we return from the clubs because there's nothing to it, olive oil and butter with garlic and grated hard cheese. Usually spaghetti, sometimes angel hair, this is linguini. Reserve the pasta cooking water. Its starch is useful for tossing a sauce. Easiest to simply lift the pasta from the water directly into the pan of oil and garlic. Add pasta cooking water as required to complete the sauce. 

Aglio e olio, Aerogarden basil

This is the dish that all Italians are born knowing how to cook. ← Possible exaggeration. It is easy as boiling water. ← Another exaggeration. It uses no seasonal ingredients or any other ingredient that any normal household would ever be without. ← Lie. 

*  olive oil

*  garlic

*  spaghetti

*  Parmigiano Reggiano, and if you do not have this on hand always, then I just do not know what to say to you.

*  fresh parsley.

Here basil is substituted for parsley. That was the thing that inspired it tonight, if you can call a regular go-to comfort meal inspired. This is the dish one makes when one come home from a night on the town. It is the equivalent of a cheese sandwich. 

You see, the basil in the new Aerogarden kit is outpacing the other herbs in their pods. When the plants reach the lamps they will burn. Better to trim them now and equalize the height of all seven plants. I sense I will be doing this again before the lamps are adjusted upward. Check it out, Checkitouters. 

The front row is three types of basil, lemon, globe and Genovese. It is the lemon basil and the Genovese basil that is outgrowing the four in the back. I know from experience that eventually the four in the back will predominate by height, but they are slower to start off. The four in back include oregano, mint, dill, and thyme.

Here's what the unit looks like on top of the refrigerator. 

That was before ↑ the lemon basil and Genovese basil were trimmed. This is after ↓ the two basils were trimmed. 

This seed kit was planted January 26, 2011. Now is April 16, 2011. So that's two months and a week plus or minus a day or so. Maybe I should feed it some more even though the lights on the unit haven't indicated yet. Sometimes we indoor gardeners have to use our own judgement and not rely on electronic indicators. Because you never know, it could be a dastardly plot to erode confidence in American technological knowhow. 

Spaghetti with shrimp

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Aglio e olio, the beloved Italian dish  traditionally out of Abruzzo that swept across the length Italy and remains to this day that county's secret weapon agains all that dare challenge it. It is a comfort food and I have made it myself at least a thousand times, or maybe it was twenty times. Okay FINE. Ten times. The point is, it never comes out exactly the same way because there is always some slight variation, and it has never ever failed to satisfy. 

Here's the thing. I must be honest about this. Sometimes those Aerogarden seed kits are not completely reliable. Here and there a seed pod fails to germinate. Each pod only contains two or three seeds after all, so anything can happen. The company is good at recognizing this and they are responsive when you call and tell them what is happening. The company is excellent as far as customer satisfaction goes. But you know, sometimes it is a real bummer when one or, God forfend, two pods fail, because that means those two will be weeks out of sync with the other seed pods. Well, this last herb seed kit had five seed pods fail out of seven. That means there was something terribly wrong with the kit. Perhaps it had been returned and stored improperly during the term it was in the hands of a customer and away from the careful tender care of the company. Whatever the case, my kit was completely bolloxed. I actually have two Aerogardens, the super-duper kind, with brand new lights. The other garden was started at the same time. It is growing garden greens and that one is doing  fine. Those seeds germinated in three days and it has been growing like mad ever since. I told Aerogarden about this but instructed them not to send me another kit because my trust in the herb kits is wrecked and I was in a bad mood that morning.  I can be a real ass hole sometimes.  I bought seeds from another company instead. They haven't arrived yet and one type is back ordered. :-(  So now this round of herbs is really REALLY out of sync. 

The basil from that kit is growing as it should. The mint is also growing, but much more weakly. Since the basil is growing ahead of everything else, it had to be trimmed back. This is going to be very goofy. 

Grana Padano per un cambiamento -- for a change because variety makes -- il mondo andare in tondo. 

The aglio part of aglio e olio is garlic, obviously, but alas, for I am forlornly garlic-less.  I should have marched right out there and got some garlic but I was too lazy, and since I am so lazy I should be punished by not being allowed to even make aglio e olio which calls for fresh ingredients. There are so few ingredients they must MUST be fresh. But what do I do? I use garlic powder instead. I know, I know, I hate myself, that is a sin. 

Father, please forgive me for I have committed sin against Nature. I await your smitation.

I didn't use much. Leeks are milder than onion, and much milder than garlic, but a lot of leek is stronger than a little garlic. So I used a lot of leek and very little garlic powder to minimize my malfeasance. Just don't let your kids see you do this or their childhood will be ruined. It could take decades to recover the respect that is forfeited. 

Aglio e olio

Pasta in olive oil with garlic -- roasted tomato powder tossed with dry Italian herbs and finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano.