Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

(note: this post was written on monday and the shock of being back to work + commute + bringing back my evening ballet class routine knocked me out of commission and I have only now finished typing up the recipe)

Although I'm home alone tonight, I wanted a sort of "last hurrah" before vacation (finally!) ends and I go back to work tomorrow. Pastas are always pretty easy to cut down to a couple of portions, so I got dinner and about one more meal's worth of leftovers. (Any more than that, and I get pretty sick of whatever it is I'm eating over and over.)

Fun fact time: this lovely little dish translates from Italian to mean "whore's pasta".

Regardless, it's an awesome salty, acidic, flavorful meal, and not really that hard to make. Don't be scared of the anchovies - they just melt into the sauce and add flavor without it being fishy.

Puttanesca Sauce for 2

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 4 anchovy filets, coarsely chopped
• 1 can (14 oz) whole tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• about 7 each kalamata and black olives
• 1 tablespoon capers, drained
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (or to taste)
• black pepper
• 1/2 pound spaghetti (I used whole wheat)

1. Heat the oil over medium heat; add onions. Cook until they begin to get golden.
2. Add garlic and anchovies. Saute for about 5 minutes.
3. Pull apart the canned tomatoes into chunks and add to the pan along with their juice. Stir in the tomato paste until combined.
4. Start the pasta (or you may have already done that, that's fine too)
5. If you got fancy olives with pits (like I did), you will want to get those out now and roughly chop the olives up. 



fancy! but annoying to de-pit

6. Add the olives, capers, crushed red pepper, basil, and pepper to taste. Stir!



7. Simmer over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until the pasta is ready. When the pasta is al dente, drain and add to the sauce.
   
   
   
   
8. Stir for a minute or two to combine and to let the pasta absorb some of the sauce.
   

9. Serve on its own or with some crusty bread.
   

Also: In an IM convo today, I told Tim I'd like to teach him to cook more this year (I taught him to scramble eggs tonight over the phone... that should give you an idea of where his skill level is). I said that it might be fun to teach him. His response: "I think it would. Please teach me dear!" Warms my heart!!! <3

Post-Christmas Craftiness

The holidays are over, and that means I get to make whatever the hell I want - pretty exciting! I'm pretty sure everyone's post-holiday food comas and resolutions will make anything I bake go mostly to waste, so I'm focusing on low-cal crocheting for awhile. Plus, I never sent my sister mid-December birthday presents, so I owe her!

A few things I whipped up in my after Christmas downtime:

Sushi fingerless mittens! These are actually a hybrid of two of Twinkie Chan's awesome patterns, her strawberry mittens and sushi scarf. (side note: I totally recommend her book - Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodies - if you have any interest in food and/or crocheting!) These were lots of fun to make, and I decided to follow up with a matching headband.

The headband:

Yuck, please excuse my terrible bangs. I'm getting a haircut this weekend.

And my very own creation (shh, don't tell, but it's super quick and easy to make) - a girly beer coozy.

I was kind of going for a cupcake look, but it ended up being a flowery/wavy/abstract thing. Think there would be any interest if I opened up an etsy shop of these, maybe $10 a pop? I might try to get fancy with beads, sparkly yarn, etc. Seriously, there is a huge deficit of feminine beer coozies in the market, don't you think? No?

Anyway, they're easy enough to make that I might just whip up a stockpile of my own - at least there will be no room-temp beers when I have friends over!

Today I wore a nightgown out in public

But you know what? I think it's pretty cute, except for when the wind billows up into it and makes me look 8 1/2 months pregnant.

whoops, excuse the cleavage please!

Nightgown/dress: Anthropologie; boots: boutique in Portland, OR; leather jacket: Banana Republic

And just for giggles, the best "looks like I'm preggers" windy picture

A little more San Francisco

I have recently discovered that I really love taking walks around my neighborhood. San Francisco is such a unique and beautiful city, and I could spend hours just looking at all of the adorable houses within a few blocks of where I live. (I kind of wish I had a dog just to encourage me to take more of these.)

During some of my copious free time last week, I donned my brand new sweater dress (which I LOVE) and pulled Tim out onto one of those walks with me. We climbed one of the huge hills in the Castro and got a fantastic view of the city.

Gorgeous! Back when I was trying to move to SF, I looked at a house right where these pictures were taken - it would have been amazing to wake up to that view every day! But the house itself wasn't fantastic, and it sure is a hike to get to that house from ANYWHERE in the city.

Tim, holding all of our breakfast things so that I could snap some pictures. Then I made him put it all down and take the pics himself.

Tim's typical photo face

Love those dimples :)

Dress: Express; Tights: American Apparel; Earrings: boutique in Montreal; Scarf: Charlotte Russe; Rings: gifts from mom