so...it's only tuesday....hmpf

Sunday night we made chili. Sunday night we ate chili. Monday at lunch I ate chili. Despite the deliciousness of said chili, I knew that by Monday night I’d want something other than chili. I had spinach, beets, goat cheese, kalamata olives, cream, and pasta in mind. I googled my ingredients. I came up with little direction. I enlisted Kari as my official taster and figured I’d just go for it. I wasn’t planning on anyone else being there, but Joleen got out of work early and as it was her birthday and all she came back to the barn for a meal I made no promises about.

It was good. Pink. But good.

Here’s what I did:

4 medium roasted beets

sauté half a red onion, a handful of chopped shallots and a coupla cloves of garlic in 2 tbsp of canola oil-let it go for a good long time to let it caramelize.

I did not have fresh spinach so while my sauté concoction was going on, I cooked some frozen spinach and drained it.

Cook your pasta. I used rotini, but I would have used fusilli if I’d had it.

Chop up some prosciutto (totally unnecessary, btw. obviously one could make this vegetarian) or next time I’d actually use pancetta. Thicker is better. The flavor was good, but I missed on the crispy-ness I was looking for. I suspect pancetta would have helped. Toss it in with the onions etc and let it go. A good long time. Deglaze the pan with some white wine and toss in your spinach. Chop up some kalamata olives and toss them in.

Here’s where things got pink. I had roasted by beets over my lunch break and I wanted to reheat them so I tossed them into the sauté pan. Then I crumbled in about 5 oz of goat cheese and ½ c or so of cream. I also threw in a handful of grated parmesan.

Throw the cooked pasta into the sauté pan and mix everything up real good like.

Watch everything turn an alarming shade of pink.

Serve in bowls with a little more parmesan and some cracked pepper on top.

This might be the very first time I just made up a recipe. I cook without recipes all the time, but usually it’s because I’ve memorized it. Or I just barely alter a recipe.

I’m disgustingly proud of myself.

The only thing I would do differently would be to roast the beets closer to serving time and just top the pasta with the beets. Joleen (whose signature color is pink) thought it was perfect for her birthday supper.

In other news, music can wake me up at 2 am even if the volume is barely on.

Guess I’m just defective.