The Great Dinner Fiasco

We have arrived home from a week at the beach. We had a great time and were happy to end our week celebrating a friend's wedding in Nags Head yesterday. So fun! We woke up early and went to church this morning, came home, caught up on some tv shows we missed while at the beach (love DVR), and washed the car. Not too long after we washed the car, it rained. Awesome. The house is a big mess but I've decided to not doing anything about it until tomorrow; or maybe I will while husband watches basketball (boring). Tomorrow husband and I will celebrate two years of marriage! More on that tomorrow.

I guess since this past week I wasn't doing all primary cooking, I got off my game because tonight, dinner was a wreck! I was seriously struggling! I made a recipe from last month's Food Network Magazine called Capellini with Spicy Zucchini-Tomato Sauce. Here's my cooking adventure from tonight: To make this you will need 3 tbs evoo, 1 clove of garlic, minced, 3/4 tsp red pepper flakes, 1 280z can of whole (or crushed which is what I used) San Marzano tomatoes, 1 medium zucchini cut into small chunks, 1/4 cup fresh basil julienned, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. My first mistake was the only thing I really read in detail was the ingredients, I skimmed the recipe- oops. So I will walk you through how I did it (which I believe turned out the same as the original recipe) First, heat the evoo in a large skillet and add the garlic and red pepper and cook for about 1 minute. I decided to use my stainless steel skillet instead of my nonstick one tonight because it is bigger. That was mistake number two. It heated the evoo much quicker than I anticipated and the garlic and red pepper burned, but I keep moving (mistake three). After that, you add the zucchini and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. As I'm adding in my zucchini, I think I should just restart the garlic, but it was too late. So, I keep moving on, next adding the can of tomatoes to the mixture before cooking the zucchini all the way because I'm thinking I'll cool down this pan with the tomatoes, which worked, but now I didn't have soft zucchini. I then decide that I want to saute my zucchini so I remove it and put in a different skillet and cook it until soft, then add it back to the tomatoes. This all would have been avoided had I just used the nonstick skillet mind you. While all of this is working, cook 1/2 pound of capelleni or angel hair pasta until al dente. I did this, and as I'm draining my pasta, half of it falls in the sink. Ugh. I resume with the rest of the pasta, adding it to the tomato mixture. After you do this, stir in the basil. At this point the original recipe is complete. I grilled a large chicken breast (coated in 2 tbs evoo, salt, and pepper), cut it up, and added it into the mixture.



Despite my own personal mishaps, this is a simple and quick recipe. I think that more spices (such as oregano and maybe some parsley) could be added the sauce for more flavor. If you want the recipe "straight up" without my commentary, I linked it above.

Below is another picture from our beach trip. I don't really like any of the pictures that we took so this is the best I've got.



Favorite Kitchen Gadget: Box Grater. Ours is (I think) a Chefmate brand grater. It has a sliding door on the bottom to catch what you're grating and has a clear side with measurements so you know how much you've grated.


If you want some light summer reading, some of my fav's so far are: the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella- the books are fab, and "The Help" by Kathyrn Stockett.

Look for an anniversary edition post soon!