Penne in minimal month

Fresh ripe tomatoes from the garden

In this second week of tight budget shopping I'm getting bored and anxious. I want to go to the store and get high just choosing ingredients on a whim. But this month is anti-whim. Or is it. Or isn't it. Is it completely non whimsical to use what you have around in the cabinets and fridge? To pick what's growing in the garden? After a couple of weeks of limitations there's sort of a conflict that occurs. And then a vision! Like any good ritualistic form of deprivation, there's a positive lesson to be learned through some kind of epiphany. I have not reached that epiphany yet, but I'll let you know when I do. For now the experiment continues.

I found a bag of penne in the cabinet, a quarter bottle of red wine, which amazes me that there was an unfinished bottle of wine in the house, and some root vegetables. We still have some olive oil, which would impress even the Macabees considering how much I normally use. And by now in our little garden where the killer snails don't pay any rent so we the sluglords have to go-a-salting, hang some beautifully ripe tomatoes. Oh and some fresh green peppers. Quite bitter if you ask me so I threw in a touch of sugar to offset the bitterness and the acidity of the tomatoes. Not much because these tomatoes are quite sweet.

So after some garlic, onions, peppers and tomatoes, a splash of red wine and a pinch of sugar and a little more than a pinch of salt along with a little squeeze of a lemon...we have this simple red sauce over this over-cooked Penne I boiled. I am an awesome cook! Believe me. For all you know I can't even boil pasta. Both things are true in this case.

I once made this sauce, enraged in Spain for about 8 people. My friend Jennifer was there and she told me I cook like an Italian grandmother. I wouldn't tell this to my friend Melissa who I suspect knows more than one Italian grandmother personally, but I'm OK. I'm not perfect and I have a lot to learn. Like remembering that I leave stuff on the stove or in the oven.

I'll be posting a few more meals that are not necessarily in order, but are all from this past week.