Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Cuisine & Screen: Home Edition, Part 2

How's everyone doing today? Practicing social distancing? Staying home, save for taking a few walks to enjoy the beautiful blooms that spring brings? (I'm grateful for this beautiful wisteria in my backyard!) I thought I'd just check in and offer a brief recess from the crazy news updates with a few things I've been cooking and watching lately.
Beautiful Wisteria!

CUISINE

I had all the ingredients for a classic Pasta Puttanesca, so I thought I'd do my own riff on that. It's really savory and satisfying, and you likely have most of these ingredients in your pantry (maybe not the anchovies, but they should become a pantry staple!)

-olive oil (eyeball it, go around the pan twice)
-1/2 onion, diced
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-8 mushrooms, chopped (I used button)
-1/4 green olives, pitted and chopped
-1 TB capers
-3 anchovy filets, minced
-14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
-2 TB tomato paste
-splash of white wine (I had some open so thought I'd splash it in!)
-red pepper flake to taste
-8 ounces long pasta such as linguine, spaghetti (or when those are both GONE from the shelves, try a fun noodle like Fusilli Col Buco)

Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil for about 5 minutes, then add in the mushrooms with a sprinkle of salt. Meanwhile, bring some water to a boil and cook your pasta. Once the mushrooms have cooked down a bit, add in the olives, capers, anchovies, diced tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to a boil. Add a splash of wine only if you have it open because you've been drinking it. I like spice, so I added a generous amount of red pepper flake. Taste the sauce for seasoning (it should already have plenty of salt with those ingredients!), then transfer the cooked pasta to the sauce and serve it up.
Pasta Puttanesca
I've been straying from my usual egg breakfast to indulge in some super satisfying Overnight Oats that you can customize and make however you want:

-1/2 cup oats
-1/2 cup milk OR plain greek yogurt
-1/4 cup craisins OR raisins
-1/2 an apple OR pear, diced
-palmful of nuts
-1/2 TB brown sugar
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1 tsp vanilla
-pinch of salt

Combine all of these, cover and put in the fridge overnight. Eat the next morning. It's so yummy!!

SCREEN
City of Gold - documentary about beloved LA food critic Jonathan Gold's impact on the food scene in LA and beyond. As a food blogger, I LOVED this film.

Citizen Kane - Rosebud...if you don't know, you'll know at the very end. I watched this in a Film Studies class at UNC but can't say for certain if I was 100% sober during the viewing (it was a night class and we had to make it fun!), so I decided it was worth a re-watch. It was indeed very good (it should be, as it's widely regarded as the best film of all time), though it dragged a bit in places. Cinephiles will appreciate.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - a pretty dated concept (obviously); decent performances by iconic movie stars

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - entertaining with beautiful visual effects, but a touch too long. Ahead of its time at the time!

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