That's a-One a-Spicy Tomato

So, my mom gave me a marinara recipe to try, since I've decided to take up cooking again (as in more than frying up a couple of eggs and some smokies).  Let me interrupt myself for an aside here:

What made me want to get serious about cooking again:

To start, it's a great way for me to bond with my mom.  She loves to cook and bake.  She left me with a ton of equipment to do both with when she moved to Italy.  I had to give away some of it, for lack of storage, and I thought I might still have too much, but now that I'm cooking her recipes I actually have a need for all of it.  These days, my mother has a bit more time on her hands to type up recipes here and there for me and give me cooking advice.  Which is not to say that she is easy to track down.  Were I in Genoa, I'd be spending as much time as possible walking around the city, too (in fact, that's exactly what I did when I was there visiting her).

The other benefits are secondary, but I'm certainly aware of how they'll impact my life for good if I stay with it.  There's the obvious fact that cooking at home saves money.  Buying prepared/packaged foods at the grocery store will make your bill add up quicker than buying bulk items and produce.  Learning what I can prepare and freeze in advance makes things a little easier and quicker at home, but also keeps my diet low on preservatives.  Not going to restaurants frequently will not only save me money, but I will have full knowledge of what goes into what I'm eating and I can avoid the ridiculously large portions the restaurants around here dish out.  I'm an overeater, the last thing I need is more food on the table.  Thinking all of this has also made dining out a bit stressful.  It is meant to be an occasional treat, not a regular necessity.  Man, my dad's been trying to tell me that for years...

Anyway, I decided to make my mom's marinara, since the puttanesca was a success.  Since I was making it for Jenn, who leaves for Seattle in just a few days, it was appealing because my mom included the option of seasoning with chili pepper flakes, which I never cook with (because I'm a wuss).

Note to self: When using an ingredient you are unfamiliar with, it would be best to ask for a maximum amount you should use.  The fact that the juice of chili peppers is the active (painful) ingredient in OC spray (OC stands for Oleoresin Capsicum, used by police for crowd control (really, riot control) should have clued me in that I may not want to use too much.  "But," I thought to myself, "Jenn loves spicy food..."  So I went around the pan with the red pepper flakes two and a half times...one probably would have been enough.  So what can you do?  Drink lots of wine.  Eat lots of bread (with butter, if you like).  Avoid water at all costs, it will only spread the fire.  You could just not eat it, but dammit, it tastes so good!

 
                                                Evil, evil stuff...but yummy. 





The cooking process wasn't that different than with the last sauce, but I did get the chance to try out a couple of new things:

I ordered this lovely little Alessi grater that is meant to sit on the table for your fresh parmegiano reggiano.

I read in The Geometry of Pasta that some Italian families will put a jar of pasta water (all starchy and salty and wonderful) on the table to moisten the pasta after it's served.  I bet it's great for leftovers, too, but we ended up needing it to thin out the spiciness a little.  Jenn more so than myself, since she wanted hers with extra sauce.  Plus it gave me a chance to use my mom's fancy red pitcher for something other than a vase.

So, still a success, but I will keep in mind that future experimentation in cooking should be researched a bit.