Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Date Night Pasta and Sauce

I had a friend over for dinner last night, so I cooked up a lovely meal of pasta and sauce.

I made the pasta from scratch. I kneaded the dough and added “Italian Seasoning” to it.

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Then I rolled it out very thinly with a rolling pin and cut it with a pizza cutter into fettucini-esque slices. I also forgot to take pictures of this step. But doesn’t it look beautiful cooked?

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I made the pumpkin-spinach sauce and also forgot to take pictures of that.
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The Pasta
1 egg, 1 cup flour, 1 tsp oil, pinch of salt, ~2 tbsp water to reach the right consistency. I also added “Italian Seasonings,” whatever those may be.
Mix all the ingredients until you have a nice, flexible dough. Then let the dough rest for about 45 min.
Roll the dough out very, very thin – as thin as you can possibly get it. SO thin. This can be done with a pasta maker.
Use the pizza cutter to slice your pasta. While I made mine into long strips, I encourage you to make weird and interesting shapes.
If you don’t want to eat the pasta straightaway, you can freeze it (before you cook it, of course)! 
Throw the pasta into heavily salted (like the sea!) boiling water and let it cook for approximately 4-5 minutes.

The Sauce
3 tbsp butter, 2 cloves garlic (minced), 1 small onion (minced), 1 15oz can pumpkin, 1/3 pkg frozen spinach, 1 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1 tbsp sugar, salt and pepper to taste
Sauté the garlic and onion in the butter. When they have become translucent, add the pumpkin, spinach, turmeric, paprika and sugar and mix around until everything is saucy. When it’s good and sauced, add a lil salt and pepper until it tastes fantastic.

Gorgeous.

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The Big Chill at the Big House

Until December 11, 2010, the outdoor hockey attendance record was set at 74,544 fans.

Enter the Big Chill at the Big House. A spectacle of an event, where Michigan Stadium was frozen over (sort of), Michigan played Michigan State in ice hockey while a record crowd of 113,411 fans watched. That’s Michigan Stadium, always breaking attendance records.

Michigan Stadium is frozen! Except it just looks like an ice rink was transported and carefully placed on top of the gridiron.

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The main sponsor of the game, Arby’s, had their name plastered on one of the Zambonis.

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There was also a blurry order of curly fries running around on the field.

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Look! Michigan Stadium finally installed real stadium lights instead of renting them each time that we had a game that may parlay into dark. This is in preparation for our first night game against Notre Dame in 2011!

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Besides apparently forgetting to bring their hockey team, Michigan State also apparently forgot to bring their band. They only filled out approx 1/3 of the seating available for their team. So embarrassing.

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However, the Michigan Marching Band was a shining star in the sea of fans.

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I went to the game with Dov, who looks like a male model in this pic. A male model trying to sell coats with the fur (with the fur!).

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The final score was 5-0 Michigan. Poor Michigan State. Such an epic game, such an epic loss for them :) Michigan Stadium was amazing. There were fireworks every time Michigan scored a goal. Michigan State’s goalie isn’t a goalie, he’s a sieve. He’s not a sieve, he’s a funnel. He’s not a funnel, he’s a vacuum. He’s not a vacuum, he’s a black hole. He’s not a black hole, he just sucks :)

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Ohhhh C-ya!
Chumpdickwussdouchebagassholeprickcheaterbitchwhoreslut!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

French Bread

I made bread last week in lieu of buying it. I haven’t cooked since my recent holiday (more about that later) and this was a good solid foray back into the world of making food.

I used this recipe and it turned out pretty well. I added butter and a little salt.

Before baking, after 2nd rising. I made one braided loaf, and one rolled loaf (like the recipe says).

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After baking. I love the way that the braided one looks. I doubt that I would have been able to braid it had I not added butter. Braiding sticky dough is hard. Braiding butter-lubed dough is easy.

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With pasta sauce, spinach, mushrooms and mozz on top.

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Mmm bread.