Hungry Times Two

I was so proud of myself, scouring for some new recipes, making a meal plan for the week with some nutritious foods, and hitting the grocery store early in the weekend. Then I made a shit dinner on Monday night. You may think shells with caramelized onions and blue cheese sounds like... a thing. A nice thing. An easy thing. A tasty thing. Sure, Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers cookbook, thanks for this idea. It sounded delicious. I like caramelized onions. You know I dig on some pasta. And the blue cheese - yes yes, I do enjoy the dairy products. It seems like it could work. But then I got overzealous with my food processor and the six (!) cups of chopped onions turned to paste. I turned to mushrooms instead. Bad idea. I forlornly served up the meal to Scott, who took a semi-enthusiastic bite. His face kind of fell. He pushed the shells around on the watery cheese sauce. I poked at a mushroom and took a bite. Oh my. I shotgunned my glass of pinor noir and thusly declare...

Gratzi in advance, y'all - My Mother Dear and I head to Italy next month for a 12-day whirlwind trip through Italy. Venice, Rome, Pisa, Florence, Assisi, Pompeii and Capri - we're coming for you!

A "trending topic" on the Internets right now is apparently " Spaghetti tacos ." Uhhh ...no thanks. The only weird "food stuffed in a food" trick I might ever try would be a turducken . Put that in your Google machine.

I introduce to you our new segment, "We've Got It Made." I know, right - cheesy yet oh-so-catchy. You may now roll your eyes, and continue reading, thanks. It's..wow...almost October, and while the last of the warm weather temps are fleeting and fading, we noticed our basil plants in our communal neighborhood garden are doing the same. Scott and I wanted to take advantage of the lovely herbs while they're still present and accounted for, so on Saturday night after a full afternoon of kayaking up and down the Potomac River, we set out to make pesto. Scott inspected the plants. And picked and picked and picked - two cups worth! I checked out the huge-ass pumpkins growing in the garden. And mourned the sad decline of beautiful sunflowers. Once inside, we combined forces to blend the basil, garlic, grated Parmesan cheese, pine nuts and olive oil, using the ever-handy The Joy Of Cooking's recipe . Indeed a joy. Yum. I boiled some fettuccine regate noodles (th...