Back to School

Well, we are all just exhausted here. Remember how I was complaining in May about how the end of school s$!#s and how it's s$!#iness always so unexpected. Well, I was being a big baby then, because September is rough and that's all there is too it. The most difficult part being rousing one pre- and one full-on teen each morning from the comfort of too many bedclothes. And then getting said people into bed at a reasonable time (before 11pm) so their dad and I can once again watch things rated M for Mature without looking like zombies the next day. (Oh well...)

So, in all of this drama, dinner has gone a bit by the wayside, and this blog has gone a LOT by the wayside, although I am still cooking.

For instance, on Sunday I made spaghetti with meat sauce. Went to Whole Foods where they were having a special on grass fed beef, bought less than a pound (because I didn't have an entire gold ingot at the time) and then was at a loss for how to plump it all up so the kids and the husband would feel like they'd got their dinner's worth. Also, I was feeling a bit spacey when I got to Whole Foods and bought just the meat and some fruit, forgetting that I needed canned tomatoes too.

When I got home, and started browning the meat (in about 1/8 cup of olive oil, and dashed with some kosher salt), I realized that last week I'd bought some beets intending to roast them, but of course had ordered bacon and pineapple pizza that night instead, so I julienned the beets and tossed them in another pan with some sliced onion, a couple garlic cloves, some left over julienned kale (it's september so I'm using SAT words) some minced celery and a sliced carrot. Because I forgot the canned toms, I threw in what was left of a pint of cherry tomatoes, a dash of red wine, and 1/4 of a bottle of Rao's Marinara that had been sitting on the door of the fridge and which wasn't moldy yet. I combined the browned meat with the vegetable sauce and seasoned everything with salt and pepper.

Smith boiled up all the 1/4 boxes of pasta I had lying about the pantry and we tossed it with the sauce.

It was really good. Everyone liked it, and no one noticed the beets, until the leftover sauce turned the leftover pasta a really scary color. But that wasn't until lunch the next day, and by then everyone was long gone in school or at work.

I'm sorry I don't have a picture -- I keep forgetting to charge up the camera battery from when we went on vacation.

I'll get there. And things will calm down. I'm sure of it. And if they don't, well then my next post may be on the medicinal and recreational importance of the perfect Manhattan.