Thalia Learns to Cook: Disaster Dinner!!!!

Thalia learns to cook posts are recipes and examples of dishes I can now make! Taken from a variety of sources and changed according to my abilities, needs, and dislike of doing dishes.

The title of this post is a bit misleading, I fear. For this is not about my learning how to cook or emerging triumphant over previous mistakes. No, this is about a dish I make ALL THE TIME that went terribly terribly wrong due to my forgetting all my progress and reverting to old habits. Because of a jar of pasta sauce.

So, in my kitchen there is a fabulous rotating shelf thingy. (That's the technical term). On it, we keep various jars and other ingredients. It is often left open. Because the average temperature lately has been 183 degrees (fahrenheit), I was wearing a dress. The bottom of the dress caught a full glass jar and brought it down onto the top of my foot. Add to this the fact that I had worked out the day before, and you get slow, clumsy Thalia who cannot move her foot in time and therefore dropped something heavy on it. It was painful. It swelled up to golf ball lump sized proportion.

But! That's not all! I was in the middle of making a simple dish, pasta with kale, bacon, pine nuts, raisins and garlic. This is a great, simple dish that abides by all of the rules I have learned: cook things at their proper heat, prep all ingredients ahead of time, get everything out before you start, make sure you know what you're doing before you do it.

Unfortunately, I forgot most of those rules. I started the water for the pasta before chopping up the kale. I put the pine nuts into the toaster oven, turned the heat up, and promptly stopped paying attention, I did not cut up the garlic before turning on the heat. The result?

Undercooked pasta, undercooked kale, burnt pine nuts, not enough raisins, and general overall grumpiness. So! The moral of the story is: make sure if you are going to drop something heavy on your foot, thus distracting and injuring yourself, you either call for a pizza or make someone else cook dinner for you.

Don't make Thalia's mistakes recipe: Pasta with kale, bacon, garlic, pine nuts and raisins. (20 minutes cook time, as long as you don't drop something heavy on your foot right as you start).

Ingredients:

1 bunch kale, washed and chopped

2-3 strips bacon (I like the thick cut)

1/2 c pine nuts (you can LIGHTLY toast these in the oven if that's your style)

1/2 c raisins

2-3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

1 lb pasta, penne works best

1. Cut up the kale, bacon, and garlic.

2. Fill a pot with water and boil for the pasta, cooked according to directions.

3. Cut the bacon into small pieces and cook. Pre heat your pan. Don't add oil. When it's crispy, remove from pan.

4. Pour out any extra grease, you should have about 2tb left in your pan.

5. Add garlic, cook until fragrant.

6. Add kale, and spoon in a ladle or two of the boiling pasta water. Cover and cook until bright green, 3-5 minutes.

7. Turn off heat, add raisins and pine nuts. Once pasta is done, stir in greens etc.

8. Serve with parmesan and enjoy!