Spaghetti with hamburger, leftover pork, and other stuff – 16 January 2012

D took over cooking with my semester starting tomorrow. He took out the tomato sauce he made several days ago, and added to it.

He started by heating some scallions that I saved in the fridge when I cut up too many a few days ago, and added 1/2 pound of hamburger we got at Costco yesterday. Cooked that, added to the sauce. The bit of pork left over from last night was cut into small pieces and added in. He also cut four boquerones into small pieces and added those. Lastly, he used a bit of leftover shredded Romano that was in the freezer from when our friends M&N visited en route from their vacation cabin and left all their leftover food.

D opened the Cantina Zaccagnini Montepulciano d’Abruzzo for “cooking wine” (wine to drink while cooking) yesterday for dinner, and we had the other 500ml for dinner tonight. Here are the wine bottle, and the 500ml storage bottle we use to save 2/3 of a bottle without letting it get too oxidized.

Lunch:

Our friend V gave us a large bag of dried pinto beans – he probably bought a massive amount at Costco – and asked this morning if we’d used any. This made me think of doing a bean/kale soup for lunch.

We just cooked the beans straight off (after sorting and rinsing)  – 1 cup in 6 cups water – for about 1 1/2 hours. Following Bertolli’s cannellini recipe, I added 3/4 tsp salt about 10 minutes before I stopped the cooking. Then we added about 3 cups of stock we joyfully got out of the overcrowded freezer, and about 8 amazingly foldy-curvy leaves of kale from the garden, torn into manageable pieces. I cut a large yellow onion into a moderate dice and cooked several minutes in butter, and added that and cooked till the kale was done – a few minutes. D added three boquerones, cut into tiny pieces. It made a wonderful soup. The bread was still beautiful.

~ by berkeleybarb on 2012/01/17.