Tuesday Taste Buds: Pasta w/Sausage & Tomatoes

Pasta With Sausage & Tomatoes

Ingredients:

- 2 28-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes, broken up with your hands

- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

- 2 tablespoons olive oil

- kosher salt and black pepper

- 3/4 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage links

- 12 ounces cavatappi or some other short pasta

- 3 cups baby spinach (2 1/2 ounces)

- grated Parmesan, for serving

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 450° F. On a rimmed baking sheet, mix the tomatoes (with their juices) and garlic with the oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Roast until the tomatoes have charred in spots and the juices have thickened, 40 to 45 minutes.

2. After the tomatoes have roasted for 20 minutes, place the sausage on a second rimmed baking sheet. Roast, turning occasionally, until browned and cooked through, 15 to 17 minutes. Thinly slice the sausage.

3. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve ¼ cup of the cooking water; drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Add the tomatoes, sausage, spinach, and 2 tablespoons of the cooking water and toss to combine (add more cooking water if the pasta seems dry). Sprinkle with the Parmesan.

My friends and I have pasta night sometimes, and we usually have just spaghetti in meat sauce with sausage, or a sausage link pan-fried up on the side. But this might be the next pasta night dish: a spin on our classic favorite! Don't you agree?!

Welcome Fall Season!

Time for leaves to turn and fall, candy to go on sale, orange is fashionable, and of course costumes for Halloween!!! Bring it on October!

I wish I was out east because when the leaves turn out there, it's beautiful!!!!

Word of the Day 10/3/2011

Corrade (verb): to wear or crumble away through abrasion

Examples: Over the years, the rushing waters had corraded the riverbanks.
"The nearly pyramidal shapes in the Cydonia region of Mars -- which recent imagery suggest are likely no more than ancient mountains corraded by eons of sandstorms --were advanced by the late astronomer Carl Sagan and others as sites to be examined by future missions to Mars as potential artifacts of intelligence." -- From P. J. Capelotti's 2010 book The Human Archaeology of Space: Lunar, Planetary and Interstellar Relics of Exploration

Did You Know?: In Latin "rodere" means "to gnaw" and "radere" means "to scrape." The latter word is at the base of both "abrade" and "corrade." "Corrade," which carved its niche in the English language during the mid-17th century, is used when something, such as moving water, "rubs" or "scrapes" something else away. In contrast, the word "corrode," derived from "rodere," is fitting when something "eats away" at something else especially by chemical action. "Erode" shares that meaning but can also be used to describe abrasive action, much like "corrade." As an aside, the gnawing of small animals, such as mice and squirrels, influenced the formation of the noun "rodent" through "rodere."

I Believe...

Word of the Day 9/30/2011

Gridiron (noun)

1: a grate for broiling food

2: something consisting of or covered with a network

3: a football field

 

Examples: The former quarterback looked out at the field, recalling his many moments of glory on the gridiron.
"In the spirit of the gridiron, Jets star quarterback Mark Sanchez offers his best portrayal of Jets 1960s legend Broadway Joe Namath, down to a flashy fur coat." -- From an article in The New York Post, August 22, 2011

 

Did You Know?: Modern gridirons are most likely to be covered by football players, but the original gridirons were more likely to be covered with meat or fish; they were metal gratings used for broiling food over an open fire. In Middle English, such a grating was called a "gredil," a root that gave modern English both "gridiron" and "griddle." How did "gridiron" become associated with football? That happened in the late 1800s, when a white grid pattern was added to football fields to help enforce new rules about how many yards a team had to gain to keep possession of the ball. From high up in the stands, the lines made the playing fields look like cooking gridirons.

Friday Find! - Paper Pots

PAPER POTS!

Now I found this silly find from Real Simple's email and I love it!

Love all the colors and love the simple look to them!

My friend/coworker uses toilet paper as her tissue paper of choice rather than using Kleenex! My grandmother likes to give her grief over it, because she keeps a stash of TP in her desk drawer! It's hilarious! So I'm going to snag this find and give it to her as a gag-gift. Little does she know, you can use the pot for both toilet paper AND tissue paper!

Let me explain:

How to place toilet paper:

How to place tissue paper:

Silly Christmas Gift Anyone?! :)

Word of the Day 9/28/2011

Moiety (noun)
1a : one of two equal parts : half b : one of two approximately equal parts
2: one of the portions into which something is divided : component, part
3: one of two basic complementary tribal subdivisions

Examples: "According to the FDA, a new molecular entity or new chemical entity is a drug that contains no active moiety that has been approved by the FDA for any other application submitted under section 505(b) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act." -- From Ibis Sanchez-Serrano's 2011 book The World's Health Care Crisis: From the Laboratory Bench to the Patient's Bedside

"She was asked to describe the tribe's two moieties. She said the Winter and Summer People provided the basic religious and social structure…." -- From Joanne Barker's 2011 book Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and Cultural Authenticity

Did You Know?: "Moiety" is one of thousands of words that English speakers borrowed from French. The Anglo-French "moitè" (meaning "a half" or "part of something") comes from Late Latin "medietat-," meaning "half." Around the same time that "moiety" was borrowed from Anglo-French, "medietat-" was also borrowed directly from Latin as "mediety," a word which can also mean "a half." "Medietat-" comes from Latin "medius" (meaning "middle"), which has contributed to such English words as "medium," "meridian," and "milieu."