Project: Just The Senses

To truly enjoy the long weekend, I made a rule for Sunday - No TV, No Music Making, No Work, Just Relaxing. We started the day off at the farmer’s market which led into a trip to Bay Cities for some sandwich heaven and fresh pasta for later. After laying in the sun and napping, I cooked an Italian meal from scratch. Continuing with the sentiment of “the rules”, I didn’t use any canned food or measuring cups and cooked purely by sense alone. I tackled one of my favorite dishes - Vodka Sauce with Fresh Pasta and Bay Cities bread for mopping. While waiting for the sauce to do it’s magic, Tadd and I enjoyed a Nero D’Avola (my favorite grape for wine!) and listened to An American Analog Set. It was a perfect little vacation from our usual routine filled with lots of love. Recipe Below:

Ingredients

-A mix of fresh Tomatoes from the farmer’s market. I used a few Romas, 1 large heirloom and a beefsteak

-Fresh Basil

-1 Onion

-Garlic

-Vodka

-Cream

-Salt and Pepper

-Fresh Pasta

-Parmesan (Get a good one! none of that Trader Joe’s plastic cheese stuff)

-Fresh Loaf of Bread

1. Chop the onions and garlic (I used about 4-5 cloves) and saute in a few tablespoons of Olive Oil (eye ball it). Cook until the onions look translucent and then add the Vodka (eye ball it but approx 1/3-1/2 cup). Keep on cooking for a few minutes until the vodka cooks down.

2. Chop the tomatoes and add to the pan with the onions, garlic and vodka.

3. Season with Salt and Hot Red Pepper

4. Simmer until the tomatoes break down and you have a tasty sauce in your pan (I let mine cook for about an hour). You can’t top the taste of fresh sauce that didn’t come from canned tomatoes!

5. Once the sauce looks good, continue to cook it down while you boil water for your pasta.

6. Once you start to cook the pasta, add the cream to the sauce. Make sure the heat is very low at this point. Add the cream slowly and just keep mixing the sauce until it reaches the color and consistency you want. I like my sauce to be more on the pink side as opposed to pastel.

7. Add chopped basil and any additional seasoning to the sauce

8. Once the pasta is done cooking and drainded (should only take 3 mins) add the sauce to the pasta and toss.

9. Top with Parmesan and serve with Bread

Cooking by sense is much more satisfying and full of intention as opposed to following a recipe. I plan to have more nights like this in the future.

Project: Refinish Dresser

Oh how I love long weekends; they seem to inspire productivity and I finally had the motivation I needed to finally refinish my wood, Pottery Barn dresser. I’ve had this dresser since I was in high school and it needed some attention to mesh with the color scheme in our new bedroom. I opted for white Milk Paint - it’s a powder blend of pigment that you have to mix at home and it’s the only true non-toxic paint. The project was much easier then I had anticipated; I simply removed the hardware, sanded the wood stain, mixed the paint and applied two coats. Milk Paint naturally gives an antiqued finished and I can’t wait to experiment with their Crackle finish.