Penne Arriabbiati

A classic Italian entree is tonight's dinner .... I have seen at least a few different spellings of this dish so if you, dear reader, have a more correct version, please inform and I will update this blog.

One of the great things about this dish is how easy it is --- and, how GOOD it is. As always, I make it HOT .... but I will temper my recipe for those of you who prefer your dishes mild ....

I fix this a lot ... because it is SO GOOD ... and so easy ... and fun to fix ...

I need to mention that I eyeball a lot of proportions, so the ingredient list consists of estimated amounts .... and I know those will work fine ... but you know, when you start cooking, if it's in your blood, you'll improvise and begin to work by feel rather than measurement ....

INGREDIENTS

-2.5-3 cups (approx) penne pasta
-olive oil
-1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
-several dashes of sea salt (really, keep this around .... fuck granulated salt for most types of cooking)
-LOTS of crushed red pepper (moderates can do 1.5-2 Tbsp)
-LOTS of minced garlic (I used 4 cloves, you can bust this down to 2 if you need to)
-Chopped oregano (you know fresh is best, MF ... but if all you have is the stuff in the cabinet, it will do).
-Chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
-Paremesan cheese (get the block and shred it, man ... don't get that fucking awful stuff in the green shaker .... )
-1 large bottle red wine

Open wine, pour glass, put on music ... repeat as needed while cooking ...

Now, we're ready to get started ....

-In a large skillet, heat 1/4 cup olive oil.
-In a medium pan, heat water on medium heat to boil penne. Toss in a dash of salt.
-Chop 2-4 cloves garlic (temper to taste)
-When oil is at medium heat, add garlic and crushed red pepper. Let saute for 5-7 minutes, until fragrant.
-Add crushed tomatoes, oregano and a dash of salt. Mix well, and bring to a boil. Stir occasionally if needed.
-As soon as water for penne boils, put in pasta.
-When tomato/garlic mix boils, reduce heat slightly and simmer about 10 minutes.
-When pasta is done, drain and reserve 1/3 cup of the boiled water. Add pasta to tomato/garlic mix, tossing to coat well. Then, add parsley, remaining water, and 1-2 Tbsp olive oil. Mix well and let simmer for 5-10 minutes.

Refill wine glass. Spoon pasta and sauce into bowl. Grate parmesan cheese on top, and serve with bread, because if you adhered to the higher proportion amounts in this recipe, it will be HOT.

Enjoy this great, simple dish. So often some of the best things in life are simple, yes?

TONIGHT'S MUSIC: Led Zeppelin's Presence and Tilly and the Wall's Wild Like Children.

TECH TIP: a lot of us know that when a Windows PC experiences a program crash or gets hung up on a task, we can press 'ctrl-alt-delete' on the keyboard and invoke the Task Manager, enabling us to see what programs are running and which are not responding, and giving us the option to end tasks that are unresponsive. However, how do you do it on a Mac?

Apple-Option-Escape

The 'Apple' key is also referred to as the Command key. Both of these tricks are very useful to users of both Apple and Microsoft operating systems, because if you can simply end a task or force a program to quit, it saves you from having to re-boot.