Drunken Tuscan Pasta

For my first dish of the year, I thought I'd try something that Rachael Ray was kind enough to put a picture of in her book Express Lane Meals: drunken Tuscan pasta. It's just pasta, right? With some extra veggies thrown in? How hard can it be?

Well, when you're starting from zero (zero knowledge and zero preparedness), it's very hard. And expensive. I had to buy a number of ingredients: rosemary (I bought both the "spice" kind and fresh sprigs), portobello mushrooms (pre-sliced, thank you very much), nutmeg, red pepper "flakes", garlic (not knowing what a clove was, I bought three bulbs), spinach, two bottles of red Chianti (I couldn't find Rosso di Montalcino), a couple bottles of EVOO, spaghetti (I couldn't find perciatelli), bacon (what is pancetta?), and Reggianito Parmesan cheese.

For the record, Price Chopper has a horrible selection. Wherever Rachael Ray actually shops for her ingredients, it is most certainly not in the Northeast. Though there was a nice selection of Tuscan wines in my local liquor store, none were Rosso di Montalcino. I purchased two Chiantis instead (one for cooking with, one for drinking). They were both excellent. Price Chopper didn't have any perciatelli either (spaghetti was a recommended substitute) and the cheese requested was only available in one container. I still don't know what pancetta is, but the bacon was awesome.

A note about preparation: I think only one of my large stove-top burners works. But when I tried boiling the red wine/water mix, it seemed to heat OK. I poured the bottle of Chianti into a large pot, added some random amount of water and, once it was boiling, dropped a pound of spaghetti into it. For future reference: half the wine and half the pasta (or less) would be perfectly sufficient. The pasta came out very red, unlike the pictures in Rachael's book.

The pasta boiled very fast and I had to set it aside as I started simmering the vegetables together. With a couple tablespoons of EVOO, I chopped up some bacon and cooked it on a large, stainless-steel skillet. Once it was cooked (and it cooked exponentially: not at all and then very much), I transferred it to a plate to be mixed in later. Into the remaining grease/EVOO mixture, I added the mushrooms and rosemary (forgetting to chop them, ooops). Cooking a little bit (the mushrooms showed no sign of state transition), I moved them to the side of the skillet. I had to keep the temperature down very low on this pan, as a side note. Once Jeremy and Allison arrived (my victims!), I was shown how to cut up garlic cloves (and what the cloves actually were). Adding to these some ground red pepper, I mixed the mushrooms, garlic, and bacon together and, tearing up spinach leaves, tossed them about briefly before turning off the stove top. Here, I must point out, I "forgot" two steps. The pasta cooked so quickly that I had to drain it a number of minutes before. As such, I could not add any of its starchy liquid to this pan. I then forgot to add the cheese (ooops, again).

Mixing the drained pasta with what I had browned in the pan, it was clear that I had far too much pasta for the amount of greens I had thrown together. Nevertheless, I mixed a portion of spaghetti together and divvied it out onto three plates.

My guests were all very polite and told me it was quite delicious. All I know is, I devoured my plate and I don't even like mushrooms or garlic. Mmm. In retrospect, the ratio of greens to pasta was too low. A pound of spaghetti is a lot of spaghetti. And, even though I don't like mushrooms, anything cooked in bacon grease is fantastic. All-in-all, I learned a lot, I have some great ideas for how to do this better, I'm eager to try again, and I will soon have a stocked kitchen and pantry. Win!