New Mostaccioli Recipe & Some Housekeeping Items

First of all, after giving that shortcut mostaccioli recipe a week or so ago right after my knee surgery, I decided to do it again only in the longcut version and using a couple of new recipes.  The first is my reworking of a recipe for Olive Garden's Alfredo recipe (by the way, you gained 5 lbs and got 10 minutes closer to your future heart attack just now from simply reading the word "Alfredo") and a new spaghetti sauce spice mix I put together for a friend who's having severe emotional distress about Paris Hilton's incarceration Lawry's decision to stop production on "Spatini" spaghetti sauce mix. 

My friend, Cindy, wrote me asking if I had any idea where to find a copycat recipe and after combining a few Googled recipes, don't know if my mix will exactly match Spatini but after tonight's trial run I know it's pretty good.  I made up a batch of the mix for her to try out before investing a paycheck in McCormicks' since she doesn't keep all twelve, or whatever, herbs and spices individually in her cabinet like I do.  I put them in a pretty little jar and shipped them off to her today.  I suppose most people would have gone the whole way of finding a small box, grabbing some newspaper to crumple, and pack the jar in but I'm much too lazy for that. I simply masking taped the jar lid to make sure it didn't come off (not screw on) and walked it in naked in my hand to my local UPS Store.  I've used them a lot for gifts when I don't have time to wrap. For a couple extra bucks they'll wrap, pack, and track your parcel across the country. 

Let me share with you what I learned today.  Imagine you were me, walking in to your local UPS Store with a clear jar chock full of dried greenish "herby" bits...and all the workers at the counter are college aged...and there are several customers in the store around you....now.....just think about that for a moment in a way that I didn't as I obliviously trotted in and said "I need to mail this to Woonsocket, please."  And then the kid at the counter with a big grin that I was sure in my naivete at the time would make him employee of the year because he was just so darn friendly, asked "What is it?"  And I, being stupid, answered "Just some home-made stuff for a friend..."

Cindy, the Narcs will be waiting for you when you pick up that box.  Sorry, dudette.

So here is the dinner, not as pretty as the other mostaccioli pic, but tasty none-the-less, and the recipes for both the Alfredo and the home-made, wink wink, Spatini are after the jump.

With all the herbs in the non-Spatini Spatini mix, especially my favorite Italian trio of basil, oregano, and thyme, the mostaciolli is my entry this week for Weekend Herb Blogging, created by the wonderful Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, and hosted this week by Rachel of Rachel's Bite.  Run by her blog later in the week to see all the herby dishes being created around the world, most of them hopefully legal.

Now on to some other miscellaneous stuff that I keep either forgetting to talk about or little things I just want to throw in here:

1)  I remember a little while back I was asked what my new camera is and I keep forgetting to say.  It's no big deal at all but I appreciate the asking.  I did have a Kodak something or other for several years but it has been slowly dying for the last year. I finally got fed up, went to a local camera shop, told them what I use it for which is basically not much. I'm not a big photographer so I just needed something super easy that takes decent pics and that I can't screw up. Really. That last part was the most important.  I just want it to read my mind and give me what I want. Is that too much to ask of an inanimate object?  Much the same as what I want from my husband.

I ask for so little in this world.

So when I talked to the nice man at the counter, Itold him I could only spend up to $200, fully expecting for him to sneer and get on the intercom and point me out as being a lily livered lost sales cause, but instead,   he said "you don't really need to spend that much.  I can get you a basic little Nikon that will have more functions and better pictures than what you have now and I'm pretty sure you'll be happy."  He was right.  It's just a little Nikon Coolpix L10 ($120) and I love it.  Takes better pics, has some zoom, takes video, all things my other cursed camera didn't do.  I am happy.  And I'm personally going to petition God to let him in heaven without hassle because he's the first salesman in my life who didn't lie, didn't only show me items that were at or over my budget, and he was nice.  Nice, I tells ya.  I've never really met a nice salesman before.

I'm putting him on my Christmas card list. 

He's my new best friend.  He, on the other hand is wishing he'd never sold me a camera because as my new best friend I emailed him pics of my new $4 Walgreen's thong sandals and asked for his opinion of if they make my toes look fat.  He didn't answer so I guess that means they make my toes look cute.  Right?  You see the logic here?

2)  In the realm of--Isn't this cute?--I finally ate (okay gave to the nieces) the last of the turtle cookies my fantabulous co-workers got for me following my surgery and at the bottom was this way cool cookie holder. I've made cookie bouquets before of my own using a basket and floral foam but check this out:

How cool is that? It holds something like 21 cookies!  So the next time I make a cookie bouquet for a sick friend there's going to have to be a return deposit on the container.  You know, something along the lines of "give this back or I'll burn your house down".  You know, something just stern enough to be listened to.

3)  Along the lines of alwasy be prepared and do so months in advance, I'm going to offer all of us some family Christmas party advice. Oh, nothing I thought of myself, but it is a great piece of advice that I found in a magazine at my surgeon's office.  It was so inspired to come home with me that it ripped itself out and made its way magically into my purse when no one I wasn't looking.

So heed this this wisdom on how to cope with horrifying family holiday parties because it was bought at the price of my integrity. From the November 2005 Oprah, and God knows anything Oprah prints is true because Oprah is God herself,

"The single best way to cope with familial turmoil is to give up the hope that your relatives will suddenly become cornucopias of emotional health.  It's true.  Your family of origin should give unconditional love, wisdome, and insite. And this will happen right after your hamster publishes its novel.  Instead of yearning for the a perfec tfamily, listen to teach Byron Katie, author of the book I Need Your Love--Is That True?  "If I had a prayer," she writes, "it would be this:  God spare me from the desire for love, approval, and appreciation.Amen."  This sound sharsh if you've never experienced freedome from these desires, which comes when you accept yourself."

I do believe that, so much so in fact that I will stand up in front of all of you right now and say that I no longer desire anyone's love, approval, or appreciation, if that's alright with you.

4)Check this out--The City Bakery in LA is selling Paris Hilton cupcakes complete with nail file (okay popsicle stick but I LOVE the fun of these). I found the pic/story on the famous TMZ website. Check them out. They're much better at reporting celeb news than Perez Hilton and they don't kiss Miss HIlton's "buttchops", as my deaf niece referred to her "buttocks" today.  www.tmz.com

5) And for our final little goldmine of the day...remember back when I did that really stupid thing and made those oils with the fresh herbs?  Then remember when I came back and told you to really, really, really, NEVER do that thing with the fresh herbs in oil?  Yeah, well, remember when a couple of you smartasses (Kyleen and Sher) said "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if you grew a biological weapon and then photographed it for us?"

Do I deny you people anything? Of course not.

So here you go, kiddoes.  Photographic proof that putting fresh herbs in oil is a really stupid thing to do. Well, to be fair, putting them in isn't stupid if your intent is to poison someone but since that's not real high on most people's to-do list, we can put it firmly in the stupid category for the biggest proportion of the population.

Look, rejoice, and revel in all that botulism can be when left on the window sill unchecked.  Yum!

See what looks like cutesy cotton all around the thyme?  That would be clouds of noxious bacteria.  Put it down and walk away.

See all those little specs of white on the peppers?  I have no clue on this planet without a plate of agar what the hell that is.  I'm guessing probably nothing high on the county health inspector's "good" list.

The two on the left were both canola oil. The two on the right were olive oil. The olive oil subjects fared a little better with no visible bacteria.  My personal guess is the acid in the olives is keeping the bacteria in check but don't quote me on it.  But hey, my name's not Mikey and I'm not eatin' it.  Tomorrow they all get tossed.

So the next time you feel like emulating me on something like this, think harder.  But most of the rest of what I do won't get you into too much trouble. 

Baked Mostaccioli--the Longcut Version

Recipe by Glenna Anderson Muse

Ingredients:

3 cups mostaccioli, rigatoni, wagon wheels, or other chunky pasta

1 Tbsp beef soup base or bouillon

1 tsp minced garlic

1 stick butter

2 cups 1/2 and 1/2,  or heavy whipping cream

2 oz. cream cheese

2 cup Parmesan, shredded or grated, divided for usage

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp white pepper

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 lb ground beef or ground sausage or mix

4 roma tomatoes, diced

1 6 oz can tomato paste

1 8 oz can tomato sauce

1 1/2 Tbsp non-Spatini Spatini mix (recipe to follow)

Directions:

Boil pasta to al dente in copious amounts of water and the beef soup base. Drain and put pasta back in pot. Set aside.

Alfredo: Brown garlic in 1 Tbsp of the butter.  Add rest of butter and melt.  Add cream or half/half, cream cheese, and 1 cup parmesan.  Bring to simmer, whisking constantly to combine.  Add salt, white pepper, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Meat sauce:  Brown meat and drain.  Stir in rest of ingredient and simmr for 15 minutes.

To assemble:  Toss pasta with half to 2/3 of alfredo and layer into bottom of 8"x8" baking dish. Use the rest of the alfredo to dip breadsticks. 

In the pics I cut down the recipe to fit into a 6"x8" pan for the toaster oven. It was 90 degrees here today and we haven't turned the air conditioning on yet. No way was I turning on the big oven!

Layer the meat sauce on top.

Layer on the cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, until bubbly and you're done.

See? That wasn't so bad even when we made it all from scratch and without using Mr. Newman, not that I wouldn't enjoy using Mr. Newman but I don't think Mrs. Newman would like what I had in mind all that much.

Now, about that non-Spatini Spatini mix:

By Glenna Anderson Muse

Combine the following in a bowl, stir to combine, and store in a tightly lidded container. 2 Tbsp dried basel

2 Tbsp dried oregano

1 Tbsp dried Thyme

1 Tbsp dried Rosemary

1/2 cup dried onion flakes

1/2 cup dried parsley flakes

1 Tbsp dried minced garlic

1 Tbsp garlic powder

2 Tbsp Paprika

1 Tbsp Black Pepper

1 Tbsp dried red chili flakes (optional)

2 tsp Salt

1/4 cup sugar

Use 1 Tbsp of mix for every 6 oz  of tomato paste or 12 oz of tomato sauce.

Comments

[Kalyn]

I'm laughing at your story about mailing the herbs. In college I had a few friends who used to mail other types of "herbs", and I was sure they would get caught, but they never did. (Of course, that was back in the olden days before package security!) Sounds like a very good mixture to season pasta sauce, which for some reason I always call "spagetti sauce" in my head, even when it's not going on spagetti!

[Gelnna]

You're right. it's "pasta" seasoning not specifically "spaghetti" seasoning. It was funny yesterday. When I finally got why everyone was so interested in my package. :-)

[TexanNewYorker]

So much yummyness in the mostacoli and sauce and seasoning mix . . . YUM! Thanks for acquiescing to our adolescent curiousity and posting the pics of the what-not-to-do oil project. They're not nearly as nasty as some of the things I've grown in my fridge, er, um, I mean, as what I imagined.

[Gelnna]

Kyleen--I did it all for you! And in person they're grosser than the pics. I've been procrastinating uncorking them to dispose of the oil because I have a feeling it's going to be really bad.

[sher]

Well, the bacteria in the olive oil is probably very healthy. The pasta looks delish. Is Cindy gonna smoke that stuff?

[Glenna]

LOL! I'm sure she'll let me know. She's having family problems. She'd probably be temtped.