October 20, 2021 Lunch - Fish Soup. Dinner - Pasta with Italian sausage Spaghetti Sauce

 October 20, 2021 Lunch - Fish Soup. Dinner - Pasta with Italian sausage Spaghetti Sauce 

I slept until 9:00. Then showered and dressed by 9:40.  I toasted a slice of bagel and spread cream cheese on it and garnished it with a slice of red onion and Iberico cheese and drank a cup of chai with it.

At noon Suzette was hungry so I heated the fish soup I made yesterday and toasted and buttered four pieces of French baguette and we had a hearty peasant meal.

At 3:30 I went to the bank and then Smith’s to shop.  I bought milk, cream cheese, and sour cream.  Then a lb. of Italian Sausage, a pork loin, and 3 lb. of thick sliced smoked bacon.  I also bought shallots, avocados, a bunch of Italian broad leaf parsley, a green bell pepper, and Roma tomatoes.  I had an idea of making a Italian Sausage spaghetti sauce with added fresh vegetables.

When I returned home at 5:00 I made a couple of calls and then started cooking.  I filled three bowls: 1/2 onion, three cloves of garlic, and 1/3 red bell pepper in one.  Three mushrooms sliced and three Roma tomatoes cubed in the second, and three Italian Sausages cubed in the third.

I fetched a can of Hunts meat Spaghetti sauce and went to the garden and picked a handful of oregano stalks and about eight sage leaves.  I de-leaved five or six stems of oregano and sliced the sage leaves and then chopped the herbs and added some to both the first and second bowls.

I heated 2 T. of olive oil in a large pot and added the first bowl with chopped onion, garlic and bell peppers.  After a minute I added the sausage and herbs and sautéed the ingredients for about five minutes.  Then I added the mushrooms and tomatoes and cooked them for about ten minutes.  Then I added the spaghetti sauce and a 6 oz. can of tomato paste.  The sauce thickened and a began adding water to thin the sauce. I probably added a cup of water over the next 30 minutes of cooking.

Suzette then came to the kitchen and Willy arrived.  I served Willy a glass of La Gitana red wine from Rioja that he did not like because unit was too heavy and organic.  I figured we would all prefer a lighter food friendly wine so I opened a bottle of Barbera de Asti, $6.99 at Trader Joe’s.

Suzette heated a Pyrex baking dish filled with PPI Cassarecce  pasta with a small amount of sauce.

Then Suzette sliced a piece of baguette into three slices and fried them in a skillet with crushed cloves of garlic to make garlic toast in the big skillet

I chopped about 1 1/2 T. of Italian broadleaf parsley and about 1/2 cup of fresh mozzarella and micro grated about 1/3 cup of  Pecorino Romano cheese. 

Suzette filled bowls of warm pasta dotted with cubes of mozzarella that melted into the pasta and covered the pasta with Sausage Spaghetti sauce and garnished each bowl with Pecorino-Romano cheese and a dusting of Chopped Italian parsley.

We ate a great dinner that was relatively easy to make with a very pleasant wine as we discussed Willy’s interview and family history.

At 8:30 Willy left and I lay down to watch game 4 of the LA v. Atlanta playoffs, which Atlanta won 9 to 2 to take a commanding 3 to 1 lead in their best of 7 series and then blogged.

I went to bed at 10:00. Suzette went to bed at 9:30.

Bon Appetit