January 27, 2020

The Mondays and the Larder

Yes, I have a case of the Mondays. My day is not too taxing, but the psychological hurdle I have to get over on Monday is Olympic high. It doesn’t make too much sense, so today I’ve decided to make and eat dinner.

Yeah, so what, right? Well, I’ve been intermittent-fasting for a few months now, and it seems to be working for me. I usually start my week with a 36-hour fast, Sunday 8pm to Tuesday 8am. I know, this sounds like torture, but the most difficult part are the cravings right around dinnertime on Monday. If I ignore them, the rest is cake. In fact, I think I can go even longer on the seconds day. I have been known to go to after lunch on Tuesday with no problem. I really need to try a long fast some time.

Anywho, I’ve been craving pasta lately. Nothing too special: something like what Carrabba’s used to call their Tagliarini Picchi Pacchiu—light, garlicky, and vegetarian. There seem to be plenty of copycat recipes out there, but I want to use ingredients I have, and I want to use the Instant Pot. I found a recipe to use as a base, but I’ll add slivered garlic (the last of what we had, buried under the bananas and sprouting), pepper flakes, and olive oil. I only have angel hair pasta (that’s not true, but I didn’t want the whole-grain spaghetti—never liked it) and a bottle of sauce, but I’m optimistic. I think I might use a bit less water than what they’re calling for, too. All I would really want to add here is a big handful of fresh basil.

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  The bounty of my larder.

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  Angel hair pasta broken up in the Instant Pot.

I will report.

OK, I got a “burn” notice before it even came to pressure. I might have used too little water. When I opened the top, it was still cooking, so I will let it go for a bit to see what happens. I hope this is not a real case of the Mondays.

Well, it turned out OK. Some of the pasta did stick to the bottom, but it was my fault. In all, this was a pretty successful dish.

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  Everything is in the pot.

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  The final dish. Pretty good.

I had three small bowls, so I guess it was good. Henry had one big one, and Autumn had two. Yeah, I’ll make this one again.