Rant of the Birthday /or/ Improv Chorizo Pasta

Hey Y'all!

*Bear with me. I'm practicing this "y'all" thing because I moved to Nashville and I need to pick-up the native tongue.*

On April 28 I turned thirty-something. An utterly non-special birthday, but for the fact that it was during a global pandemic: we’re all quarantining, social distancing, and preventing the end of humanity as we know it.

So, early on the 28th, I woke up to get to the grocery store in time to gain easy entry. This is odd to begin with because I don’t rise with the sun every morning- I barely rise with strong espresso and a shower.

Checked my phone for birthday messages to get in the spirit of this quasi-holiday and started gearing up to enter the outside world. After a half-hour of make-shifting an apocalyptic hazard suit, I went grocery shopping looking like Dexter about to dispose of a body.

No joke, shopping felt like hunting: ingredients were scarce, people were looking to see what your next move was, and the spice rack was gone. My planned meal CLEARLY went out the window. There was no choice but to improvise.

At that moment, dressed in a homemade, meth-lab hazmat suit (so I didn’t die of Corona on my birthday) I set forth to get anything I could make a meal out of.

Just as I walked into the pasta aisle, the road rage set in and it was real!

Seriously though, why are people just standing with their carts in the middle of the aisle, staring at pasta like it's a f*&%-ing Madison Avenue holiday window display, during a PANDEMIC?!

There’s like 4 boxes of spaghetti left. Grab one and go!

STOP 👏 WINDOW 👏SHOPPING👏

This is how it went the entire hour I was there. So I grabbed the essentials I didn't have at home: Onion, Champagne, Olive oil, and whatever pasta was left ... and got OUT before I got the urge to put the Dexter-suit to use.

Needless to say I didn't grab enough for a meal. So this is what I made for my birthday lunch instead: Improv Chorizo Pasta!

Ingredients:

• About 3 inches of Cantimpalo Chorizo I had for mid-afternoon snacking

• ½ a large onion

• 3 garlic cloves

• ½ of an 8 oz can of tomato sauce that I hadn’t used the night before

• Parsley stems (someone in the house had used the leaves for something already)

• 1 tomato that was a day away from going bad

• About a teaspoon of brown sugar

• About 2 tablespoons of olive oil

• About ½ a teaspoon of Italian seasoning

• About ½ a teaspoon of dry thyme

• Salt to taste

• Box of spaghetti

*Note to reader: I eyeball these things, so add whatever looks good to you and if you don’t like something, substitute it or leave it out.*

Again, the point is to make yummy pasta, not to make a Michelin⭐ meal. Granted, great ingredients are always best, but It’s pasta during a pandemic, you don’t need hand-picked tomatoes from Tuscany to pull it off.

Sorry, I digress. At this point you're probably like:

Ok, here’s the how to:

I chopped the onion, minced the garlic, diced the chorizo and the tomato, and put all of it in the pan with the olive oil at low-medium heat. I let the flavors infuse the oil, while I put the entire box of pasta to boil in another pot with salted water.

*Pro tip: DO NOT ADD OIL TO BOILING PASTA. You want the sauce to cling to it when you “marry it” and adding oil to pasta water will do the opposite.*

Don’t wanna trust me on this? Google it. Chefs will throw fits over this. Don't trust me, trust them, they know better than I…

Recipe continued:

After I saw that the oil was a rich, red color from the chorizo and it smelled ALL THE GOOD [yes, that’s a technical term- don't get distracted- keep reading...] I added the tomato sauce, the spices, the sugar, the parsley, and a pinch of salt.

I stirred it a bit, lowered the heat, and covered it until the pasta was ready.

*Also, people: "ready pasta" means 'al dente'. Merriam-Webster literally defines that as 'cooked just enough to retain a firm texture.' It's SUPPOSED to have a bite. We're not making baby-food here!*

I then used tongs to put the pasta, directly from the pot, into the sauce and ladled some pasta water on it. Guys, this is marrying it. The starch from the pasta will help sauce cling, or so I’ve heard experts say…

Used tongs again to mix it all up and served it.

Not gonna lie, this was so good I made it as my birthday lunch- there were no leftovers- and I made it again the day after.

Well. That's it. That's the pasta. It was delicious and it only took me like 25 mins from start to finish.

Hope you enjoyed the rant and the recipe.

See y'all soon!

Love,