Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal: End of Days Bolognese

As I continue to mine my YouTube cooking channels for recipes, I came across this one from "Nat's What I Reckon." I figured I'd give his Bolognese a try.

It's good, if a little sweet for me. I dunno if that's because I tend not to like a sweet tomato flavor or not...I salt my pizza. But the carrots certainly made it sweeter. It was very tasty, though, and I'd certainly make it again.

This makes a lot, since it's also really a sauce recipe, not a dish recipe, so scale accordingly.

Recipe follows. In the spirit of "Nat's What I Reckon" I kept the recipe in his very...specific...style. Get the kids out of the room. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw_Ze9zIafM )

# End of Days Bolognese

Nat's What I Reckon

3.0 stalks celery
2.0 whole carrots
1.0 whole red onion
200.0 grams pancetta
500.0 grams ground beef
500.0 grams ground pork
300.0 grams tomato paste
2.0 cups chicken stock
1.0 cup milk
1.0 cup red wine
2.0 tbsp butter
2.0 tbsp vegetable oil
1.0 sprig rosemary
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)
parmesan (grated) (to taste)
dried parsley (to taste)
52.0 ounces spaghetti

1 - Right, so dice the onion, dice the carrot, dice the celery, bang in a bowl.
2 - I'm gonna put the pancetta in there. You can put bacon in there as long as the fuckin' bacon or pancetta isn't fuckin' zucchini. So once you've cut that up bung it in the same bowl
3 - Right, so once it's cut up, fuck off over to the stove.
4 - Right, so get yourself a big pot or pan crank the heat up and fuckin' bang it on then.
5 - Then bang in some butter, a little splash of oil, then bang this shit in (the onion/carrot/celery/pancetta).
6 - Give it a kick around the butter and oil keep your pan nice and hot. You want to fry the fuckin' shit out of it.
7 - Next add the beef and the pork. So the idea is to try and fry all that off. There'll be a lot of water and piss in it that you'll try and cook off. This might take a sec but it's worth it. A hot tip for breaking up minces: use a whisk - it breaks it off evenly. Don't worry if it sticks to the bottom of it, once we bung the wine in that'll fuckin' sort that out.
8 - Right, see here's a moment we can choose to put a bit of rosemary in. If you don't want to put rosemary then don't worry about it. You can put thyme in, you can put a couple of fuckin' things in. Fuckin' put the whole rosemary thing in. It'll fall apart. You'll find the stick, doin't worry about it.
9 - See that watery shit? You want to cook that out. Keep cooking it till it's frying. It's not the fuckin' the end of the world if you don't, it's just better if you do.
10 - Right. once you fry the liquid off then fuck it up with some wine. Make sure you do this in the right order. Don't fuckin' put the stock in and then put the booze in. If the booze...just fuckin' don't.
11 - So once the booze is cooked off a bit, add the tomato paste. Stir that through.
12 - Next is the bit that I know fucks with your head but just trust me. Put the milk in and then add your stock, a good pinch of salt, a good crack of pepper, and bang in a couple of bay leaves. Give it a stir.
13 - Turn the heat down, bang the lid on it, and cook it for fuckin' as long as you like. The longer you cook it the nicer it is. Minimum 45 minutes, maximum forever. Just keep giving it a stir every now and then it you'll be alright.
14 - Right, so while that's cooking salt the fuck out of some boiling water and bang some pasta in it.
15 - Check on your sauce. If it looks a bit dry, add some more stock to it.
16 - If you look on the pasta package and it says 12 minute pasta I cook it for 11 minutes Better to undercook pasta then overcook.
17 - Right, I'd drain the pasta bang it back in the pot, ladle in some sauce, give it a kick around in there, and fuckin' serve it up champ!
18 - Grate a bit of cheese on it. Grate a lot of cheese on top.
19 - Chop up a bit of parsley, if you like. Put some of that bullshit on it.

Makes 26 servings at ~400 calories per serving

Calories 499
Total Fat 13g
Total Carbohydrate 46g
Protein 16g

#cooking #thisweeksmeals

Assuming I've put in five resumes a day, five days a week, since I was laid off...and admittedly I haven't done that consistently, but I've done it more than not...a low end estiamtion means I've put in about 2000 resumes.

2000 resumes, 5 interviews. 0.25% hit rate.

YIKES.

So I have a Yen Ta Fo recipe, and, ho boy, I'm gonna wait to make this until after I have a job. I gotta buy a LOT of stuff for it.

Quote of the Day 2:

"Sadly this is all going to plan."

Quote of the Day:

“I would totally punch Paul McCartney” —Taylor Temper

[Thoughts Before Bed]

So with my avatar pretty much finished, with both jeans-and-sweater look as well as a tank-top and jeans look and a tanktop and boxers look, she's pretty much all finished.

I'm noticing I take a whole lot more selifies in VR than I ever did in real life. On top of that, I often hang out in my cabin wearing the boxers-and-tanktop look.

It's odd - I finally feel comfortable in my skin, as it were - and suddenly, I'm taking more pictures and getting very comfy with the body I gave myself. That avvie is still not 100% what I want, but it's so close I'm fine with it. And to be honest, how many of us are 100% what we want? I'm fine with 83% considering my meat body is down there at about 13%.

It also doesn't hurt that my avvie looks about thirty years younger than I do, but I DIDN'T HAVE THAT CUTENESS WHEN I WAS 20.

One of the few desk toys I kept around from my Nintendo days.

After last week's success with bread, I decided to try one more time. Nothing special. Just white bread. Followed a video super tightly, ignoring time suggestions and going by matching what the video was showing.

I actually overworked the dough twice. I threw it out each time and started over - if this is going to be my last loaf of homemade bread, I may as well just burn up the ingredients. The third time seemed to come out okay and matched the video I was watching.

I let it rise twice, again, ignoring the time suggestions and going by poke test and doubled sizes. Baked it as the video said, again ignoring the time suggestions and going by seeng if it matched the video.

And it's still too dense and super chewy.

So I'm finally done with bread making. It's been two years, and whatever I'm doing wrong, I can't figure it out. While I can make a pretty decent pastry bread, I'll leave the loaf-of-bread-making sorcery to the professionals and buy bread from here out.

Today I learned this existed.

https://youtu.be/GhYIEISiEbo

So, when I get my nest freelance paycheck, I'm considering treating myself and picking this up for my Virtual Arcade. I just wish it was an octagonal gate and not square. I hated the CPS Joystick for that reason.

I'm up for recommendations, though.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GJC5WSS?th=1

Please don't die, little guy. I was never good at keeping plants, but I'm gonna try....

Thank you Cab Calloway for being there when I was a kid in Sesame Street, and for being there for me when I was adult in the Blues Brothers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esnDnIK2v1g

Did some vegetable harvesting today with members of A Supportive Community For All at First Light Farm. Grabbed some cucumbers and tomatoes. Some of these went straight into a salad that night. Farm-to-Table in under 10 hours....

When I found out they had some holy basil, I asked for some. Thinking I'd only get enough for a meal, I was gifted an entire plant. So this is my new roomie. Now I gotta figure out how to keep her alive. I don't have the best green thumb....