A SIMPLE LIFE

After working for close to a month, I understand the value of little things, like your boyfriend watering the weed daily, or your roommate unloading the dishwasher. It's so easy to make life crazy busy and chaotic, but it's not so easy slowing down.

Something not so simple? Pie.

BITS AND BITES 05.07

[ thumb-sized "chocoatcan" cookies... without the oats ]

• Always nice coming home, coming back to my place...
• After a long day of work, home's one of two things I look forward to seeing.
• (The other thing's E... in case you couldn't guess.)
• And yesterday, I came home to no cookies.
• So clearly, E. had to come home to cookies. 
• Lots of cookies.
• Cookies for the next year roomie.
• Cookies for this year's roomies.
• Cookies for my work buddies.
• Cookies for E!
• And obvs, cookies for me.
• It's Monday! Monday mush. I mean, brain mush...

Clearly, lovely readers, you've got to write me something serious and thoughtful back... Like how does ink come out of pens?

TOUCH AND GO

Pardon the poor quality of the photo. I got home late last night, after being stuck in traffic to and from Woodland Hills. Sometimes it sucks living on the Westside.

But last night turned into a thing of beauty, as my dinner alone turned into a group of four, sharing a beautiful pot of spaghetti and meatballs. It was easy. All the meatball recipes, perfect pasta tips, and so on in my brain just melded together, and dinner - wonderfully chewy spaghetti and the tenderest of meatballs - came together with no recipe. 

Total 180 from last month.

So instead of an actual recipe, today's post consists of links to other recipes and the whisper of encouragement for you to just let go. 

• Pasta tips:
• The water that the pasta will cook in needs to be as salty as the sea.
• When the pasta is a minute away from being totally perfect (aka al dente), drain it and then poor it in with the marinara sauce, then let it simmer its way to perfection.
• Want to make your own? Here.
• Marinara recipes:
• Trader Joe's, your bounty of marinara sauces never ceases to amaze me. (Yes, I cheated.)
• But here, a roasted tomato marinara sauce, and a "regular" marinara sauce.
• Meatball recipes:
• Fish sauce (just a smidge, though) really accentuates the flavor of the meat. (White on Rice taught me that trick!)
• Cheese, as well as ground pork, helps lighten the heaviness of ground beef and makes meatballs super tender. (Last night's balls had a combination of mozzarella and parmesan.)
• No Recipes' spaghetti + meatballs recipe? The love of my live... Next to E.

Now, go! Cook.