Festival Fussili

First, I want everyone to appreciate that typing is hard right now: I changed my keyboard to Dvorak last week (after many years of QWERTY mastery), and I'm super-caffeinated right now!! So I'm typing the wrong letters really fast.

Yesterday was my first Friday in my new (and completely awesome!) room -- no more dorm!! To celebrate, I got out the wine and headed down to my fantastic small-house kitchen (for those who don't know, it's essentially a frat house, just without the frat). I call my creation Festival Fussili because I was celebrating the weekend and most of the ingredients came from Festival Foods (my favorite grocery store). This is an easy and delicious half-hour meal! Impress your friends!

You will need:
1 lb box whole wheat fussili (or other bite-size pasta, like rotini or penne)
1 bottle white wine (I used a Pinot Grigio)
3/4 to 1 lb whole shrimp, peeled (mine had tails)
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
3 green peppers, chopped into bite-size pieces
5 roma tomatoes
olive oil
parsley, oregano, rosemary, black pepper, salt
grated cheese (parmesan, romano, etc.)

Put the pasta water on to boil (salted, naturally). Heat a few tbsp of oil in a big frying pan (mine's ~14"), then add the shrimp and cook gently until they're fully pink. Remove to a plate, and take any stray bits of shells or tails out of the pan.

By now the water should be boiling; add the pasta and set the timer. Open the wine and pour yourself a glass, but don't drink too much yet!

Add a few more tbsp of oil to the pan, and saute the onions and garlic until the onions start to soften (1-2 minutes). Then stir in the peppers, half a glass of wine, and a cup or so of water (so it's about halfway submerged -- this will cook off).

Get your tomatoes, slice them in half on the equator, and squeeze the guts into your other veggies. Yum! Give that a good stir and make sure it's simmering happily. Then dice what's left of your tomatoes and toss them in along with the parsley, oregano, rosemary, black pepper, and salt to taste (don't over-salt! you can always add more at the table).

Let that cook, stirring occasionally (add more water if it gets dry), until the pasta's done. Drain, and add it and the shrimp to the veggies. Mix it all together, and take it off the heat when most of the liquid is gone (which shouldn't take more than a minute).

Serve sprinkled with cheese and a glass of wine.

(Picture coming soon!)

beer + shaping = long hours of damage control

Last night was Friday, so I had a beer, and then went and watched Sunshine with my physics friends while I worked on the back for Mrs Darcy -- specifically, my little gather shaping and then beginning the cabled rib. Everything was peachy-keen until I got back to my room, the buzz wore off, and I realized that instead of decreasing 8 times centered, I had decreased 8 times on each side of center. WTF. So this morning at the coffee shop I had to rip back about 10 rows and fix my stuff. 4 rows later I realized I had placed the decreases off-center, and had to go back and fix that. THEN I screwed up the ribbing because for some reason I decided to put a p4 where there should have only been a p2, so I had to tink back and get that straightened out. So now I'm finally in the 3rd row of the ribbing (I made it up to the 8th while I was watching the movie .. ugh).

So that's my story and why this is going sort of slowly. It should be smooth (but long) sailing from here. I think I want to find a cabled celtic knot medallion or something to put on the back, to go with the celtic knot buttons I hope to find. Whoo!!