I haven't been dieting well or even exercising well lately. Frequently, I've been coming home exhausted. I've been trying to at least avoid junk food and eating home made food even if that food isn't necessarily the most dietary of foods. It's been a rough couple of weeks because I've been teaching 4 sections of Composition II how to correctly use NoodleTools, a program that generates works cited pages. I've been doing this in a computer lab, which means I run around hour after hour during the day, but it isn't healthy running around. It's not aerobic. I rush from one side of a room to the other to stop a couple of minutes each place. It's taking its toll on me.
On Friday I spent the day with Mari and Brian, at a state conference between community colleges and the regents (the public state universities). The day was interesting, but long. The upside is that we went down to Newton for the meeting on Thursday. Thursday night we unwound with some drinks and soaking in the hot tub. I haven't been that warm and relaxed in MONTHS!!! I'm definitely going to have to get a whirlpool tub. Those drinks and that soaking was more rejuvenating than sleeping a week straight.
I was so refreshed and the day was so nice today that I took Joey for a walk on our fair-weather route. It was great! I'm hoping to take her again this afternoon.
So, anyway, right now, I'm more interested in exploring cooking more so than dieting. When I came home I found 3 new cooking magazines in the mail box. I had to try one of the recipes today: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca. Not knowing what puttanesca meant, I just did a quick search and learned from Wikipedia that it literally means "whore's style spaghetti." I've been called worse things.
I was intrigued by this recipe because it's made mostly of ingredients that can be kept in the pantry and not in the fridge. In other words, I can keep the ingredients on hand for a long time and when I'm tired or I don't want to go to the store, I can still whip up something that's good rather than going through a fast food drive-through. Also, it has a lot of ingredients with which I've had little to no experience, so I was challenged by it.
I don't know if this recipe is for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. This is a very oily spaghetti. It especially has a lot of olive oil. But there's also anchovies in it, so it also has omega-3 fish oil. The Kalamata olives and capers made it nice and tangy as well. So, if your idea of spaghetti is Chef Boyardee, or Kraft, this may not be for you.
The one ingredient I didn't use was grape tomatoes. I looked at them in the store and they just looked hard and woody. So, instead I used a big can of diced tomatoes. I drained them slightly, but when it called to add the additional spaghetti water, I didn't need to because there was plenty of sauce. Besides, I've read where canned tomatoes are even richer in the healthy antioxident, lycopene, than fresh tomatoes.
I found this recipe on page 91 of the March 2011 edition of Everyday Food.
Ingredients
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/5 cups grape tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed, dranied, and coarsely chopped.
3 anchovy fillets, minced
1/3 cup pitted Kalamata or other brined black olives, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves minced
1.5 cups tomato purée (from a 15-ounce can)
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 pound spaghetti
Preparation
1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add grape tomatoes, capers, anchovies, olives, and garlic and cook until fragrant and tomatoes soften, about 5 minutes. Add tomato purée and season with salt and pepper; cook 2 minutes (sauce will be separated)
2. Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water; drain pasta and add to sauce tossing to combine and adding enough pasta water to create a thin sauce that coats pasta. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve immediately. Serves 6.
Nutrition:
420 calories; 13 grams fat; 12 grams protein; 63 grams carbs; 4 grams fiber. Totals 11 points plus weight watcher's points.
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