Pasta Puttanesca

I am Miss Major Wimpo when it comes to traveling. I am tired afterwards. For, like, DAYS. Even if I'm just taking a 2-hour flight.  Such is the plight for someone as delicate as I am.

Anyway for Labor Day weekend I had more of an excuse for post-travel fatigue, since I had a fun and food-packed extended weekend in the Bay Area.  The actual travel portion involved profuse amounts of sweat, cursing and snarkiness as I trudged through multiple travel depots (subway, LIRR, AirTrain, airports, etc.) carrying what felt like a full-grown man inside of a suitcase and a very awkward, 15-pound pug in a bulky carrier hanging like a dead weight on my near-dislocated shoulder. Ah, the wonders of traveling with a pet and still refusing to check in luggage.

After our return home and several meals at Chipotle, I caved and started cooking again. But I started easy, with Pasta Puttanesca.

Recipe adapted from New York Times. 

Ingredients:

• Salt to taste (when I was a beginning cook, I really hated the phrase "to taste"--in this recipe, wait till everything's done to taste because there's plenty of salt in the ingredients. Unless you are Lot's wife, you probably won't need more than a 1/4 to 1/2 tsp, at the most)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 or more cloves garlic, lightly smashed and peeled
• 3 or more anchovy fillets
• 1 28-ounce can whole plum tomatoes
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup pitted black olives, preferably oil-cured
• 2 tablespoons capers
• Crushed red pepper flakes to taste (in our household, this would translate to a measly 1/4 tsp or so because Mr. Whitey can't handle spicy food (I know, I'm being all racial and a bad person, I totally know that there are plenty of his kind who absolutely love spicy food--this is just me trying to shame him.  Also, do you like how I, in making my half-apology, took another dig by using the phrase "his kind", as if to further alienate them into being the "other"?))
• 1 pound linguine or other long pasta (oddly, there was no linguine at Fairway. WTF. Hence the "thick spaghetti", which is well-known all over Italy)
• Chopped fresh parsley, oregano, marjoram or basil leaves for garnish, optional (I took the "optional" part seriously)

Note: You could easily make this a vegetarian dish by leaving out the anchovies.

•  

Heat the olive oil over moderate heat and add in the anchovies and smashed garlic. Cook until garlic is golden.  Anchovies are fascinating and add such a good savory note to dishes.  And don't worry, they don't stay whole like this throughout the cooking process.

After a few minutes of cooking, they kinda dissolve, like dees.

In a bowl, crush the tomatoes with your hands (you can also use a can of crushed tomatoes, although I actually I do like the texture of whole canned tomatoes lovingly crushed by my grubby hands a bit better than the pre-crushed tomatoes, which seem a bit watery to me, but will do just fine) and add to the garlic and anchovies.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for at least 10 minutes.

While the tomatoes are a'simmerin' away, prep the salty, briny stuff.  Pit the olives (you can see how I do this here) .  You can also chop them if you like.  Hm, guess the capers and red pepper flakes don't really need any prep.  But have a photo, if you please.

Put the olives, capers and pepper flakes into the tomato sauce.  You can use the sauce after  about 10-15 minutes of simmering (i.e. while you're cooking the pasta), or as long as you want.

Cook your pasta according to the package directions, shaving off a minute or two.  Drain the pasta and add to the sauce.  Toss with sauce and continue to stir over heat until pasta reaches your desired consistency.

Ta-da! This tasted awfully like the tuna pasta I made, sans tuna.  Yum.