Layout ADD

Yes I've changed the layout again.  Just trying to find something I like that allows me the most freedom to customize.  Bear with me, its possible more changes will come.

“There may not be a Heaven, but there is a San Francisco."

First, I need to use full disclosure.  We failed out attempt to be eating all day.  A: That's not easy to do, you get full really fast.  2- It's expensive.  However there was some good sampling in the two days spent wandering around San Francisco.

I arrived first thing Thursday morning, and I do mean first thing, when you're flight LANDS before most people get to work, that's early.  Anyway, me and the brother headed to AT&T park for a day game between the Giants and Astros, but first we had to stop and grab a little lunch.  We wandered into Ironside a few blocks from the stadium, a place apparently well known for its Cubano sandwich.  In the interest of getting the most out of our food tasting experience, we also got a Grilled Snapper sandwich and went halvsies.

Pressed Cubano
Country ham, slow roasted pork, gruyere and pickles

Dude, let me tell you, this thing is delicious.  The bread to filling ration was maybe a little off (I hate when you have way more bread than filling, where's the fun in that)  But you can't beat the flavor.  Here's where my problem comes in though.  Normally the cubano is a $12 sandwich, because it was game day they knock it down a whopping $2.  If I'm paying that much for a sandwich it better be the best damn sandwich I've ever had.  And quite frankly it wasn't.

I think I've been a bit spoiled by living in NYC for a while and picking up deli sandwiches all the time that were far more delicious and far less expensive.  I miss NY delis.







Grilled Snapper
Jalapeno aioli, pickled onions, butter lettuce, cilantro, & thai basil, and of course red snapper......very tasty!

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about a fish sandwich, but actually it was really good.  Definitely a much lighter option compared to the cubano, but very flavorful.

But again, I have the same problem with this as I did with the cubano, $10.  Also this was especially disappointing with the snapper because it definitely was not particularly filling.

However, all that being said, if you are in San Francisco and going to a game, I'm guessing you'll overpay for any food in that area, so I would definitely say stop by Ironside and try the cubano.

And if not for the cubano, then for the tallboys of PBR that you can get with it.


There wasn't a whole lot of eating at the game, because quite frankly, I'm not made of money and any sporting event is going to bend you over when it comes to price on food and drinks.

There was plenty of beer, but it really hurts to fork over $10 for a very average sized beer.  I'm just saying.

While walking home from the game, we wandered into Boudin Bakery Cafe on Market St in downtown.  Grabbed a few more sandwiches.  This time we went with the Pesto Roast Beef and Chicken with Chipotle Aioli.  I think my brother just likes ordering things with aioli.

Both sandwiches were satisfactory, again nothing that really blew me away, but good.  And given the adult beverage consumption that had been going on, I'm guessing anything would have been good, so I'll just leave it at that.



That night we got talked into grabbing "exotic drinks" at the Tonga Room.  Which is now one of my new favorite places.

The Tonga Room - Making it Rain

It's like walking onto a pirate ship.  There is a small pond in the middle of the lounge, with a floating band/dj.  Also every few minutes it rains.  They have waterworks that make it rain over the pond.

Here's the deal with the Tonga Room, which I knew nothing about before going there, the whole point are these ridiculously colored rum drinks.  And they have quite a selection.  I started with a strawberry daiquiri but ended up drinking an extremely Blue Hawaiian and then something called the Bora Bora Horror.  It. Was. Spectacular.  Let me put it this way, every drink comes with an umbrella, how can you go wrong with that?  Answer: you can't.

So here's what we tried:
Hurricane: rum, fresh pineapple juice, oj, lemon juice and sloe gin
This is the only drink that didn't get completely finished, not a favorite.

Blue Hawaii: white rum blended with blue curacao and fresh juice.
I drank two of them, fairly quickly, that's all I need to say.

Zombie: I don't know whats actually in this so I'll just give you their description: "A mighty grog laced with dark rum, the classic potion to keep you under our spell"
It was OK I guess, I wouldn't order it again.

Tonga Mai Tai: dark rum with triple sec and fresh juices.  Since my brother ordered this I should let him talk about it.  But he only took one sip and then I had to finish it.  He's my younger brother, on the right side of 30, shouldn't he be outdrinking me 11 out of 10 times?  Feel ashamed little brother, feel very ashamed.

Bora Bora Horror: rum, banana liqueur, grand marnier mixed with fresh pineapple juice.
This drink wins the night, damn those were tasty.  Also they're served in a glass that watches you...creepily.

A word of caution, if you stay too long at the Tonga Room, you might decide to climb one of the masts and dive into the pool/pond in the middle of the room.  I know because I was probably about a drink and half from doing this myself.  I didn't ask specifically but I have to imagine this is frowned upon by the establishment.

Friday was meant to be our epic eating day.  However, that never really materialized, although we definitely sampled some good food.  Wandering along the Embarcadero, we came across a food truck tucked off on one of the side streets.  Food trucks always seem to be a good way to sample some really good food so we stopped, ordered, and waited.  And waited.  They literally took 30 minutes to deliver our one burger and what they call the "Double Whammy" which is potlatch dusted french fries and green beans all piled together.  If you happen to know what "potlatch" is, I'd love to know, it was really good.

After the excessive waiting (small bonus, free cookies while you wait, and they were excellent) we finally sat down to try it out.  Conclusion: the burger was average at best, certainly nothing spectacular and certainly not worth waiting 30 minutes for.  The double whammy however was awesome, whoever thought putting fries and green beans together is part genius.  Add to that their homemade ketchup which was delicious, with a little kick to it, and that was definitely a food victory.

 We made our way to the Ferry Building for what we figured to be a smorgasbord.  We stopped at so many different places I'm not even sure I remember them at all.  For those of you who don't know the Ferry Building is like a giant market of awesomeness, with some extra restaurants sprinkled in for good measure.

One of the first stops was Stonehouse California Olive Oil.  Which is pretty much just a bunch of super fancy but awesomely delicious variations of olive oil.  The best part? Free samples!  A few of the favorites were the Garlic Olive Oil and the Chili Olive Oil which had a fantastic little kick to it.

Next up was Prather Ranch Meat Company.  The guy behind the counter rambled on a bit about organic blah blah blah, if you've read my About Me you know that this is not a concern of mine.  My concern is how tasty is it.  We didn't try any of the meat, although they mentioned a Maple Whiskey Sausage or something along those lines that had my mouth watering.  But we did try their German Potato Salad and Southern Style Coleslaw.

The German Potato Salad is the first non-mayonaisse based potato salad I had ever tried, and I would certainly eat it again.  It is made with bacon, caramelized onions, whole grain mustard and sherry vinegar.  When I ordered it I thought that I would probably find the mustard a little overpowering but the vinegar really mellows it and of course when there is bacon involved good things happen.

The Southern Style Coleslaw was also really good.  It is made with sweet onion, shredded cabbage and celery seed mayonaisse.  And actually its flavor and consistency were more like a light salad than the kind of coleslaw I'm used to, but it also was very good.

There is so much to choose from in the Ferry Building that it can be a little overwhelming.  However I wasn't about to sit down and order a full meal at each place so I stuck to free samples and small side orders.  Fortunately the San Francisco Fish Company was selling raw oysters and clams at two dollars a piece.  Perfect for my little experiment!  If of course you like raw oysters, which I do.  I can't really explain why I like them.  If I'm being completely honest and disgusting, they kind of have the consistency of snot.  But if you put a little cocktail sauce or horseradish on it, they can be very tasty little niblets.



We finished the day by stopping at Coldstone (always a good idea) then hiking back up to the top of Nob Hill.  Let me say this, eating ice cream before such an endeavor is not the greatest idea in the world.  However, you have now down a little work towards burning off said ice cream.

We finished that night by letting the parents relax while we cooked a little dinner for them. (full post coming soon)  And just to get your mouth watering, we made hangar steak with a lime-garlic butter and corn cakes with a tomato-avocado relish.  Also this next post will feature my brother as a guest blogger, since he put together the menu, I grilled meat, which is kind of a specialty of mine.

Matthew has requested an opportunity to defend himself for the events that occurred at the Tonga Room.  Against my better judgement I'll allow it.  But from now on this is not a democracy, and I will rule with an iron fist.  

Post script: in which i defend my honor.

I started our tropical adventure with a Tonga Itch, which was comprised of vodka, rum, orange curacao & pineapple juice topped with grenadine.  It was quite delicious and definitely my favorite drink of the night, considering what happened next.  For the second round, I ordered the Zombie. Even though it didn't say so, i could have sworn it tasted like cranberries.  In addition, this was the strongest drink of the night from anyone's glass, a fact that both the author of this "esteemed" (read: bush league) blog and our friend agreed to.  I managed to force my way through it and be a good sport, so when it came time for the Mai Tai, I wanted nothing to do with the coconut vehicled treasure. Plus it kept raining inside, which made kept making me want to pee. Maybe what they say is true.

Breaded Chicken in a Butter Sauce? Yes, please.

My cooking choices have seemed like a solid downpayment on a future heart attack lately so I wanted to do something just a little lighter. When I came across a recipe for chicken piccata I thought to myself "Self, that's a little better" maybe not the healthiest thing in the world but definitely a recipe I wanted to try.

Chicken Piccata
 -2 boneless chicken breasts
-salt and pepper
-1/2 cup all purpose flour
-1 egg -1/2 Tbsp water
-3/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
-olive oil
-3 Tbsp unsealed butter (divided - which is just a fancy way of saying split into 3 1 Tbsp chunks)
-1/3 cup lemon juice (2 lemons)
-1/2 cup dry white wine
-lemon slices and parsley in case you want to do some pretentious plating when you're done.


Ok so before you get started with anything else, preheat the oven to 400.  You want it up and ready when the time comes, so just make sure you take care of that first othewrwise you'll end up ruining everything.  That might be a slight exaggeration, but just do it, it doesn't take much.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now for one of my favorite parts, take the chicken breasts and cover them in parchment paper.  Find a fun little kitchen mallet and pound those suckers until they're about 1/4 inch thick.  If you were feeling bold you could do this without parchment paper, however you will then be finding little chicken chunklets all over your kitchen for the next few weeks.  Trust me, I tried it once.....Once.  (And if you know that reference we should be friends, its obscure and random I know)

When you've beat the crap out of the chicken (this is also good for stress management, let it all out) sprinkle both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper.

On one plate mix the flour, 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of pepper.  On another plate beat the egg and a 1/2 Tbsp of water together.  Then on a third plate (make sure you did dishes before you start, lest you run out of plates) spread out the breadcrumbs.  Or if you're my mother, you have enough plates to serve 4200 people simultaneously.

Then you want to dip the chicken first in the flour, shake off the excess, then dip in the egg, then the breadcrumbs.

When dipping the chicken in the flour, be careful not to flop the chicken down into the mixture.  You will have flour everywhere.  The front of your pants for example, also all over your floor.  It will look like Tony Montana is your best friend.  And yes, I did this.  The bottom of my feet were well floured after standing in it while finishing the meal.

Heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a large pan over medium to medium-low heat.  Add the chicken breast and cook for about 2 minutes per side, until the breadcrumbs turn into that awesome looking golden brown color.

Grab a baking sheet or some other metal device for oven-based cooking and put a sheet of parchment paper on it.  Place the chicken on said baking sheet and throw it in the oven for about 5-10 minutes.

While the chicken is the the oven we need to make the sauce.  Wipe out the pan we used for the chicken and over medium heat melt 1Tbsp of butter.  Once melted add the lemon juice, wine, the lemon halves that we squeezed out to make the lemon juice, 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1/4 tsp of pepper.

Once everything is in there turn the heat up a little bit and boil the mixture for about 2 minutes until it is reduced in half.  Normally when I have to reduce some kind of sauce it takes forever for that to actually happen.  I don't know if its just me, but that seems to be the way it goes.  This time however it behaved appropriately.

When the mixture is reduced turn off the heat and throw the leftover butter in there and swirl it around until it melts into the mixture.

Get rid of the lemon halves.  Or better yet, save them to get chewed up in the disposal (if you have a disposal of course) it will make your kitchen smell lovely.  I would recommend cutting them into slightly smaller chunks before this step though, never can be to careful when a disposal is involved.

By the time the sauce is ready it should be time to pull the chicken out of the over.  Plate the chicken and spoon the sauce over the chicken.  Don't be shy about this.  This particular recipe makes plenty of sauce for two chicken breasts.

As I mentioned above if you're feeling pretentious or wanting to impress someone cut a slice from another lemon and grab a little sprig (sprig? leaf?) of parsley to add to the presentation value of your meal.  I would dominate Iron Chef.  Ok maybe not, but I want my own kitchen stadium anyway.  I'll set up a paypal account where you can all make donations towards this wonderful cause.

I finished this little meal with a simple caesar salad (I love caesar salad, so simple and yet so delicious).   And for good measure a bottle of Gnarly Head Pinot Grigio.  If you have the means, I highly recommend picking up a bottle.

Ok so breaded chicken sauteed in oil and then doused in a butter sauce, I was definitely kidding myself about the "healthy" aspect of this meal.  But it was delicious so I don't care.

Recipe from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chicken-piccata-recipe/index.html

Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair

Heading to San Francisco this weekend to watch some golf and eat my way around the city.  My brother and I will attempt what we have deemed the "Brad Pitt Ocean's Eleven San Francisco Challenge"

First a little background: Many of you have seen Ocean's Eleven.  If you haven't I would definitely recommend it, highly entertaining.  If any of you paid attention during that film, Brad Pitt is eating or drinking something in every scene.  Seriously, its hysterical once you realize it.

So we will be attempting to spend an entire day wandering around the city sampling the culinary goods.   This is not an exercise in gluttony (although it could probably slide that way if we aren't careful).  This is merely an inspired idea to sample as much of the local flavors as we can get our hands on.  Also, beer.

So look forward to that next week.   I hope you can stand the anticipation, because I can't.

We may be joining these guys for a food-induced coma by the end of the day

Worth the Impending Heart Attack

So I saw this little dandy on Pinterest.  Yes I'm on Pinterest, and Twitter, and Facebook, and LinkedIn, and FourSquare, and Path, and I think Google+.  Now that I think about it I might still be on MySpace and not even know it.  I may or may not have a social networking problem, you decide.

Simple enough recipe, in fact I didn't even look at the recipe, I looked at the pictures and made it up according to my own specs.

Cheddar Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Burgers


-Ground Beef (amount depends on how many you're making)
-Bacon (make sure you have enough)
-Cheddar Cheese (I think if I did this again I might throw some Monterey Jack in there too)
-Basil
-Garlic
-Buns (unless you have a gluten allergy, in which case, that sucks a little for you, but these will still be delicious)
-Whatever accoutrement you enjoy on your burger.  I tend to be a minimalist, but a little lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mustard, and mayo can go a long way (ok maybe not so minimalist).  I also feel like this would be really good with something like guacamole on it.  But let's not get carried away.


As always I start by getting everything ready, in this case its not really a big deal because there aren't any timing issues.  Chop some basil and garlic, the finer the better, and work it in to the ground meat.  This isn't completely necessary, but if you try it and don't like it, I can't do anything for your inability to understand amazing flavors.

Grate some cheese.  If you're like me grate some extra as you will more than likely find yourself sneaking little bites of it right up to the point where you stuff the burger.  No I don't wonder why my weight fluctuates a lot, I know and I embrace it.





Let's make burgers! The amount of ground beef you grab all depends on how big you want your burger, and how much cheese you want to stuff inside it.  So grab a chunk and work it into a patty.  You might have one of those fancy little burger-patty-maker things and thats cool.  Real cooks just use their hands and their god-given patty making talents.  Also if anyone wants to send me a gift, I'd love one of those patty-maker things, so convenient.





I'm sure the methods for burger stuffing vary but here's what I did.  Make a patty about the size of the burger you want and then create a divot/mini volcano by digging out the center.  BONEHEAD MOVE ALERT: Leave meat on the bottom, don't make an "O", idiot.


Fill that crater with cheese, glorious cheese.  Use the removed meat to cover the divot and work the burger back into a normal patty shape.  Or if you're Wendy's, a square.  I never understood square burgers, they seem unnatural.  Don't get me wrong, very delicious, I love Wendy's, and a frosty.  I need to go to the gym just for writing that.

Once you have your patties stuffed and ready its time for the part of this recipe that will have you thinking heart attack.  Wrap each patty in bacon.  I don't mean one or two strips.  I mean FULL COVERAGE.  I don't even want to see the patty anymore.

My mouth is watering just writing about it.  Also its lunch time.

The preference here would be to throw these bad boys on a grill.  Unfortunately, my condo association thought it would be a good idea to take 9 months of the year and rip the entire building apart and then put it back together.  So I don't have access to a grill for at least a few more weeks, possibly months.  This reminds me of the time they decided to resurface the area around the pool in June-July-August making the pool unusable all summer.  Seriously?

My building stinks to me.  So I was stuck inside, forced to use my favorite pan.  I thought about pulling out the grill pan, but let's be honest its not the same and all that would do is depress me further about not having a grill.

I'll be honest, the cooking did not go quite as well as I had anticipated.  I kept the heat at medium to avoid burning the outsides without cooking the burger all the way.  In hindsight, this was not the approach.  I eventually had to turn up the heat to make sure the bacon cooked all the way and the result was that my burgers were cooked a little more like medium than medium rare.  Many of you may be thinking "medium is great, sounds perfect."  First, you're wrong, medium is not OK.  Red meat was meant to be eaten while its still bleeding.  The flavor is better, the meat doesn't dry out.  I could go on about this.  If you still disagree, buy a steak and bring it over.  I'll cook it properly and change your mind.

If I don't change your mind, we're not friends anymore.

At the very end of cooking these fantastic creations, my guest had a wonderful idea - throw a slice of cheese on top, because honestly, who doesn't want more cheese.  Maybe someone who is lactose intolerant, but that sure sounds like a personal problem.  I was disappointed I hadn't thought of this myself.











It was a school night, so not much time to really get into creating a full spread, but I was able to pick up a little fruit salad and red skinned potato salad from Fresh and Easy, or as I like to call it fersheasy.

And of course, a meal is not complete without a bottle of wine.  I did not do any kind of serious pairing on this, I just opened the only bottle I had left in my house.  Which happened to be a Chardonnay from Cuvaison.












PS: I also bought these pants.  This of course has nothing to do with food, but come on, look at them, they're glorious.

Creamy Sausage Goodness

I'm not exactly sure where this recipe came from, I know it was a family member, and I suspect it was Mike or Carrie, or both, but I can't remember.  All I know is I've been making this for a long time and it is really easy and fantastically delicious.

Fettucini with Tomato and Sausage Sauce


-2Tbsp Olive Oil
-3 Shallots, chopped
-2 large garlic cloves, chopped (I generally turn this into 5 or 6 cloves, I love me some garlic)
-1lb sweet Italian sausage, casings removed (Let me be real honest here, I make it with 2lbs of sausage - who doesn't want more sausage?)
-1 cup whipping cream
-2 14.5oz cans of diced tomatoes in juice with Italian seasoning
-1Tbsp dried sage
-1/2tsp dried crushed red pepper
-fettucini (seems obvious but you know, its a recipe they spell things out)
-Parmesan cheese


Ok children, if you remember from last time read the whole recipe first.  Which in this case is pretty easy, as I said its a simple straightforward recipe and really only takes about 30 minutes to put together.  Get out your big cutting board (mine is bigger, seriously don't even argue its huge).  Chop your shallots, I think you could probably go with bigger or smaller chunks here depending the size of the pieces you want in the final product.

Grab the head of garlic and pull a few cloves out of there.  The recipe calls for 2 large cloves and you could do that, if you're boring and don't like garlic.  It's like not liking cilantro - who does that?  I'm pretty sure every time I've ever followed the recommended dosage of garlic in a recipe I've ended up feeling like there wasn't enough garlic flavor when all was said and done.  In order to combat this I always double the garlic.  I don't even think twice about it, and up to this point I've never regretted this decision.  

Before we can chop the garlic we have to peel the annoying little buggers.  This is one of my least favorite things to do, garlic gets sticky, so your fingers get sticky and things stick to them, like the stuff you're trying to peel off the garlic.  Here's a cool trick though to make this easier: take your big chef's knife and use the flat side of the blade and place it above the clove of garlic you are getting ready to peel.  Then use the heel of your other hand (try not to cut yourself, seriously its not hard, don't be an idiot) and smack the blade down onto the clove.  This makes it so much easier to peel the clove.  This trick changed my life like when I realized Zack Morris was the person I most aspired to be....just me?

Finish peeling and chopping your garlic and pull out the sausage.  Real quick note here, when you're buying your sausage, it is imperative that you DO NOT buy one of those slightly pre-cooked versions.  You won't be able to do the next step properly.  Point of fact: you won't be able to do it at all.

Removing the casing from the sausage is really simple, however it is moderately creepy, its kind of like cutting a sticky condom off each one.  Try it and then see if you don't feel the same way.

2lbs of de-cased sausage.  It might look disgusting, but its farkin delicious

For those who may be wondering why we're removing these casings, the answer is that we don't want perfect slices of sausage, we want to brown the sausage almost as if it was ground beef and we intended to put it in tacos (holy crap sausage tacos....how does this not exist?).

At this point there isn't a whole lot of additional prep that is needed.  If you really want to you can measure out the whipping cream, sage and crushed red pepper, but there is plenty of time and no need to rush with this recipe.

I would start a pot of boiling water for the fettucini somewhere in here.  When the water is boiling throw some fettucini at it.  You can definitely use a different kind of pasta if you prefer.  I've made this with rotini, shells, spaghetti, fettucini, you name it I've probably tried it out at some point.  Also in case you haven't noticed I've made this a lot.  Its a fan favorite.

Grab your big and hopefully deep skillet.  You are definitely going to need 12 inches for this one (that's what she said) If you don't have a skillet that big you can use a big pot.  I used to do this before acquired my giant skillet.

Heat the 2Tbsp of oil over medium-high heat and then add the shallots and garlic and sauté for a few minutes until everything softens and takes on a yellowish buttery goodness color.  While this is happening stop for just a second and bask into the most amazing smell that will ever dance its way into your nostrils.  Seriously nothing smells better than sautéing onions and garlic, this is not negotiable.

After about 3 minutes or so when everything is slightly soft, limp, flaccid whatever you prefer to call it start adding the sausage.  If you stuck with the recipe, which is a completely acceptable choice, your measly 1lb of sausage will fit in nicely and brown easily I'm sure.  Having chosen to go with 2lbs my pan was certainly running out of room, but definitely still manageable.  One downside to 2lbs of sausage that I would certainly remedy next time around is that the recipe does not call for you to drain the pan before the next step.  As a result, the sauce didn't quite thicken the way its supposed to.  It was still fantastic but I would drain just bit of the pan to even it out.

While the sausage it browning use a spatula or fork to break up the sausage into smaller pieces.  We want to make sure there is a nice even spread of sausage.  Once there are no pink pieces of sausage left we can move on and add the whipping cream.

After adding the cream, lower the heat to a simmer and let the mixture sit for about five minutes.  Try to resist the urge to snatch pieces of sausage for tasting purposes.

Who am I kidding, I always snag some sausage at this point.  Plus I kind of have a reputation for stealing Italian sausage, it really started for me when I was 11 or so.  That'll teach dad to come home late from work.  Also learned an important lesson about lying, but I digress.

Once you've let this magnificent concoction simmer for a bit its time to add the rest of the ingredients.  Dump the tomatoes with their juices, sage and crushed red pepper and mix it all in.

Let the sauce continue to simmer for about 15 minutes so it can thicken.  This is where my sauce didn't really thicken very much, way to much juice from the sausage.  But really would you rather the sauce thicken or have more sausage?  I say more sausage, every time.





Somewhere along the line your water should have started boiling and you should have added your pasta of choice to said boiling water.  A few small notes/tips/tricks.  Personally when dealing with spaghetti or fettucini I like to snap it in half before tossing it in the water, it makes it a little more manageable later.  If you are a wrap the pasta around your fork using a spoon kind of person, don't do this.  Also if you find your water starting to bubble over as the pasta cooks, add a splash of olive oil to the water.  I actually have no idea why this works, but it does.  I never promised to have all the answers.

When your pasta is ready, drain the pot, preferably using a colander.  Side note: a colander is the bowl with tons of holes in it, in case you were wondering.

Pasta will essentially continue to cook itself even after its removed from the boiling water, so run some cold water over it while its in the colander will keep it right where you want it.

Return the pasta to the pot you cooked it in and put it back over medium-ish heat to evaporate the rest of the water.  Dump our awesome sauce into the pot and mix it all together.  Mix it for a few minutes over heat until no bare pasta is left.  Really get after it in this stage, the last thing you want is to realize that whoever serves themselves last doesn't get any sausage because you couldn't be bothered to properly mix it.  Then again, if you use as much sausage as I did it would seem unlikely that this could happen.

It is now ready to be eaten.  Bowls are probably best for serving this, no one wants to try and eat this off of a plate.  Add Parmesan cheese as desired, or if you've been a bonehead and forgot to get Parmesan cheese, suck it up and eat it without it.  I totally forgot the Parmesan cheese yesterday.


Now as I've said I'm a big fan of coming up with a full meal to create the whole proper eating experience.  However in this case, the pasta stands on its own so well that all I ever serve with it is a Caesar salad and some garlic bread.  I feel that there is no need to overdo it.  And if you can't figure out how to buy a prepackaged Caesar bag and one of those awesome frozen garlic bread things (seriously they're good) then you probably shouldn't be reading this anyway.

Last but certainly not least is the wine selection.  For this meal I did not provide the wine, it was provided for me, and it was really good.  I had never had Sonoma-Cutrer before but I would absolutely go buy a bottle, or 4.  However we finished that bottle pretty early on.  Round 2 was a Red Bicyclette Chardonnay, nothing super fancy but certainly more than acceptable.

Coming Soon

Another personal favorite: Fettucini with Creamy Tomato and Sausage Sauce.....coming soon