Yesterday, when talking to Jim & Sarah, they got me talking about one of the restaurant’s Ken & I had had @30 years ago. Ah Louie’s. It was a small, quaint Italian restaurant. That got me craving spaghetti.
I love spaghetti! Usually I don’t much like eating it in the summer when it’s hot. Especially if I’m the one that cooks it. Usually I am. Not much of a fan of eating spaghetti out. For one thing, it’s super messy to eat & I prefer to limit the number of people that can see me eat it. Secondly, too many places don’t cook the noodles properly. I hate overcooked spaghetti noodles. The thing about overcooked noodles is that they completely distract me from the sauce. No matter how good the sauce is, I’m not going to notice if the spaghetti isn’t al dente.
After eating a late lunch, I sat & watched an epidode of House with Jim. (One of the few things, I like better than cooking is kicking back & relaxing with Jim.) As soon as the show was over, I got up to start spaghetti sauce. While I’m sure there are hundreds of recipes out there for spaghetti sauce, for @ 35 years, I have used the recipe in the New York Times Cookbook. Sometimes I make the marina sauce, but usually I make the meat sauce. Today was definitely a meat sauce day. Spaghetti sauce simmering smells wonderful! Spaghetti must have been given to us by the angels. It’s in the top 4 of my comfort foods. Macaroni & cheese, spaghetti, ice cream & chocolate cake are my top four comfort foods. I just can’t decide which one is number one. It tasted heavenly for supper–just like I knew it would. Some cravings should be met.
Then in the evening I pulled out a Butter Vanilla Pound Cake recipe to try. This is the recipe that needed the vanilla bean paste I bought. It smelled wonderful when I was mixing it and when it was cooking. However, I’m a bit disappointed in it at the moment. Made cupcakes out of the batter & have tasted pieces of one of the cupcakes. To my thinking, it’s much too sweet for a pound cake. I shudder at the idea of icing it for any reason or covering it with fondant. I’ll check again tomorrow to see what I think about it. However, unless the other people who taste it tomorrow convince me otherwise I won’t be keeping this recipe.
Tags: butter vanilla pound cake, cake, comfort food, food, meat sauce, New York Times Cookbook, pound cake, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, vanilla bean paste, vanilla cake