snow day pasta

I didn’t grow up in a cooking house. My mom fed us every night because she loved us and didn’t want us to die, but for the most part she found time in the kitchen both boring and exceedingly stressful. The first time I called her on the phone from Boston and told her I was making chicken stock from scratch, she was quiet for a minute and then she said, “Whose child are you?” She taught me a lot of things, but making a tear-free Thanksgiving dinner was not one of them. There are no secret, sacred marinara recipes in my family.

I love cooking, though, and I’ve been doing it pretty regularly for eight years now, which sounds like a long time, the age of a third-grader, but in terms of what I actually know how to do doesn’t actually feel like that long at all. I’m still pretty scared of sauces. I think I hold my knife wrong. I set off the smoke alarm literally every time I cook bacon, and while to be fair I think that has more to do with the air flow in my house than my culinary abilities, it still makes me feel like a dope.

However! I figured out recently that I must be getting better bit by bit, because the percentage of improvised things I make that are totally inedible has decreased pretty dramatically, and if you look back at the dubious archives of this blog, you will see that that used to happen a lot.

A recent winner: this snow day pasta, which I made for lunch last week when I was out of bread and my only requirement was that I did not want to leave my house.  This is the kind of recipe you could easily adjust depending on how many people you’re trying to feed; my numbers made enough for two big bowls.

3 slices bacon, chopped

1/3 pound whole-wheat linguine

½ cup frozen peas

¼ cup Boursin cheese

¼ cup grated parm

½ lemon

salt & pepper to taste

Cook your bacon (don’t set off the smoke alarm if you can help it); remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Boil your pasta for 7-8 minutes, until al dente. A minute or so before the pasta is finished cooking, add peas. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water. Toss the pasta and peas with the Boursin and parmesan, adding the pasta water to thin it out a bit. Garnish with bacon and the juice of 1/2 lemon; add salt and pepper to taste.