I’m heading to Raleigh this weekend for a wedding (yay! excited for a road trip and celebrating!) so of course I want to share a little inspiration for what will be a wonderful sweet southern affair. I’m thinking lemons and lawns, juleps and seersucker. Lovely and lively. Follow along on instagram for photos of the real thing! Hope you have a great weekend too! xo
The title of this post comes from a great book I read several years ago that chronicles all the meals the author has made for the men in her life. When I read it at 21, I thought I could relate, but now at 26, I wish I had stolen and kept this title for myself.
The first boy I cooked for was my high school boyfriend Aaron. It’s funny thinking about the grown up things you want to do when you’re 14, but having no license or no money really prevents you from trying. I think it was Valentine’s Day. I followed a recipe from my mom’s Joy of Cooking for spaghetti bolognese, his favorite meal. I remember chopping the onions, carrot, and celery for the sauce and thinking it was so strange that these three things go in pasta. Now I understand the importance of mirepoix in cooking, the holy trinity, and I can recognize it in any dish I eat.
I spent a long time over the stove, stirring, smelling, following the recipe to a t, asking my mom if it looked right. Finally, it was the big moment and I was very nervous for my cooking debut. We ate in our library where I set up a card table and folding chairs. We shut the French doors and had the room to ourselves, although mom and dad definitely peeked their heads in a few times. I probably lit candles and played a Creed cd. He gave me a song he wrote about seasons changing and the color of my eyes. I think I thought this meal was the most romantic thing ever. Haha. I’m glad to be 12 years older and wiser now (if anything, at least in music taste!)
There have been more boys and many more pastas since that first bolognese. (And we get to drink wine with it now too!) Fresh corn and pesto cappellini on a rooftop, a super simple carbonara because I had nothing else in my fridge except two eggs and I really wanted to cook for him, rigatoni with sausage peppers and onions eaten on the couch wearing matching sweatpants, meatball lasagna for another Valentine’s Day, chicken and peppers penne with creamy goat cheese that we cooked together, adding pancetta to spaghetti because I want to win your heart over with bacon.
I love cooking for these guys and surely for the yet-to-be-determined next guy and guy after that. I love that I don’t have to follow recipes anymore. Garlic, olive oil, and butter is really all I need. Fresh veggies or heart-winning bacon? Throw it in. Got some heavy cream? Duh. And grated fresh parm on top of course. It’s so easy… (and now I guess I can leave my nerves for the part that matters). I love slyly waiting and watching them take their first bite, to see their reaction. (FYI dudes, this is a really important moment. Don’t f-it up. Tell me it’s good. Cause I know it is.) Oh and I love that these pastas are simple to make that I don’t have too many dishes to do after dinner. Extra props to the guys who offer to wash them, while I just sit there and do nothing.
Ok, here’s the cheesy part. There isn’t always a boy to cook for. But so what? I still make the same amount just for myself. And I still put in the same amount of love into it – honestly, probably even more. I still win over my own heart with pancetta. There’s still wine and memorable nights. I just have to do my own dishes.
I made this dish for dinner recently and it’s a perfect example of a no-fuss, delicious treat for myself. Here’s the Nikki no-recipe version:
In a big pan, sautée garlic, olive, oil and butter over medium heat. Chop roasted red peppers and add to pan. Meanwhile, boil water and cook pasta. Add al dente pasta to pan with peppers/sauce. In a small bowl, scramble a raw egg with salt and pepper. Swirl egg into pasta/peppers until creamy (but not too much that the egg cooks and forms white pieces). Add fresh parm and extra pepper. Serve with wine and side of cute boy (Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love will do just fine). Bon appétit!
Just a few things that have been keeping me smiling recently…quiet weekend morning moments at my favorite coffee shop, spring weather = spring outfits, making it home early enough to cook dinner, taking #wiwt photos of my coworkers, cherry blossoms in DC (but not the allergies that come with it), a fab dress found at TJ Maxx which will be my date to a wedding in two weeks. Happy things.
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I have to make some seriously change in my life. Here’s a confession: my apartment is a mess. I think I clean it every weekend, and then during the week, the clothes and dishes and paper and shoes just pile up. Mess, clean, repeat. Now that I only have one day off a week, I really need to reevaluate how I spend that time. The last thing I want to do is spend it cleaning. And when the rest of my life is busy and stressful, the last thing I want to come home to is a busy and stressful apartment…this does not help my sanity.
So I need to make a change. I need to learn to not make a mess. Prepare my outfit the night before so I don’t try on every dress in my closet every morning and don’t hang them back up. Wash my coffee cup before I leave for work. Read and sort my mail each night. Just maintain my personal space so it’s inspiring and comforting.
Have any other tips for keeping a clean house without really thinking about it? How do you keep your space inviting for yourself? Please share…I’ll absolutely try it out and report back.
{kitchen | closet | desk | living}
It’s will be almost 90 degrees in DC today, so my timing for posting this soup recipe might be a little off. But I’ve been sick for the past couple of days so I think it’s still works and well, my schedule is just a little off recently. So deal with it? No doubt we’ll have a few cooler days this spring, and you’ll want to make this light spinach and tomato soup for a simple weeknight dinner soon.
This is one of those things you can throw together so easily, with whatever you have in the fridge and pantry. Making this really made me excited for the CSA I joined – it would be great to throw in even more fresh veggies in there. I can’t wait until I start getting my CSA produce…hopefully with my new schedule it will force me to get in the kitchen when I can and be a little more creative too. Looking forward to sharing those meals with you – I have a fun series planned!
Ok let’s get to this recipe, which really is an anti-recipe, because 1. I don’t totally remember it and 2. this is my chance to teach you to be a little more free in the kitchen…realize that you can just throw together a bunch of ingredients and with some repetition and confidence, you too will think something like this is so so easy to make. Without planning, I whipped this up in about 30 minutes and had leftovers for days. Go ahead, try it…
In a large pot, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil and butter. Sautée chopped garlic, onion, and carrot until they start to soften over medium heat (I had shredded carrot from a salad a made a few weeks ago). Add in a few cans of crushed or whole peeled (then chopped) tomatoes plus some chicken stock (I used 2 15-oz cans of each and always keep these things stocked in my kitchen). Got some good white wine you’re going to drink later? Pour a little of that in too. (1/2 cup or so?) Bring to a boil. Ok, I’m lazy and don’t want to wash another dish, so I cook my pasta right here in my soup. It totally works but when you do this you might need some more liquid because when the pasta cooks, it soaks it up. So if you’re doing this, have some extra chicken stock (and wine!) on hand that you can add in after if needed. You can also leave out the pasta, but really why would you do that? Once boiling, add in angel hair pasta. Once cooked through (only about 3 minutes, longer with other pastas) add in a can of cannellini beans and a whole bag of fresh spinach leaves. Stir well. You can season with salt, pepper, bay leaf (don’t forget to take it out when you’re done), and some Italian seasoning mix as you go or at the end. After all the spinach as wilted a bit, you’re all set. Grate some good Parmesan on top. Serve with crusty bread and more of that wine if you aren’t sick.
Haha ok, hate me? You can do it. Bon appétit!
