Late Night Cooking- Linguine Oh My!

I attended a wedding Monday and night and ate a variety of appetizers and crudite etc. Unfortunately John was at work this entire time (he's been putting in loooong days) so I picked him up from work at around 8:30pm and we headed home. He hadn't eaten and I wanted to make lunch for the next day, so I quickly went to work on some pasta and sauce. I had a jar of store-bought tomato sauce but I never think those are very good, and I like to up my veggie intake, so I doctored it up. BUT I didn't keep it event hat simple, I made TWO sauces. Yes two.

John wanted some meat (shocker) so I placed some ground beef in a pan and started cooking it. In the other pan I added some olive oil and a sliced up zucchini and yellow squash. I added some garlic (would have loved to add an onion but this man's kitchen is barren. Huh, it has to have SOME stuff in it? Nope, not even a cheese grater! I used a serrated knife to make parmesan cheese flakes). The squash got nice and soft, the beef browned, and then I added half the jar to each pan. I also added about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, for brightness. Stick half the linguine in each pan along with a little cooking water, and we had a pretty nice late dinner/lunch. Not bad for cooking on the fly!

I didn't take a picture of the veggie spaghetti, just ate it for lunch and forgot!

Tip of the Day

The other night I made "kitchen cupboard" pasta. Aka, I boiled some linguine and tossed it with some of the cooking liquid, olive oil, crushed tomatoes, parmesan, gruyere, and a chiffonade of basil. I took a bite and it seemed a bit bland. I thought, oh, crushed red pepper, that will add the necessary kick! So, I added some, crushed it between my fingers, rinsed my hands, and set down my steaming bowl. I was going to relax into whatever was on my DVR at the moment when I realized my eyes were feeling a bit dry. So I ran into the bathroom to take out my contacts and put on my glasses before I began dinner. I reached into my eye ball with my fingers and... OW! Water does NOT rinse the hot pepper oils of your finger tips, let me tell you. (My eyes are actually watering as I write this). I instantly started rinsing my eye under cold water and had a lovely pink eye for the rest of the night (I used my other hand to take out my other contact. At least I catch on quickly).
Oh, and throw that contact out. A night of marinating in saline solution and pepper oils does nothing to ease the pain.
There is my tip of the day. More like a tip for a lifetime.