A Thank You Recipe (or, What the Crap? It's Wednesday and Danielle Cooked Something!!)

First, thank you to all of you who sent me encouraging, kind, and wise comments and emails about yesterday's post. I think sometimes I have to get angry enough at myself in order to kind of jumpstart any plans I've made. An old friend used to tell me that I didn't have a very healthy self-esteem because I was always berating myself or making fun of myself. But in all sincerity, I have a bit too much self-esteem. I mean, really. Who expects me to accomplish all my goals in one week, eh? And the more I berate myself, the angrier I get. I get so frustrated until the only thing left to do is to get started.

And so good news: I got up early this morning. (I missed my daily wake up phone call from Sandra and Philip today. ㅜ.ㅜ I guess that's what happens when you get up on time. You don't need anyone calling you to make sure you're out of the bed!) I had breakfast with Kenny and my mom-in-law who stayed with us for a few days while Bo was fixed and recovering from his surgery. THEN, ladies and gentlemen, I went on a hike. Yep, right this morning, I went on a little mini-hike out my backdoor. We hiked through the pine forest and let me tell you, it is a mountain back there! Then we jumped rope a bit and came back in and cooked lunch.

Oh lunch. I've been meaning to care about cooking. Really. But it just hasn't happened. Until today. And so, I give you Junk Spaghetti, my very own recipe! It's like the first thing I've ever made. And basically, I thought it up while Kenny executed it. So I can't take all the credit. It was definitely a team effort. We wanted spaghetti, but didn't have any sauce on hand and we couldn't justify buying any at the little mart in front of the apartment because our house is full of food. Left over from Chuseok and from the awesome BBQ we had with friends on Sunday. So, we made the sauce ourselves!!

Ingredients: Whatever Junk You've Got In The Fridge!

We used:

1 large tomato

A few spoons of tomato paste (we found this in our kitchen when we moved in. Should I be telling you that?)

About two spoons of canned meat (don't you love it? It's actually beef in gochujang  )

One green chile

olive oil to your delight

a few sprinkles of mozzarella cheese

a lot of sprinkles of parmesan cheese

two spoons of honey

a little pasta water

half an onion

3 cloves of garlic

fresh basil from our basil plant!

How to make Junk Spaghetti sauce: Dice your tomato and put it in a pan with olive oil. Smush the tomato chunks with a spoon if you're not into chunky (like me) and then add the onions and garlic. Throw in a few spoons of the tomato paste. Add a little pasta water. Stir and stir. Ooh, add some pepper. Then put in some of that yummy scrumptious canned beef in chile paste. Stir that sauce, baby. The heat should be up enough so that it doesn't take too long for the sauce to start bubbling and smelling good. (Very exact, don't you think?) Add two rounds of honey in the pan. Add some more olive oil because your husband thinks the tomato paste is too sour. Chop your chile and put it in. Liberally sprinkle mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Stir it around and ooh and ahh at the stringy cheesiness! Add a little more pasta water cause dang that sauce is thick. Wish that your husband had chopped the onion a little finer. (Remember? I do not love the chunky.)

And finally, stir in a few leaves of fresh basil and turn off the heat. Dump your spaghetti noodles into the sauce and stir it all around.

Plate that deliciousness and garnish with a bit more parmesan (one can never consume too much cheese) and a little leaf of basil. Then, enjoy your junk spaghetti.

Obviously, you must follow this recipe exactly or your junk spaghetti sauce will suck tremendously.