Carbs, butter, cheese, aka the holy trinity.
One of my best friends and also one of Jack's godmothers (he has 3 - his Jesus posse) is married to a very very picky man. He's beyond sweet, but when it comes to food choices, he has a well defined comfort zone. They live an hour south of us, so when we do get together, we typically just meet up halfway and have lunch. Captain Picky Palate usually dictates the location, and that always ends up being The Old Spaghetti Factory (which is fine because the food is good and they are toddler friendly!).
We went on New Year's day and they were advertising their mizithra cheese and browned butter pasta. With bacon. Bacon caught my attention, so I ordered it. Dear.god.YUM. Last night I attempted to recreate it, and I think I did a pretty darn good job!
Diet busting spaghetti with browned butter
1 lb of whole wheat spaghetti
1.5-2 sticks of butter
3-4 oz of mizithra cheese, shredded
1/2 lb of bacon (1/2 lb for the recipe, and the other half lb for snackon which is bacon that you snack on while you're cooking)
Cook spaghetti in salted water. Hopefully you don't need instructions on how to do that.
Cook bacon until it's reached your desired level of doneness (if you're awesome, that level is almost burnt), then drain and crumble.
On medium low heat, melt butter in a small sauce pan. Stir constantly. I probably had it on the stove for about 7 minutes until it developed a rich golden tan color and a sweet and nutty taste.
Over a bowl containing the drained pasta, pour the browned butter through a sieve/fine metal strainer (or a paper towel if you don't have a sieve). Add cheese, and crumbled bacon. Mix. Serve with a salad so that you can give off the impression that you're somewhat healthy.
Let's run the numbers!
Box of organic whole wheat spaghetti - $2
Mizithra cheese - $3.15 for 4 oz
2 sticks of organic butter - $1.72
1/2 lb of local bacon made from free range piggies - $2.50
Total: $9.37 (made enough for 2 adults and 1 noddle-loving toddler for dinner, and 3 servings for lunch the next day).
I found Mizithra at my local Fred Meyer near the service deli in what my sis and I refer to as the "snooty cheese section". It was sold under the spelling "Myzithra".Labels: Main dishes, Poverty Cookbook