Recently, I made this lovely recipe from my BFF, the Pioneer Woman.
(please note: this picture is NOT mine.)
I made this delectable dish for Valentines Day for my wonderful, tall, dark, and handsome boyfriend. After reading the recipe, it seemed simple enough. Four cheeses, some cream and pasta. I could totally conquer that, no problem. So, the day before Valentines, I visited my local grocery store to gather up my ingredients. I also planned to make PW's Rosemary Rolls. Because they are that good.
Rosemary Rolls. Try them. Your taste-buds will thank you later.
I remember standing in the gourmet cheese section, perusing my options. Now, I haven't got a creative culinary thought in my brain so I HAD to get the EXACT cheeses PW used. Anyhow, I'm standing there looking for the Fontina, the goat cheese, the Romano and the Parmesan and I must have looked confused. The cheese-lady (I have no other name to call her, I apologize if you are a cheese-lady and that is not your official title) came over to assist me by pointing out the different cheeses. I was deeply in her debt. Otherwise I would have stood there for who knows how long with that befuddled expression on my face. I started grabbing my loot and looking at the prices.
Oh. Em. Gee.
$9 for a teeny thing of CHEESE?! The cheap part of my brain revolted against such an exorbitant expenditure. But, the heart won out over the brain, as I knew my lovely, perfect, sainted boyfriend would appreciate the effort that went into this culinary delight I was making for him. So after I had made peace with the cheese, I gathered up my other ingredients and headed home.
The next day was spent cleaning the apartment, because it had to look perfect for this romantic dinner I was creating. After everything was clean, I proceeded to prepare my ingredients. I took the rolls out to thaw and the goat cheese out to soften.
I was prepared.
I took a shower and got all spiffed up and made sure my timeline was right on track, which it was. I am nothing if not punctual, friends. I knew it would take about 30 minutes to make this meal come together so I had it so my sweet, thoughtful, gorgeous boyfriend would call me when he was at least that far out. I started first the Rosemary Rolls and I knew I had to melt some butter in a skillet (I had no microwave at this point). So once the butter was melted, I took the skillet off of the burner and proceeded to prep the rolls.
Now, at this point, I'm sure you are all wondering what the point of this little side story is. I have one, I assure you. I left the burner on "Warm" so I could keep the butter melted until the rolls were done. However...somehow the box of angel hair pasta that was waiting to be cooked got pushed onto said burner. And I didn't notice. At least, I didn't notice until I started smelling something funny. I turned around and saw the box on the burner and my little world took a tumble for a moment. I may have had a slight panicked moment wherein I thought I had ruined this dinner and I may have had a slight urge to throw $9.00 cheese at a wall.
However, once I collected myself and looked at the slightly charred box of pasta (which was a site to behold), I thought that perhaps this could be salvaged. I dumped out the pasta onto the counter and started to painstakingly remove the burned pieces of pasta.
Now, have any of you lovelies ever had to pick out, one by one, pieces of angel hair pasta? No, I didn't suppose you had. Because, let me tell you something - it ain't fun. However, after 15 minutes of this slow and painful process, I had still had plenty of pasta left to make my dish. Thank God.
Crisis averted. I started the water boiling and started to grate the cheese. I would love to tell you that I am a masterful cheese-grater. However, that is not the case. I had never grated cheese before IN MY LIFE. So there I was, in my kitchen, trying to figure out the most efficient way to grate cheese without it going all over the place. It was just sad. And hard on the arm. However, once I got into a rhythm, the process started going much quicker.
Until I got to the goat cheese.
If you're thinking that I started to try and grate softened goat cheese...you would be correct in that assumption. I got about halfway down the grater when I realized that this just was not going to work. So, I just crumbled it up and hoped I was doing it correctly. By this time, my sweet, angelic, masculine boyfriend had phoned, alerting me that he was 30 minutes away.
I plopped the pasta into the water and started to heat up my cream. The rolls were just about done and I was back on schedule! I re-heated the butter in the skillet, threw some garlic powder in, and rubbed that tasty concoction all over the bowls that the pasta would go in. By the time he arrived, I had the table set, candles lit, wine out and dinner done! I was so proud of myself. The pasta was ready and it smelled so good I wanted to bury my face in it.
My precious, treasured, light of my life boyfriend was wowed by my gesture as he sat down at the table I so lovingly prepared for him and I started plating my food. I just knew he would love this dish. Deep down to my core I knew he would rave over it. Because he would instinctively know how much effort went into this. He and I are connected that way. I brought out the rolls and the pasta bowls and set them down in front of him.
He took a big heaping fork-full into his mouth and after a moment of contemplation that man had this to say:
"Wow babe, that's good! Tastes like macaroni and cheese!"
I'm sorry....WHAT?! My mind reeled for a moment as he just equated this gourmet pasta dish with mac & cheese.
A few days later, I was teasing him about that and I said "You compared my dish to Kraft!! How COULD you??!"
His response: "I didn't say Kraft. I was thinking more like Velveeta...." and then proceeded to laugh himself silly at his own joke.
Just for comparison:
This
vs.
This...
I think we all know how these two compare....
-A
