Leeks

I like leeks a lot. (Say that three times fast.)

I bought some leeks at central market for THIS recipe. I apparently forgot to buy parmesan cheese, pancetta, and bowtie pasta. And cream. Oops.

To be fair, I thought I had the other ingredients, and was going to substitute thinly sliced bacon for the pancetta.

Here are the enormous leeks.

From Bloggity

Are all leeks that big?

From Bloggity

(I have no idea what's up with the purple-ish hue to this photo.)
(Is "hue" the right description? Emily?)

When I bought them, they came in a package four stalks of leek. (Stalks?)

So I chopped them all up and froze the extra. That may or may not have been a good idea, but it works with onions (which I don't usually chop, because they make me cry), so why not give it a try? Not crying is good. I appreciate you, leeks, for not making me cry!

From Bloggity

Imagine my horror when I went to get the bacon out of the fridge and discovered an empty drawer. The subsequent shock occurred when instead of condensed (unsweetened) milk, which I always substitute for cream, stood a lonely can of evaporated nonfat milk. And then, when I discovered the lack of parmesan cheese (we didn't even have any of the sad little can of 'cheese dust' left), I wanted to cry. I sliced some chicken, browned the leeks in olive oil, added some salt 'n' pepa, and then some white wine. It smelled okay, so I continued, adding the evaporated milk and bracing myself for some sort of explosion. When nothing happened, I stirred in the slightly al dente penne pasta (our big pasta pot is still at a friend's house after a potluck 2 weeks ago, so I had to use a small saucepan) and sprinkled some slightly dried out preshredded mozzarella on top. The mozzarella is a story in itself, because it's the only thing left of a really horrid trip to Aldi in which every single item from a $92 trip turned out to be rottten, gross, spoiled, nasty, or just plain weird. But not that cheese. ???

Jason's reaction - I wish I had taken photos, but my sad little camera clearly has something wrong with it ....
The first bite: "Hmmm....."
Second bite: "No, wait, honey, it's not that bad..."
Third bite: "I think i could do this..."
Fourth bite: "No, honey, we really don't have to throw it away!"

Olivia's reaction - wrinkled up nose, look of disgust...

My reaction - "It's really ok if you just want to go to Country Burger... I'll eat this... tasteless is really ok with me!"

I think I'm gonna just stick to the staples: sloppy joes and mac 'n' cheese. Amen.