Not the Real Thing, But a Tasty Substitute

I had some surimi (imitation flake crabmeat) to use. I also had a the rest of a package of mushrooms and the remainder of a bag of fresh spinach. Here’s what we made:

Krab with Spinach and mushroom with Rigatoni

Ingredients

½ lb	Krab (I use surimi)
2 c	Fresh spinach, lightly packed
5	Large cloves garlic, minced
3 sprigs	Fresh Rosemary, finely chopped
1 t	Dried thyme, crushed
1-1 ½ t	Salt
2/3-3/4 c	Heavy cream
1 lb	Dried rigatoni
½ lb	Fresh white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 T	Salt for boiling pasta
1 T	Grapeseed oil
½ c	Vegetable stock, homemade if possible

Steps

1. Shred krab. Set aside.
2. Begin boiling 1 gallon of water in a large pot.  Add 1 T salt to water.
3. When water comes to the boil, add pasta and cook to al dente.  Set aside while cooking sauce.
4. Heat grapeseed oil in a wok over medium heat until shimmery.
5. Add garlic, thyme, and rosemary, and stir until fragrant, about one minute.
6. Add mushrooms and stir to coat.  Fry for a couple of minutes, then add stock and bring to the boil.  Cover and allow to simmer for 3 minutes to allow mushrooms to hydrate.
7. Taste and add salt to taste.  Add spinach, krab, and rigatoni to wok.  Stir to loosen and warm pasta with sauce.
8. Serve immediately.

Kat helped me prepare this last night for dinner, and it was more than plenty for the two of us. We’ll have leftovers for lunches. When reheating, you may want to add 1 t heavy cream to loosen the mixture.

Another Beginning?

201118  5:06

I finally decided to write something again, regarding more than recipes and my individual life.  This country, The United States of America, defeated the selfishness and crassness of the last four years by a two-to-one margin in the Electoral College.  By popular vote, Biden won in a virtual smackdown of TheRump’s illegitimate, just-barely-legal-if-that claims to the highest office in The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.  Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris will be the next residents of the White House come January, and many can barely wait for the 20^th to arrive, when Biden will be sworn into office as President of the United States, in a contentious and garrulous election cycle that, according to the ever-diminishing voice of TheRump, is still not over, though that becomes more and more just a figment of TheRump’s imagination.  Lindsey Graham, one of the South’s “Good Ole Boys,” is standing by TheRump in his ever-growing-in-desperation for a second term, is making illegal suggestions to the Registrar of Voters, himself a conservative Republican to ignore the vast majority of votes that had been cast for the President-elect.  There is no way TheRump can get over his new Brand, The Loser.  This will, hopefully, be the last time I will refer to TheRump.  From here on out, I shall gleefully refer to TheRump as TheLoser, which he certainly is, though I imagine that, in losing his worldwide audience, TheLoser will soon fade into the darkness from which he arose.

The new Administration’s ability to come forward and meet those Progressives who helped elect it will define its legacy.  The Biden-Harris Administration will need to prove, though positive action, that it not only appreciates the votes cast by Progressives that helped propel it into office, but actually embrace a Progressive Agenda that should include a legislative solution to address women’s rights to bodily integrity, including that which allows them to make medical decisions for themselves without being subjected to coercive, legislated admonishment by the Religious Wrong.  It is time for the Political Center to move back to the center, instead of continuing to creep Wrongward, as it has for the last generation, since the Reagan Regime.

Many younger adults, some of whom are represented by leaders such as Pete Buttigieg, who will be appointed a Cabinet position, already see the world through clearer eyes than those whose vision is clouded by not only the Religious Wrong, but by conservative idiots like those found on Faux News Network and “One America News Network.”  These bastions of christian-theology-turned-legislative-strong-arm are, I hope, a dying cause, as the remaining members of a dying species that has lived well past its utility.  Religion was, for many centuries, a reaction to a hostile world as an adaptation for survival.  But the World and its Reality are changing, in a much more rapid way than before:  The Climate Crisis, human population, and The Sixth Great Extinction, currently in action, are disrupting the lives of all inhabitants of our Pale Blue Dot.  If we sit on this election as an end in itself, rather than as a next step along the Road that Must be Traveled if we are to continue as a species and going concern, we will be doing a great disservice to the generations who follow.