So Domestic...NOT

I've become quite the Rachael Ray fan as of late.
I adore her, her show, and her recipes!
Yesterday I was feeling, as my dear friend Peyton terms it, "so domestic"
and I decided to tackle one of Rachael's recipes-
one that I had seen her make on her show a couple of weeks ago.
It seemed simple enough.
It was her Extra Spicy Linguini with Sausage, Chili Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, and Arugula.
The plan was to cook a yummy and delicious gourmet meal for Casey-
and wow him with my cooking skills of course.
So Casey came over and we took a trip to Market of Choice (currently one of my favorite places in the world by the way) to buy the necessary ingredients.
Because I don't know about you buy I don't just happen to have Arugula lying around. If any place was going to have it though, it would be Market of Choice. And they did.
Casey made himself extremely useful and pushed the cart as I searched the vegetable aisle for Arugula. (Don't you just love that word- it rolls right off the tongue)
Let's see how many times I can use the word Arugula in this post.
We found the Arugula and it was the freshest salad I had ever beheld.
It was still attached to the sod it was grown from.
I am not kidding.
It does not get any fresher than that.
And it was expensive-2.99 for a small bundle.
And the recipe called for 4 bundles.
Casey talked me into getting only three,
and we then got the rest of our vegetable ingredients and fresh garlic.
I'm going to pause the story here though and put in a little side note about Arugula.
I didn't know what Arugula was except that it was a leafy green-I had never even heard of it.
So I just googled Arugula as I was sitting here blogging and Wikipedia has all kinds of useful
information about Arugula in case any of you are interested in trying it out.
(I recommend it-it was delicious!)

And I found one thing I agree with President Obama on:
In an intent to note the disparity between producer and retailer prices Barack Obama caused a stir when he asked “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.” at an Adel, Iowa campaign stop.

In a nutshell everything you need to know about Arugula is this-it comes attached to the dirt, it's rich in vitamin C and Potassium, has a peppery flavor, is great mixed in with pasta, has been considered an aphrodisiac since the first century AD, and as President Obama himself stated, is pretty darn expensive.

Anywho, back to the store.
I now have all the ingredients except the linguini and the pork sausage.
And Casey is still pushing the cart.
We find the linguini-organic of course, because that's just the kind of store Market of Choice is.

So now we just need the pork sausage.
Italian pork sausage to be exact.
We stroll over to the meat section and I begin perusing the sausage labels,
not only looking for Italian sausage, but Nitrate free sausage.
Because even though I can't tell you what nitrates are, everyone knows they're extremely bad for you, duh.
Well I find the only nitrate free sausage they have and put it in the cart
-even though it's mini sausages and definitely not Italian.
I ignore the nagging feeling telling me this is not the right pork and that I should just ask the Meat Man behind the counter.
BIG MISTAKE.

After purchasing all the ingredients we headed home to cook our feast.
I started into the recipe feeling extremely confident and thinking I was such a homemaker.
Well I didn't get too far before I was sufficiently humbled.
I had just started cooking the sausages when my mom informed me that:
a) I had bought breakfast sausage
b) they were in casings and needed to be cut apart (and therefore wouldn't crumble as the recipe called for)
c) one of the packages of sausages was maple flavored
d) I should have asked at the meat counter for the right kind of sausage

Thanks Mom. What would I do without you.

But there went my plan to impress Casey with my Rachael Ray recipe.
I'd already butchered it and bought breakfast sausage!
My mom came to the rescue though and we pulled out the maple sausage,
spiced up the remaining sausage with italian seasoning and garlic,
and added in hamburger meat to make up for the lost meat.
Whoops! Guess I should have listened to my gut.

My big blunder aside, the pasta turned out great.
And yes Casey you were a big help.
Thanks for pushing the cart, cutting the arugula off the dirt, chopping the chili peppers, and peeling the garlic! Muchas gracias!
The pasta was beautiful, I should have snapped a photo.
But we had enough to feed a small army.
Did I mention that I doubled Rachael's recipe because it only served four.
Well she has very generous helpings because the recipe doubled fed my family of 9, plus Casey, and there was still enough leftovers to feed us all a second, and perhaps even a third time.
Let's just say I'll be eating the linguine dish all week.

Click here for the recipe if you want to try it, it was incredibly tasty and actually pretty simple. But word to the wise-don't buy breakfast sausage!