Gastronomical Experimentation

I'm cheap. Financially, that is. And if you're anything like me, the first thing you think when you get the axe is, SCREW YOU! But then the second thing you think is - what can we cut, where can we save?

The good thing about this whole situation is that we live a very modest lifestyle so we haven't been crippled by the loss of my salary. The bad thing is it means there isn't a whole lot to cut from the budget in an effort to save some cash.

Many moons ago - before the kid, the marriage and saving for a house - we lived a little differently. We were still in the same modest apartment and sans car, but we ate out more. Much, MUCH more. At the time, my husband was traveling for work and was away four days a week and I wanted to spend our few days together catching up and socializing instead of slaving away in the kitchen.

Then, a few years ago, the husband went back to school and we decided to nix our single biggest variable expense. The switch from mostly eating out to mostly eating in wasn't so bad and wasn't that hard - I love to cook and it means I get to stretch my cooking muscle. But pre-kid meal planning looks a little different than post-kid meal planning. Before the babe we would always make an effort to try one new recipe a week and our meal plan included Thai, Indian and Mexican dishes. Post-babe meal planning = frozen pizza.

But I'm starting to get back into the swing of good cooking. This weekend I tried to recreate my favourite dish from the nearby and insanely popular restaurant Grazie. A friend gave me the restaurant's cookbook for Christmas and I've been dying to test it out.

The first thing I noticed was that the recipe in the book neglected to mention chili pepper and I've eaten this dish often enough to know it has chili pepper in it. That was the first clue that the meal might not turn out exactly like it does at the restaurant. The second: I'm some shlump at home and not a professional cook.

Despite the chili oversight (which wasn't really a bad thing because it let the babe eat it with us) the dish turned out pretty well. I mean, nothing with bacon (or pancetta, in this case) can be bad, right? Bacon with everything, I say!

The cookbook's version

My attempt

The only adjustment I made this time around was to add some sugar to the tomato sauce to cut the acidity. Next time I might add the chilies to see how close I can get it to the restaurant version. That and to see how many diaper changes it causes in the babe. Watch out!