Back to Basics

Hi all! I made a super quick and simple pasta dish last night, simply because I was craving it. Have you ever craved some no frills pasta?

I knew I had some anchovies and spinach I needed to get rid of so I thought I'd throw them into a garlicky pasta. Makes sense, right?

The result? A deliciously garlicky, briny pasta with just the right amount of green :)

Garlic Anchovy Pasta

1 serving linguini, cooked

1 tbsp butter

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 - 1 anchovy fillet, minced

handful spinach, chopped

2 tbsp parrano cheese, shredded

freshly ground pepper

Heat butter in a saucepan and saute garlic and anchovy for 1-2 minutes. Add half the spinach and cook until wilted. Add pasta and remaining spinach. Stir for 1 minute or until completely coated. Plate and sprinkle cheese and pepper on top.

Totally what I was craving and super fast. The worst part was waiting for the water to boil! I guess this is a step up from pasta with butter and cheese??

Today started out pretty well...I passed out before 10pm last night so I was up and ready to go at 6:15 this morning. Laced up the new Inspires and was on the treadmill pumped for a nice long run/walk session. Total time: 45 minutes. Average run speed: 8:45. SWWEEEET!!

To celebrate, I had a fairly productive day at work and was psyched to find out we were ordering lunch in (yay for not having to eat boring turkey sammich pulled together at the last minute!). We ordered from Bangkok One, which I've eaten at before. I scrambled to find suggestions from friends and settled on the Ginger Rice (house special rice topped with steamed chicken, served with spicy ginger bean sauce, cucumber and cilantro). It sounded pretty good and a nice change from the usual pad thai or chicken with basil and chili.

Unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. The ginger bean sauce was nice...packed a little heat, but really didn't make the dish shine. I expected a gingery, flavorful rice, but ended up with a somewhat mushy plain rice. I've had a good experience with Bangkok One in the past, so I'm going to assume this just isn't a strong dish for them. Everyone else had delicious looking food, but I felt a little weird asking (in detail) what they thought.

I had plans to meet up with a running store coworker and a (completely random) mutual friend of ours in Adams Morgan after work. After a LONG day of work....

We settled on Bourbon since mutual friend already had plans to go there.

Genius me decided to walk the 1.8 miles from the office. Um, it was way too cold, way too windy and way too not shoveled for me to do that. Regardless, I got there at a decent hour and took a brief trip down memory lane as I walked the route I would walk from work to kickball...oh kickball...

Once there, I was able to catch up a bit with mutual friend and then caught up with running store coworker. Sampled some tasty Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA:

Usually I'm not a big IPA fan, but this was pretty good. So good I had two rounds of it ;)

And keeping with the West Coast theme, I decided to close the night out with a Rogue Dead Guy Ale

Sandwiched between those were some quality Bourbon Tots. Yes, tots...as in tater tots. I consider myself a fried potato snob. I like to sample a good fried potato anything if it's available. Bourbon tots have never failed me. Crisp and delicious!

To get rid of the insane fullness, and save money, I am happy to report that I walked the 3/4 mile from Bourbon to the Woodley Park Metro and metroed home. Proud?? I sure am. :)