dream sauce

Last night, I dreamed that I was in some sort of serious danger and I couldn't scream. I was trying to, but couldn't. Suddenly I woke up and my heels tingled, as if I had just slammed them into the floor.

"Gol-ly, Mary, is everything okay?" asked Betsy.

"Did I just scream?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said.

Oops.

"What are we having for dinner tomorrow?" asked Betsy.

"I don't remember," I said.

"I think we were having spinach with pasta," she said.

That rung a bell. I scrawled four words on the back of a receipt, rolled over, and went to sleep.

I don't think I was ever completely awake, and I could make a credible case that Betsy was completely asleep the entire time (she sleep-talks regularly and didn't remember any of it over breakfast). The conversation above is the most accurate I can give you -- memory of dreams and half-awake conversations isn't always the best. It wasn't all a dream, though: I saw the receipt, and the four words were there.

After work, Betsy went to sleep and I cooked. I had to pot/pan-shuffle a few times, so I'm going to give you a simplified version of what I did.

1. I dumped all the rotini we had left into a pot and set it to boil.

A real adult* I know told Betsy and me that when he was in college, he and his buddies would put empty boxes back in the cupboard so it would look like they had more food than they actually had. In this spirit, I closed the empty rotini box and placed it back on the cupboard shelf.

2. I chopped chicken and set it to boil.

3. I drained the rotini and put it in a bowl.

4. I put oil (not quite enough to cover the bottom of the pan) and minced garlic (half a little spoonful) into a little pan, heated it up, added formerly-frozen spinach, and cooked it.

5. I mixed 1 tbsp butter, too much milk (aim for half a cup maybe?), and too much parmesan cheese (add to taste) in a bowl.

6. The butter wasn't mixing in, so I scooped it out and put it in with the spinach. When it was melted, the spinach was done. I poured the whole thing in with the milk and parmesan cheese.

7. The sauce was too runny, so I added a bunch of parmesan cheese, and that didn't help at all. If your sauce is too runny, I don't know what to do.

8. The chicken was done, so I drained the water.

9. I put three bowls on the table: one bowl of boring rotini, one bowl of sauce, and one bowl of chicken. We put the sauce on top of the rotini and ate it. Betsy thought it was good. I'm not a super big fan of white sauce, but it was good as far as white sauce goes. I added chicken to mine.

Appendix

Notes regarding spices: the usual (basil, garlic, salt, pepper) is good. I didn't put a whole lot in, and it didn't seem to be lacking much. Make sure you add a pinch of salt to the water when you boil the pasta, though.

Footnotes

*real adult is defined as someone who's married and has kids, has a stable job and home, and/or is at least 30. If you're 21, change your address three or four times a year (dorm, summer camp/job, home, new dorm), and can still speculate about what you want to be when you grow up, you're not a real adult. "But I can vote and drink!" you might protest, but it doesn't matter. Get married, settle down, and you will be a real adult.