Trofie Pasta with Homemade Sauce, Lemon Grilled Green Beans

Picking up on my description of the sauce I started yesterday, my wife started the slow cooker around 9:15a. All day, the house smelled good, though not as good as last time - I think I had less fresh oregano (it is winter, afterall!) and perhaps too much shallot. The smell became even nicer at about 8 hours, and I wish that we didn't have to eat (we went out to an 8p film tonight) a little after 6p - the sauce had 9 hours to cook and tasted quite good, but I suspect would be even better after an additional hour or two.

The pasta itself was very interesting! I have never eaten trofie pasta before - it had a nice, chewy texture and the sauce was just right for it, not too thick and not very runny. The assembled pasta, along with a little Eat in the Raw's Parma! vegan "Parmesan cheese" (high in B vitamins, iron, Omega-3 fatty acids, and trace minerals, and made from raw organic walnuts, Red Star nutritional yeast, and Celtic sea salt - "and love") sprinkled atop, tasted quite good, though I think that last week's sauce was significantly better. I also served green beans in a style that we had in Toscano in October - lightly sauteed then with lemon juice and salt mixed in (I didn't have a fresh lemon, but used Volcano Lime Burst -- water, organic lime juice, and lemon oil).

I wonder if there's a risk of bacteria by letting the cooked shallot and garlic sit unrefrigerated in the raw tomatoes overnight. The idea of sauteeing garlic first thing in the morning is not at all appealing; I could refrigerate the slow cooker container and allow extra time, maybe an hour, in the morning for it to return to near room temperature before turning the heat on. I can't wait to make yet another delicious sauce with the slow cooker!

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By the way, I found a company called Blurb tonight that makes bound books out of, among other things, blogs. Their blog books don't yet support Blogger, but they do have plans this year to do so. I could easily, they claim, publish a book based on my blog entries here and wonder if that might be a good thing to consider.

I am teaching a new course on Gandhian philosophy that began yesterday, but it is in the afternoon so shouldn't affect my cooking. However, tomorrow a 6-week photography class begins, so my wife and I will probably eat out those Thursday nights.