I Feel Your Taste All the Time We're Apart

This is one of those days where I wish I still had a moustache, as I've been living large at dinner time for the past two evenings (what my doctors don't know can't hurt me, right?) and wouldn't mind revisiting the scene of the crime, so to speak. The break in the summer hot weather we've been having (and about which I haven't complained with Peep One) inspired my darling wife to tackle a culinary project usually reserved for cool fall days or when we need a morale boost in the dark nights of winter. She prepared Muskadingsbums noodles with onions, green peppers, hot sausage and tomato sauce. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm. 

I should explain, because otherwise the folks who put the "Baked Mostaccioli with Sausage and Peppers" recipe on their pasta box will not know what I'm talking about, that dingsbums is a sorta deutsch word suggesting thingamajig, doohickey or a whatchamacallit (I enjoyed watching google translate having at it, well played, sir!). And now you're saying to yourself, or to someone else, 'mostaccioli isn't a German noodle' and you're right. Too bad the League of Nations isn't hiring, your job would probably come with free parking, also known as Manhattan. 


In my house we all say muskadingbums noodles because mostaccioli is too hard to pronounce. Anyway. While shopping Saturday, my wife started to gather the various elements for the dish and I was an unwitting accomplice to a deed of which I hope the Pasta Police never learn. Failing to find any mostaccioli noodles in the grocery store, she decided she could use penne rigate instead. And I said nothing. SPEAK UP, MAN! The jury can't hear you! I said, 'and  I said nothing.' 


As a matter of fact, with the way the melted cheese, the peppers and sausage all clung to the noodles, it was easier and more enjoyable to eat as you didn't have a fourteen point two pound piece of pasta on the end of your fork as so often happens with the mostaccioli. When I came through the door Tuesday afternoon the house was filled with the smell of bubbling sauce, browning meat, sizzling sausage and baking cheese. I do love that aroma. Dear Yankee Candle: if you can figure out a way to put a string on the big serving dish it all cooks up in, I'll hang that from the mirror in the car. Seriously. 


Of course we had some Tuesday evening for dinner and it was delicious, but wait there's more (I did not know that even existed)....there's so much, by design, there's enough for a second night and by last night, the noodles and all the other ingredients had gotten all rather chummy with one another, being in that dish for all those hours and the flavor was even sweller. I wish I had a second mouth so I could kiss my first one for being able to taste something this delicious. I'm becoming a bigger fan by the moment of The Weather Channel since another cool day culinary project that plays to boffo reviews in my house is applesauce (apfelmus), lentil soup and potato pancakes. You can probably guess the dessert.     
-bill kenny