The return of the pine nut. Finally.

Quite oddly, the pine nut has been out of stock at the Whole Foods on P St NW in DC for some time now.  As a lover of pine nuts, for reasons I've both provided and bored you with before, this came as unfortunate news.  So, needless to say, the moment I was in a Whole Foods in another city, namely Franklin, TN, I checked the shelf for my favorite goes-with-everything-nut. Check check!  With Schaffer rolling his eyes at my excitement over finding them, and his anxiety over when we would in fact be done in this hell hole he thinks of grocery stores, (a sacrilege, I know it), I found a big ol' box of them.  I stored them right in my suitcase like a dear souvenir from my, hopefully first of many, trip to Nashville. 

Menu:

Angel hair with spiced butter (#126)

Herbs I know. And love. I get them.  I can pull some from my balcony-garden and toss them in what I making for dinner, in a vinaigrette, as a soup topping.  No problem there. Spices, not so much. I mean sure, I can throw in paprika with potatoes and cayenne pepper to add heat to a sauce, but 1/2 teaspoon of this and a teaspoon of that and a 1/4 teaspoon of something else?  Nope. That, my friends, I do not have. So, I was intrigued by pasta paired with a spiced butter sauce.  And, of course, I scouted it out because it called for a generous helping of pine nuts.  

Libby was out of town on business, - the girl really hit the ground running the moment she arrived in DC, and Beth came over for a nice mid-work week supper. The grocer was fresh out of asparagus that looked like anything but slightly shriveled floppy shoe laces.  Needless to say, I passed on that and went with zucchini. 

The spices really did end up to be a nice combination and the sauce had a bit of a kick, which is always a pleasant addition to plain pasta, salad and a green veggie.  I think my lackluster skills in the spice arena comes from the fact that measurement is kind of key here.  And, although Julia would wave her finger in disagreement, measurements aren't an absolute with herbs. At least not the super common ones.  

174 to go...