midweek mediterranean

If you're into words, you might find the timing of my mediterranean menu a bit amusing - if you just use words and don't find their make-up particularly fascinating, feel free to jump down a paragraph 'cause I'm about to geek out and get super boring.  Medi means "middle" (terra means land/earth, so terranean is just another form that complements the prefix) - Lord of the Rings geeks are overjoyed at this moment, I imagine, but the point I'm trying to make is that this geek thinks it's funny my three-day fest of Mediterranean dishes starts in the middle of the week.

Okay, Geek-Out over.  On to the food!  When I got home from work last night, Mister was feeling ill, so we took a short but welcome nap on the couch together, then he got up and played his video games for a little while and I ate what was left of the Fusilli with Lentil Sauce with a side of Hummamole on Bread. That gave me plenty of time to think about what I wanted to cook tonight.

I had determined by the time I got home that I was going to make pasta, since there were two pasta dishes left and I'd prefer to put the one rice dish in between them.  Moderation, you know...  Anyway, as is usually the case as Friday nears and I still have "fresh" vegetables living in my crisper drawers, I inspected them to see whether the escarole or the broccoli was closer to sliminess.  Escarole won, so we had Penne with Cannellini Beans and Escarole from Vegan Italiano tonight:

It is just as delicious as it looks and I'm glad I made this tonight.  I've made it once before and it was my first encounter with escarole, so I was caught a little off-guard by the crunchy, toothsome texture of the escarole.  This time around, I knew what to expect from the greens so I could just enjoy the whole experience - the green (escarole) + red (tomatoes) + white (cannellini beans) palette of the dinner is delightful enough - just as the colors echo an Italian flag flapping in an arid Mediterranean breeze, the taste of those ingredients transports me to the terra cotta villa in which I've never dined (but hope to in about a year!).  Regretfully, since it is Wednesday and not Friday, I did not have a nice, deep glass of red wine to help me through dinner, but the water and olives were quite appropriate accompaniments.