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J: A couple weeks ago, I had a Sunday with the lowest turnout to date. There were just three, including me. One roommate was out of town, AnnMarie was sick, Beth's family was in town visiting, and various other people couldn't make it for one reason or another. If it had just been me and my roommates, I probably would have called it off, but Catherine showed up, and then what was I going to do, send her home? 1 lb rapini olive oil crushed red pepper, to taste a few garlic cloves, minced 1 lb pasta (I used linguinni) Rinse and coarsly chop the greens and cook about 3 minutes in boiling, salted water. You need to save the cooking liquid, so use a strainer to cook them, or cook them whole and chop them when they come out, or fish them out piece by piece with a slotted spoon. Saute the pepper and garlic in the olive oil until garlic is golden. Add the greens and saute while you cook the pasta in the same liquid you used for the greens. Pour the greens on the pasta and toss. As usual with rapini and pasta dishes, it doesn't stick real well to the pasta, which is probably why the real Italian recipes always use orecchiette (little ears) pasta. Then it tosses better. I know Dal is Indian and Rapini with pasta is Italian and they don't really go together, but you have to have a little protein. I pressure cooked 2 cups lentils 5 1/2 cups water spices for 8 minutes at high pressure. Tell me you can do that without a pressure cooker. For the spices, I used (I'm guessing on the amounts -- I did it by eye and just went through my spice drawer and used what looked like it should go in Dal) 1 bay leaf 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, ground 1/2 tsp coriander, ground 1 tsp cumin, ground 1/2 tsp curry powder, hot 1/2 tsp mustard, dried, ground 1/2 tsp white pepper 1 tsp turmeric Not counting shopping, I think this meal was ready in 40 minutes.