My students left on Friday, and it felt so wonderful to say “see you next year!” instead of goodbye. Next year, this group will graduate 6th grade and it will be so bittersweet because this will be the first group I’ve taught that I got to see graduate. They drove me absolutly nuts at some points, but we all grew so much! It’s officially summer!

This week we’re going to be doing a double post to make up for my missed post last week! I was totally burnt out after writing 6 narratives for each of my 29 students and just could not bring myself to sit down and write a blog post. I’ll also be doing a bonus post of my focaccia recipe because I’ve had several people ask for it! This weeks Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, which translates to spaghetti garlic and oil, was incredibly simple so I wanted to show you guys some of the little kitchen tools we use that make my life super easy.

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

• 1 lb spaghetti noodles
• 6 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 1/2 cup good olive oil
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
• 1 red pepper, diced (optional, but we had it leftover so we used it!)
• toasted breadcrumbs (I ground up some of my focaccia from the day before!)

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Get water boiling for the spaghetti, remember to use plenty of salt. I live by my double boiler, because it can easily hold 1 lb of pasta. The inner pot is a colander, so when the pasta is done you just lift it to drain it and it leaves all the pasta water in the bottom boiler. Most of the time we get a cup of pasta water out of the boiler, dump the rest, and then transfer the pasta into the big boiler to mix the sauce together.

When it comes to olive oil we are so lucky that there are several specialty stores around that have great selections of olive oil. I use regular Costco oil for cooking in, and then a beautiful imported olive oil for sauces. For the oil in this sauce I used my nice imported olive oil, and then a splash of herb olive oil from our specialty store. They both pack a good amount of flavor!

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Heat the oil in a pan, and then add the garlic, red pepper and red pepper flakes. Cooking garlic in this much oil is so tricky because you don’t want to fry it, burn it, or undercook it. What I wound up doing was turning the eye on and off, and constantly stirring the garlic until the flavor was infused into the oil.

When the oil is done, turn it off and drain your pasta. Remember to reserve some pasta water! Return the pasta to the pot, and add the oil, parsley, and cheese. Toss to combine. I served with the toasted breadcrumbs on top, a little spring of parsley, and a scattering of cheese! For some vegetables, I made a simple arugula salad with tomatoes and a lemon vinaigrette.

Aligote

Aligote wines are very light and acidic. The grape itself is from the Burgundy region of France. It tends to be called Burgundy’s “forgotten” white, because it’s vineyards get turned in to more prominent wines pretty often! It just doesn’t have that same presence a Chardonnay has, but I really enjoyed this wine. It was very crisp and refreshing with a lot of tart apple notes. This was definitely a “sit by the pool and enjoy” type of wine, and that is exactly what I am looking for this summer!