A treatise on Italian night

I was so looking forward to my night of Italian deliciousness, and it didn't turn out as planned. My parents often told me when I was a kid that I should have been born Italian instead of Irish, just because of my obsession with Italian food.

Obviously, I've made many different types of pasta before, including during this project. But I have never attempted to make anything other than pasta, so I decided to try my favourite Italian appetizer, tomato bruschetta. The recipe looked fairly easy, so I figured all would be well.

I didn't count on getting lip from my husband about the fact that sourdough bread is not Italian. I had originally planned to ignore the edict in the recipe about sourdough bread and buy a French baguette instead, but I am a sourdough bread addict so when I actually found sourdough rolls at the grocery store, I was deliriously happy.

Amazingly they fit in the toaster, but unfortunately I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been, and they ended up much harder and crispier than I had planned. Mr. V had no problem with this, but I'm not a fan of hard, crispy bread, so it didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. We did however grate some provolone cheese over top of the tomatoes, which was delicious. Next time, I pay more attention to the bread. I would also try roasting some more veggies to put on top as well, since it was a bit plain. It was a good first try though I suppose.

The pasta was a definite disappointment though. The recipe, for fettucine alla boscaiola (mushroom and tomato sauce) came from another one of my cookbooks, and the picture looked delicious. Unfortunately, the sauce was way too watery and it ended up looking like fettucine soup. A dose of cheese helped a bit, but there was still way too much liquid. The sauce was still tasty despite the liquid, but next time I would definitely add more vegetables (the only veggie in the sauce being onions) to give it substance, and ignore the instruction to add the liquid from two cans of whole tomatoes. The tomatoes themselves gave off quite enough liquid themselves.

So alas, Italian night was decidedly not a success. Hopefully tonight's menu, whatever it is, will be better.