I spent a very frustrating day Friday, during which I was wrestling unsuccessfully with the idiosyncrasies of iTunes on my Mac — attempting to transfer a Playlist and the accompanying 290 songs to my new iPhone.  By 7:00 PM I was fed up, so I retreated to the kitchen to make dinner.  Barbara was out the the evening, so I went to my comfort food — pasta.

Unsure of where I was going, I started by gathering ingredients I wanted or needed to use, and began to cook.

• partially used package of spaghetti — take out 130 gm.
• red onion, garlic, and leek — sliced into small chunks
• less than 1 cup of leftover, cooked Rancho Gordo Vallarta beans
• 8 medium sized white mushrooms, sliced
• 2 Tbs. truffle/mushroom sauce in a jar (from Eataly)
• a handful of fresh basil leaves, cut into a chiffonade
• 1/2 tsp. hot chili flakes, from a Small-Farm dried hot pepper (seeds removed)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 chunk of Marsalino Pecorino with Truffles, for grating on the cooked pasta

Things came together pretty quickly:

1. bring large pot full of water to a boil, add Kosher salt, then add pasta, cooing until just al dente, reserving up to one cup of pasta water.
2. sauté leek and onion in olive oil, then add garlic and hot pepper when vegetables are tender, cook another 4-5 minutes, add Vallarta beans and heat through, then set asside
3. in another skillet add more olive oil, and sauté mushrooms until medium brown in color.  add white wine, then boil it off, adding salt and pepper when mostly evaporated.
4. combine mushrooms with onion mixture, then add cooked spaghetti to the skillet.
5. finish the spaghetti sauce with the addition of the basil and truffle/mushroom sauce,  followed by the pasta water
6. serve in pasta bowl, adding the grated cheese and 1-2 Tbs. of a fruity Sicilian olive oil

The wine was a 2012 Ancarani Centisimino, from Jan D’Amore’s marvelous portfolio.  The earthiness and warm fruit were a superb complement for the onion-mushroom-bean sauce.  By the end of the meal, I was smiling again, so I called Jan to thank him and at least share the photos with him.

Best of all, I was invigorated enough to schedule a 1/2 hour with a very effective Apple representative (very much better than the one I spoke to in the afternoon), and we solved my iTunes problem.  Thank you, James.