baked pasta with turkey kielbasa and a side of pb and vanilla frosting, straight up

last night we were supposed to go out for wings and beer with some of d's teammates before their 9 pm volleyball game - he plays a LOT of recreational sports - and at the last minute they decided not to get together. i always feel like i've gotten a stay of execution when social plans fall through. not because i don't know that it will be much more entertaining to go out and spend time with others - even folks i don't really know, with whom i have not much in common (i do NOT play a lot, or even a little, of sports) - but because (apparently) i'd rather sit at home and watch crap television while eating an array of inappropriate foods straight from the container. hence the title of this post.

my assumption on these nights is that i will (a) finish reading one or two books, or (b) clean the house, or (c) begin some vaguely creative endeavor with my new-found free time. and then, inevitably, it is 11 pm and i've done nothing but watch three successive episodes of "project runway" or something. ugh. not a complaint unique to me, but a complaint nonetheless.

well, anyway, with the prospect of a wing-free night stretching in front of us (i'm really not that big on wings, frankly), i figured i ought to rustle up some grub for the fam - that would be me, d and our little dog, too.

a recipe for baked pasta with sausage had conveniently found its way into my inbox in the morning - convenient, because all i had in the house was a length of turkey kielbasa and some rotini. i had to improvise a bit, per usual. the recipe called for making a quite delectable-sounding sauce of tomatoes, vodka and cream, but i used jarred tomato sauce because it was already open and would go off before i'd have another chance to use it. newman's own sockarooni, if you want to get specific about it. and i only had fresh parmesan and pecorino romano, not fontina, and frozen whole-leaf spinach not fresh. and the recipe called for rigatoni, not rotini.

but, all in all, it was yum. boiled the pasta and the spinach, tossed it with the sauce and the cheese, divided it between two baking dishes - one to freeze and one (gorgeous, white, curvy porcelain, wedding present) to throw into the oven for 30 min. at 400 degrees. i served it with a fresh romaine salad with apples.

then d went to his game. and i sat down to finish reading julie powell's "julie and julia" and polish off an extremely icky tub of dollar store vanilla frosting ("artificially flavored!") washed down with natural peanut butter - i understand the inherent conflict there - straight from the jar. and then i watched "project runway" with a chaser of some abominable Lifetime movie starring jenna elfman. what a wretch i am.