I keep going back to this point in my head..

You Pay for What?

We pay what for these services?  We have rights to these services?

It’s a mousetrap that has some fantastic connectivity and resources and we get upset when the capital motivations are there by default?

Yes this is the question game.

Look at your web browsers. You accept cookies, beacons, and report all your whimsical anonymous data every moment.  It’s not off by default.  Why?  Because it would kill the ad revenue of browser business models.

Natural Born Skeptic

We should be born skeptics is all it comes down to. If you don’t pay for a service, expect the service to want something out of you for using it. If you pay for the service I expect a lot more for my money and expect to have recourse when things go awry (hear that check baggage fee!)

Defensive Driving

You are taught that a defensive driver is the best driver—they’re all out to get you I can hear my parents saying.

Same thing exists online.  Enjoy the ride but beware of all the caveats.  Find out what data you are bleeding out—if it’s anonymous, how it’s correlated, is it sold, and then come to peace with those things or use anonymizers and a load of plugins to attempt (and I say attempt because it is an attempt—not a guarantee of true anonymity) to stay off the radar.

Free Will

We use these services of our own free will.  Eagerly walking into a commercial trap because we like what it has to offer at a price that can’t be beat. While I expect some civility in these services I don’t expect them to look out for my interests and neither should you.

I’ll be curious to see how the course of data laws, options, our expectations, and free enterprise all mingle over the next decade.

I let some intuition do the driving here as I wasn’t quite sure what I was up to but had a good inkling of where it was going to head.  This is not a quick recipe but it is rewarding and can feed up to 8 or give you leftovers galore. You can cut corners and I’ll let you figure that out. For me we have a huge supply of heritage tomatoes (tear drop, zebra, polish) I wanted to assimilate.

Spagetti Sopressata Bake

• 1 cup chicken stock
• 2 cups diced tomatoes
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup pasta water
• 1/2 cup bell pepper
• couple bay leaves
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 med. sweet onion
• 8 oz mushrooms (a package)
• 1.5tsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 lb sopressata (sliced & Julianned or cubed)
• 3/4 lb uncooked thin spagetti
• 2 cups Italian cheese blend (or favorites)
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 tbls oregano
• 3 tsp salt
• 2 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp sugar

Cooking Steps, Start the Sauce

1. Smash and dice garlic
2. Dice chop onion, pepper
3. Food process or dice your tomatoes
4. Heat deep saucepan over med-high heat
5. Combine garlic, onion, pepper, 2 tsp salt, pepper, garlic powder in saucepan.
6. Heat until soft, about 3m
7. Add chicken stock, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and bay leaves
8. Raise to a boil and simmer covered for 30m

Sautee Time

1. Take your soporessata sauté/fry to a light/medium crisp, remove & set aside
2. Chop mushrooms, add butter—sauté through sweating, add 1tsp salt & some pepper continue cooking to your liking
3. Once first 30m is done with sauce add these to it for another 10-15m uncovered

Casserole Assembly

1. Preheat oven to 350’
2. Prepare spagetti according to package/your taste
3. Take 1 cup pasta water, add to sauce
4. It’s about layers; add sauce to baking dish, add noodles, add cheese
5. Top layer should just be sauce
6. Bake for 30m
7. Grate/add parma to top, return to oven at broil for 5m

Remove from the oven and let it sit 5-10m.  During which time you can make some garlic bread, tasty salad, or a side of choice.  Cut into portion squares and enjoy!

We got a healthy dinner, packaged 2 sizable portions, and are freezing a few portions for a quick meal in the future.