When Erik picked this recipe out of one of our River Cafe cookbooks, the first thing I thought of was "Veronica, I made your favorite- spaghetti with lots of oregano!", so of course we watched Heathers while we ate. I must say that this recipe- which calls for 1/2 cup of dried oregano plus "two generous handfuls" of fresh oregano, tossed into the pasta with a bit of olive oil- was a bit much for me. This is only the second River Cafe recipe we've tried and disliked (I know, I really should change this blog's title to "Recipes from River Cafe and Jamie Oliver")... really it was just too much oregano. The pasta was bitter and woody (why did it need the dried oregano?), and desperately needed something to balance it out like some ground pine nuts or walnuts maybe, or even some cream or butter. The fresh cherry tomatoes from my garden were a nice, sweet reprieve, but I definitely did not go back for seconds. Oh, well...
ADDENDUM: We figured out that the problem arose from using Mexican dried oregano instead of Italian! The Italian variety comes in big, leafy bunches, whereas the Mexican is ground up and includes lots of stem pieces.
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