I like to cook lots of food on the weekends and have leftovers for the first few days of the work week. I don’t always get to do it, but I like to. On Saturday, I made the aforementioned Spaghetti Pie It sort of worked. I didn’t season it enough, but once I added some salt and saved the rest for the next day, it was more than edible. It’s turns out kind of like a round lasagna. I think if I make it again, I’ll use ricotta instead of cottage cheese.

John wanted pasta, sauce and sausage for his pre-race dinner, so I made both that and the pie. I tried a different sauce, but was underwhelmed. Unless I take the time to make it myself, I always fall back on Prego. Instead I tried Wegmans brand Italian Sausage sauce. Nowhere near the depth of Prego’s flavor. No kidding. I swear by Prego, now more than ever.

Sunday, I made about a gallon of what I’ve started calling “the chili.” It’s an allrecipes.com recipe that I wrote — geez — about a year ago now. I made it too spicy for me, but my husband loved it. I’ve written about a lot of chili recipes, but it’ll be a while before I feel like any other one would ever live up to this.

Speaking of “too spicy for me,” this is a sad state of affairs. I used to love spicy food. I used to have a tolerance for medium salsa, a drop of Tabasco, freshly diced jalapeno. And then it vanished. I can ‘t even take spicy Italian sausage anymore. I’m kind of mad about it, actually. I wish I knew how that switch went off. I’d turn it back on in a second.

Thanks for reading down this far. I’m currently accepting names in a hat to give away a copy of “Easy Canning and Preserving,” by Ana Micka. Send me an e-mail with your  street address. I’ll pick a name at random on Friday.