Pasta Imperfecta

In my quest to try and make everything from scratch (well maybe not everything, I haven't yet had the urge to milk cows or churn butter...but never say never), years ago I decided I wanted to make my own pasta. All my Italian cookbooks where they make their own pasta everyone always wrote how different it was from the dried store bought variety; how light and delicate and then there were all these interesting types of pasta, not just plain egg, the possibilities were endless and very intriguing. So Frank went and bought me a pasta maker, the hand crank kind not the one where you put the ingredients in one end and; voila pasta comes out the other in about five minutes. The hand crank one was the one all the purists said one must use if you're going to be authentic. But allow me to digress for a moment because it just occurred to me that I have written "Frank went out and bought me" quite a number of times when I refer to kitchen equipment. Umpf! Where are we going with this? Is he channeling Rick Santorum? Will all my shoes start to disappear? Should I get his slippers and learn how to make a highball? Should I be concerned and investigate this further? I'll think about it tomorrow, right now I want to talk about pasta. So my first foray into making my own pasta was a spinach lasagna from Lynne Rosetto Kasper's Splendid Table (which incidentally Frank bought me). I chose the spinach pasta, a lovely veal ragu and followed her detailed instructions. It was sublime, light and delicate, just as described. I continued to make pasta here and there and most times I had to make it twice. It seems everyone's recipe is quite different and I would wind up with dough that was too dry, too wet, too something and in making it the wrong way I then made it the right way...every single time so after a while I just went with the store bought dry kind; mainly to avoid the aggravation. Every once in awhile though we say, let's make some pasta, and then we don't so this weekend I was determined. And I remembered a dish from a Molto Mario episode at the beginning of the Food Network. It was black pepper pasta stuffed with a sausage mix.

Black Pepper Pasta- adapted from Mario Batali

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour plus 1/2 cup for dusting work surface
4 jumbo eggs
1 tbsp virgin olive oil
2 tbsp ground fresh black pepper (in coffee grinder for a coarser grind)

Make a mound of the flour in the center of a large wooden cutting board. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the eggs, oil and pepper. Using a fork, beat the eggs, oil and pepper and begin to incorporate into the flour. The dough will come together when half of the flour is incorporated.
Start kneading the dough using the palms of your hands. Once you have a cohesive mass remove any crusty bits , lightly flour the board and continue kneading for 3 more minutes. The dough should be elastic and a llitle sticky. Continue to knead for 3 more minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic and rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Filling

2 lbs fresh Italian sausage, crumbled, cooked and drained

1 cup fresh ricotta
1 bunch fresh Swiss Chard, boiled, drained and chopped
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/2 recipe Bechamel Sauce

Bechamel Sauce
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup all purpose flour
4 cups hot milk
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Melt butter in a saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in flour with a whisk, cook over low heat for a few minutes stirring constantly. Add 1/2 of the hot milk and whisk until smooth, add remaining milk and whisk until smooth. Bring to a boil, add nutmeg, lower heat an simmer 10 minutes.

Make the pasta and roll out to the third thinnest mark on the pasta roller.

Cut the sheets into 10 inch long pieces, cover and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, stir together the cooked sausage, ricotta, chard, nutmeg and parmigiano until well blended.

Preheat oven to 400F degrees. Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil, and add 2 tbspn of salt. Blanch the pasta sheets and drain well-lay on a clean counter.

Divide filling among pasta pieces covering each sheet with 1/2 to 1 inch of filling. Roll each pasta piece like a jelly roll and place in a buttered baking dish. Cover with bechamel sauce and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake for 45 minutes until light brown and bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes.

And what did I do wrong? I rolled the pasta too thin, you could see right through it which is supposed to be a good thing but not this time. In my excitement I built the dish without blanching the pasta (which probably would have worked beautifully since the pasta was so thin) which meant I had to take it apart to cook the pasta---then I boiled it and it became little tiny shreds. So in the end I boiled some dry store bought lasagna noodles and uses the filling and the bechamel, it was yummy but I was too upset to take a picture. Frank tried to blame Max

or create him, not sure what this is all about.

But did you notice who was rolling out the pasta?

Imitating Art

Original

Salvador Dali

Agam

Claude Monet

Georges Seurat

Pablo Picasso

Andy Warhol

Roy Lichtenstein

...poor thing clearly needs a job, or a life...or better yet, both.

Is it Spring yet?

Last week we had - oh probably 4 days of 60 degree weather. Considering that this is New Jersey and it is February everything is a tad confused or confusing. So this morning I went out with my trusty clippers and Max

to see what we could find to bring in the house for today's party and came back empty handed cause the daffodils may be pushing up but no blooms, same with everything else except for a neighbor's hellebores but since I don't know these people I thought it best not touch them lest I get arrested. So off to Trader Joe's for the ever reliable alstroemeria.

Happy flower Monday!

Oscar worthy

When I was a kid, teenager, young adult; I loved to watch the Oscars. I would get so excited and it wasn't because I wanted to see what everybody was wearing which is pretty much the only reason I watch them now, when I do, but it was because I was genuinely interested as if I had a stake in this or some such nonsense. I also used to got to the movies a lot. I needed to see everything right away. Well not everything just everything I thought was worthwhile which had to fall into certain standards--my standards which were high fallutin' and snooty, and I must say still are; hell when I was in high school I was the movie critic for the school newspaper and boy was I critical. Anyway, things have changed. I (we) don't go to the movies very often at all anymore--or should I say--never. I'm not quite sure why but I imagine it has to do with several factors, for example: there aren't that many movies that capture my attention anymore (Saw, yuck!), there's cable, there's Netflix, those prices!!, those really uncomfortable seats! And I've mellowed, my opinionated snootiness doesn't have to be discussed endlessly with those lacking cultural taste! OK, I'm really not that bad, I won't begrudge anyone their love of the Saw series; I just won't discuss it, I just keep my mouth shut--really. I can wait to see everything when it comes out on DVD, it's no big deal, as I get older I guess the importance of things change. This year was a little bit different though, I really wanted to go and see "The Artist" at the theater. Why? It seems so different, it's silent, it's in black and white, it's French, it has that really cute guy in it. But alas, we didn't go and here is Oscar night so it's too late. However, we can still somehow celebrate (and not like those crazy people who put on a tux and evening gown and sit in front of their TV as if they were in the audience). We'll do it with food! So when Lui, Frank's best friend and father of his godson

called and asked if they could come for dinner we went French.

Coq A Vin- adapted by me
Serves 6 to 8

5 slices of bacon cut in one inch pieces
about 1/3 cup of olive oil
1 large onion coarsely chopped
2 cups pearl onions (I use frozen so I don't have to bother with peeling)
1 large garlic clove minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
4 tbsp butter
2 chickens cut up (should have about 12-14 pieces, or use parts you like)
3/4 cup flour
salt & pepper
herbs de Provence
2 cups of red wine ( something Burgundian)
1 cup of chicken broth
2 cups sliced mushrooms

1. Cut chicken in pieces, season lightly with salt and pepper.
2. Mix flour with salt and pepper and herbs de Provence and dredge chicken pieces in flour.
3.In a large pot heat one tbsp of olive oil then add and saute the bacon pieces over medium heat until they begin to change color. Add the chopped onion, carrots and garlic and saute until the vegetables start to soften. Add the pearl onions and saute for a few minutes. Remove from pot and set aside.

4. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil to the pot and one tbsp of butter. Brown the chicken pieces over medium high heat on all sides, do this in batches so as not to crowd the pieces

adding more olive oil and butter with each new batch as needed

Once all of the chicken pieces have been browned, return them all to the pot along with the sauteed vegetables and stir to incorporate.
5. Add 2 cups of red wine and one cup of chicken broth, IF NEEDED. Bring to a boil and stir up the pieces at the bottom of the pot. Lower to a simmer, cover and cook, stirring occasionally for about one hour.
6. Add the sliced mushrooms for the last 10 minutes of cooking time.
7. Remove the chicken to a serving plate

Taste and season the sauce with additional salt & pepper if needed and spoon over the chicken.

This dish can be made early in the day and then heated in the oven, the flavors will intensify.

Serve with baked rice and a nice green salad, and friends and wine

and make sure no one gives your dog any scraps from the table hence he'll be like this the next day

or maybe he's just worn out from this

And the Oscar goes to.....

For the love of a Book

I probably started buying books from Amazon.com very closely after its inception. The convenience was great, you got to browse through thousands of titles in the privacy of your own couch; the newness and novelty of the whole thing was lots of fun; there were other shopping sites but since it was all in its infancy they were limited and Amazon seemed to have gotten it right off the bat especially for someone like me who loves books. When they started adding other "stores" and merchandise I shopped for certain things there also. The prices, selection, and immediacy in receiving your merchandise were pretty much unbeatable therefore hard to resist. Things started to sour for me a few years ago when they introduced the "kindle", their electronic reading device (and I say that with scorn). It wasn't so much the introduction of the thing, after all it is a choice, if one wants to read from an electronic screen fine; who am I to tell you what to do? Me? I'm of the old school variety; I like to feel the weight of the book, the page between my fingers as I turn it, the ability to flip back and forth in mid sentence to verify something I had read earlier, the look of the chosen font. The warm feeling of curling up on my bed, couch, chaise with a book-an electronic device is a tad cold on this. Hell, I need to sit there and read my newspaper every morning and get my fingers ink stained, I even do it in foreign countries where I don't even understand the language. But that's just me, if someone has another preference go right ahead and kindle away. What really irked me about Amazon's kindle roll out was that after a while, maybe a year or so if memory serves, their CEO announced that Kindle would be taking over people's reading preferences in the future and that Amazon would probably eventually phase out all traditional books-I beg your pardon? Do I not live in America, the home of the free and the brave, etc. Don't tell me what to do! or think for that matter. My ire subsided when other things (like life) got in the way and I continued to buy books from Amazon, after all in my mind I thought "never happen, this guy's nuts!". Then last year came the announcement that they were going to start publishing themselves-what??? you're a retailer, what do you know about publishing? By the way, again, you're a retailer not an software company either. They're trying to take over publishing, one of the oldest and most beautiful of industries. I can start listing publishers here that have put together and published some of the most beautiful and heart stopping work...who is Amazon kidding? Then today there was this article in The New York Times, I was floored. When does this strong arming end, when does the greed stop, how much does Jeff Bezos need in his pocket? When is enough enough for this guy? Pulling books???? Is this Fahrenheit 451, 1984? How many companies, or industries do they need to put out of business and destroy? Well, I'm certainly not going to help them. Time for a boycott, or girlcott.

Obras Completas-Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
Pub.
Aguliar, S.A. de Ediciones, Juan Bravo 38
Madrid (Espana), 1969

a gift from my father to my mother of her favorite poet in 1974.

never to be duplicated by Amazon.com publishers.

Thanks for letting me rant-back to regularly scheduled programming soon.

Piggly Wiggly

When I was a little girl we had a pig. Her name was Cecilia and she was already there when I was born. I loved Cecilia and thought she was a pet

I also loved all her offspring which were pink and small and had curly little tails, I thought they were the cutest things in the world. I never understood how and why their numbers used to fluctuate so much, once they got a little bigger they seemed to disappear. I guess I was loving them in more ways than I thought. When we left Cuba my father was adamant that there was no way the government was going to take his beautiful girl (not me) like they were taking everything else so before they came to do the inventory of our house and possessions (yes, they did an inventory to make sure you didn't take anything with you other than your one allotted suitcase, for those people that think Cuba's so great you need a serious education), in which Cecilia would have been included; he had her butchered and passed her out to the neighbors clandestinely because you weren't supposed to have any food other than what your monthly coupon book allowed. It was probably a very hard thing for him to do. Maybe that explains why I have always found pigs to be extremely adorable as is evident all over my house

Had enough? Me too. Maybe I'm making up for past sins or honoring Cecilia in some subliminal way.  Unfortunately, not only do I think they're the cutest things I've ever seen...well not really...this is

I also think they're the most delicious things...after all being Cuban I'm born with a pork lusciousness gene, so this weekend when I wanted to make something a little special for Valentine's Day I heard oink oink, and I remembered something from Pierre Franey that I've been wanting to make for years:

Pate-stuffed pork tenderloin adapted from 60-minute Gourmet
4 servings

2 pork tenderloin
3/4 cup smooth pate (I used truffle mousse)
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
3 tbsp chopped fresh chives
Salt & pepper
2 tbsp butter
1/3 cup finely chopped shallots
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup dry sherry
1 cup dry white wine
1 tsp mustard, preferably Dijon
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup heavy cream

1. Using a sharp knife, split the tenderloins lengthwise, taking care not to cut right through.
2. Combine the pate, garlic, thyme and 1 tbsp of chives in a mixing bowl and blend well.

Spread this mixture over the cut surfaces of the pork.

Reshape the tenderloins and tie them with string at 1 inch intervals. Season with salt & pepper.

3. Heat the butter in a skillet large enough to hold the pork. Add the pork and brown on all sides. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels.
4. Add the shallots and mushrooms to the skillet and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes. Add the sherry, wine, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Stir to blend.

Return the pork to the skillet.
5. Bring to a boil, then cover closely and simmer 35 -40 minutes, turning the pork occasionally.
6. Remove the pork from the skillet and keep hot. Increase the heat and cook the liquid down until reduced and thickened. Add the cream and cook down about 2 minutes. Add salt & pepper to taste and add the remaining chives.
7. Slice the pork, removing the string, and arrange on a serving platter spooning the sauce over it.

Serve with mashed potatoes. Then go watch this movie

and feel really guilty...or not.