United colors of pasta

Fresh pasta is readily available in the refrigerator section of any supermarket. Love, fun and imagination are not.

So, let's get the palette ready (baked beet puree, butternut squash puree, chlorophyll extracted from spinach),

prep a canvass of semolina flour, bread flour, salt and eggs, and let the pasta fun begin.

Pasta sheets are like soft fabric; they are easy to cut with scissors, knife, or a pasta machine attachment into traditional (and not so traditional) pasta shapes.

My four-cheese, three-color ravioli are like no others.

Stracchi  means "rugs". Mine are colorful. How are yours?

Is pasta always the same color on both sides? It doesn't have to be!



I spent almost the entire day playing with my pasta and photographing it for the USPCA 2011 calendar (coming soon).

Thankfully, the gardeners came in the afternoon, and were looking in puzzlement at what I was doing. We shared a bowl of pasta, and there was nothing left to photograph.

Look at the 'shroom!

The mushroom stall at the farmers market never stops to amaze. Today they had this fine specimen on display (at 2 pounds @$24/lb it would cost $48, but I doubt that she would sell it anyway). It was one of the biggest cepes I've ever seen.

After realizing that I forgot to get cash and only have a $20, I didn't even attempt to bid for the king 'shroom, but settled for his younger brother the prince, and just one half of him. $12, good two servings.

I've sliced the half-mushroom thin, seasoned with salt and pepper, sauteed it in half-olive oil/half butter over medium heat untill dry, added thinly sliced red onion and sliced asparagus, sauteed some more to soften the onion.

Served over buccatini pasta tossed with fava beans puree, garnished with grated parmesan.

For the fava beans puree: Double-shell (remove the pods, put in hot water for about a minute to loosen the skins, pinch and remove the skins0 1 lb fava beans (makes about one cup). Cook in a small amount of water until tender, about 15 minutes. Puree in blender. Season with salt and pepper. Fold in 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Serve over pasta, in sandwiches, on toasts, or about anywhere.

Yes, it's vegetarian again. I told you it's a conspirasy.

I thought about adding some of my home cured bacon but realized that it would overpower the precious mushroom. The bacon'll have to wait.

Signs of Spring

I’ve been watching the Farmers Market for the first signs of spring. People is sleeveless tops don’t count – in California you can see them any time. What I wanted to see was some exciting spring produce. Well, anything besides cabbages and potatoes.

Here comes:
Asparagus

And morels

Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and grilled over medium heat for about 4 minutes, turning once.

Maccheroncini pasta with morels, asparagus and shallot.

I found too late that I'm out of white wine, so the liquid in the sauce is a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking water. All the better. The asparagus and the 'shrooms taste so fresh and bright that wine would actually interfere with their character.

And more piroshki, same dough as in the previous post, this time filled with beef and with shitake mushrooms.

Beef filling:

2 Tbsp olive oil
½ large onion, minced
1 lb ground beef (I hand-minced a large New York steak, a lot of work, but tastes great)
4 sprigs oregano, minced
Salt, pepper

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onion, sauté, stirring frequently, until soft and golden. Add the beef. Cook, stirring, until almost no pink color remains. Season with oregano, salt, and pepper. Let cool.

Mushroom filling:

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
½ large onion, minced
¼ lb shitake mushrooms, finely chopped
salt, pepper
a few drops of truffle oil (optional)

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the butter. Add the onion, sauté, stirring frequently, until soft and golden. Add the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook until the mushrooms soften and begin to dry. Add a few drops of truffle oil to intensify the mushroom flavor. Let cool.

Farewell, summer

The summer is over. We still have a few hot sunny days left, but these are short, and the nights are cold. As always, I haven't had enough. I want more.

My little fig tree tries to console me, giving me two or three ripe figs every day, R. brings tropical flowers, reminding me that it's summer somewhere now, and the farmers market delights with the early fall abundance. I still mourn the summer. Summer, come back!

Which doesnt't mean that I am not taking advantage of all these autumnal fruits and vegetables. Figs are wonderful just eaten whole, but they are also very good sliced, with a little goat cheese, honey, salt and pepper added. And they pair well with proscuitto, and with about any California wine, Lake County Sauvignon Blank and Zinfandels from Russian River and Dry Creek being the favorites.

The super-ripe, super-cheap tomatoes from the market ask to be slow-roasted:

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Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Line a wide shallow roasting pan or a baking sheet with aluminum foil, brush with olive oil.
Wash and dry medium-size ripe tomatoes. Cut in half crosswise. Arrange in the pan in one layer, cut side up. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Scatter oregano leaves on top.
Roast for about 3 hours to concentrate the flavor. During the last hour check the tomatoes every 15 minutes to make sure they do not burn.
Let cool in the pan.
Store covered with olive oil in a glass jar in the refrigerator up to two weeks. Add to sandwiches, pizzas, pastas; serve on crackers as an appetizer; mix with fire-roasted bell peppers and grilled eggplant and onion for a filling salad.

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Acorn squash, cut in half and with the seeds removed, looks like an exotic flower. One day I'll slice it thin with the skin still on, and bake or fry beautiful chips. This time I have ruined the beauty again: I made a soup.


Winter squash, pepper and garlic soup
serves 2
1 small acorn squash, or other winter squash, cut in half, seeds removed with a spoon and discarded
1 whole head of garlic, unpeeled
1 red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, seeded and sliced
1-1/2 cup chicken stock

To serve (optional):
2 Tbsp pesto (see my old post for recipe)
2 strips of bacon, fried, dried and crumbled
2 basil tops
1 tsp grated parmesan

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cut the top 1/4 in. off the head of garlic to expose some flesh.

Brush the cut sides of the squash and garlic with olive oil, wrap the squash halves and the garlic head in aluminum foil, bake until soft, 35-40 minutes.

Remove squash and garlic from the oven, set aside to cool. When cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh out of the squash halves, and squeeze out the garlic cloves out of the skin. Add roasted bell pepper slices. Puree in a blender. Add the stock.

Pour into a pan, stir, reheat over low heat.

Serve with a spoonful of pesto and some bacon bits. Garnish with basil.

When makins the soup, save some of the squash/garlic puree to make a pasta sauce.
Here, capellini pasta is served two ways: with pesto, and with the squash and garlic puree (bacon bits and parmesan on both, of course):

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I have started my next food styling class. So my shopping list today looks like this:

- Chiabatta rolls 6 ea.
- Burger buns 6 ea.
- Sliced ham 1 lb. pkg.
- Sliced salami 1 lb. pkg.
- Sliced mozzarella 1 lb. pkg.
- Curly lettuce 1 ea.
- Red onion 1 ea.
- Large heirloom tomato
- Ground beef 2 lb.
- Something to eat

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Musings over an empty package of ravioli

Packaged foods are mysterious.

Tonight I was feeling like pasta, but wasn’t feeling like making my own. So I bought a package of Four Cheese Jumbo Ravioli from Trader Joe’s refrigerator section. The package contained 12 huge (approximately 2x3 inches, not my bite size for sure) flat rectangles, and the label said “Serving size 1 cup. Servings per container about 2.5”

I have a degree in Math from one of the best universities in the world. I couldn’t figure out how many pieces per serving. Or how to fit them in a measuring cup. So I just ate them all. They are OK. Oh, and the instruction on the package tells you to bring water to a rapid boil, and then cook the pasta over a medium boil gently. I have a lot to learn about cooking.

With our midnight cheese and wine course, the man likes large rectangular whole wheat crackers, and I like small round water crackers. His crackers have the food pyramid on the box, instructing you to eat 6-11 servings of bread, grains, and pasta per day. The crackers’ serving size is 4. That would be 24 large crackers a day for me, or 44 for him. I would rather die. My small crackers say that the serving size is 3. Just 18 for me and 33 for him a day. We can live again.

What a scary mess must be the live of someone who trusts a printed word!

There is no recipe in this post. Or, wait a minute, there is one:

Four Cheese Jumbo Ravioli
Serves 2.5
1-10oz package Trader Joe’s Four Cheese Jumbo Ravioli

Add pasta to 3 quarts of rapidly boiling water. Cook for 8-10 minutes over a medium boil gently stirring occasionally. Drain (divide between 2.5 plates?) and serve.

End-of-November market: apples, porcini, kale,...

This week's market looks almost like winter - the figs are gone, we still have grapes, but they are almost overripe, falling off the branch when you pick it up; we see the last of the tomatoes; peppers and eggplants are not as abundant as earlier in the season; on the other hand, there are various wild mushrooms, all kinds of cabbages and kales, and apples are at their peak. Oh, yes, and pomergranates, of course, but since I have this tree by the entrance, I am not interested.

So here is an omelette I made with sauteed porcini mushrooms, served with a salad of mixed greens (the stunning green and pink flowering kale is not just a nice accent, it adds taste and texture too) and walnuts. Salad dressing: juice of 1/2 orange, 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp red wine vinegar, 2 Tbsp EVOO, sea salt, pepper .

Cavolo nero is also known as Tuscan kale. Some recipes suggest cutting the center ribs out of the leaves, I left them in.

Pasta with cavolo nero and prosciutto
for 2 servings

2 Tbsp EVOO

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 bunch cavolo nero, washed, dried, and cut into thin strips

1/2 glass of cheap white wine

1 Tbsp pine nuts, dry roasted in a small skillet for a few minutes

4 slices of prosciutto, torn into pieces

salt, pepper to taste

5 oz spaghetti

grated parmesan, to serve

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large sautee pan, add garlic, cook stirring for a few seconds until golden and fragrant, don't let burn. Add cavolo nero, stir for a couple of minutes, add wine, reduce heat to low, cook for about 20 minutes, until soft. Add pine nuts and prosciutto, adjust the seasoning, keep warm.

Meanwhile cook the spaghetti in a large amount of salty water (the package usually says how many minutes to al dente). Remove spaghetti into the sauce, increase heat to medium, stir, adding some pasta cooking water if neccesary. Serve very hot, garnished with grated parmesan.
The hanger steak in this photo I marinated with a paste made from EVOO, salt, pepper, rosemary, oregano, thyme and parsley for two hours, then grilled over very hot gas grill 4 minutes per side, let rest, then sliced very thin and added lemon shallot butter on top.

Grilled Spot Prawns over Pasta

I love almost everything about living in Marin County, with one notable exception: there is no Oriental grocery here. Not a single Chinese market in the entire North Bay. So, being surrounded by the Bay and the Ocean, whenever I want fresh seafood, the closest place to go is 99 Ranch in El Cerrito, cross the bridge.

It's hot here again, over 100F, good time for grilled seafood (if you can get it home), so I put the cooler with an ice pack in the trunk and crossed the bridge. And there I became a lucky owner of half-dozen live spot prawns, the tastiest of all shrimps ever, and, as a bonus, local and ecologically sound.

At least they were live and very active when I bought them. By the time I got them home, they were barely moving, but still the freshest and finest shrimps. I just rinsed them with running cold water and rushed them to the grill. About 2 minutes on each side, salt-pepper later.

The prawns taste like little lobsters, and are pride and joy of the West Cost. But oh, they are expensive!

Served over my homemade pappardelle, with roasted tomato sauce: put some olive oil, sliced red onion, sliced garlic, red tomatoes cut in half, cut side up, in a baking dish. Season with sea salt, fresh pepper, a few sprigs of oregano, and more olive oil. Roast at 350F for about an hour. Puree in a blender.

If the heads and shells are not eaten (they are edible if fried crisp, thet's what they do in sushi bars), they should be (and were) saved for stock. In fact, I already made the stock and froze it for the future.

Wine: 2007 Veramonte Sauv. Blanc, very well chilled.

FatCat cooks breakfast, etc.

I am not a morning person. When on my own, my breakfast consists of two cups of Turkish coffee and three cigarettes. And I do grind my coffee in the evening. It won't lose much aroma overnight, and I just cannot bear the sound of the coffee grinder first thing in the morning.

The FatCat™ is an especially valuable Fat Cat, because he cooks breakfast. That is, in the hour when I am completely helpless, struggling to decide whether it's worth it to attempt to focus my eyes and start going, or to sleep another hour or three, he appears, completely awake, with a cup of coffee and and a huge bowl of fruit salad. And then he's ready to make omelettes. But first we have to go to the market.

And the market is full of temptations. Like a booth where they make crepes, both sweet and savory, thin like fabric, right in front of you. We have to get one with strawberries, banana and caramelized apple. Cannot spoil our appetites, can it?

This week's first appearance on the market are figs! They come from Yolo County, where it's really hot, and are big and perfectly ripe, you are affraid to touch them, so soft they are.

I haven't tried fresh figs until I came to California, and I was never impressed with dried. So fresh figs were an unexpectedly pleasant discovery of a few years ago, and I still love them. I'll eat the first two of three whole, and then we'll have fun with the rest: bake them with goat cheese, wrap them in procuitto and grill, make pies, etc.
Other market finds this time were porcini mushrooms, garlic, scallions, free-range eggs, and heirloom tomatoes, of course.

Now he's ready to cook the omelettes. The traditional FatCat™ cooking style requires that the dish had everything in it, and pretended to be diet food. So take my stainless skillet, treat it as if it were non-stick - very little oil, we are cooking healthy here. Sautee some garlic and scallions, add leftover deli ham, mix in porcinis that I had meanwhile sauteed in a good amount of EVOO mixed with butter (I am not trying to cook healthy), beat 1 whole egg with 3 egg whites (less cholesterol; this is how I utilize the egg whites left after making fresh pasta), pour over the mixture, let set, try to scrape it off the skillet and fold.

The result is a surprisingly tasty mess, served with mixed greens, avocado and heirloom tomato slices, and yes, blueberries, in the sunny garden. Another cup of coffee, and I am fully awake.

The rest of porcinis made a pasta the next day: sautee porcini and white mushrooms in half EVOO - half butter with salt and pepper until golden, add minced garlic and shallot, when softened, add a couple tablespoons creme fraiche, warm through. Serve with penne pasta, garnish with fine herbes and mild grated parmesan.

Salad: heirloom tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, basil, EVOO, balsamic vinegar, sea salt, fresh ground pepper.

Wine: Dry Creek 2006 Taylor's Vineyard Musque.

Dessert: Figs with prosciutto - I'm refusing to turn vegeterian no matter what's on the market.

Tomato Salad and Mushroom Pasta

Both the salad and the pasta sauce are inspired by Suzanne Goin's book Sunday Suppers at Lucques, both are very simple if you have the right ingredients. I did. Heirloom tomatoes and salad greens of several colors come from this week's Farmer's Market. The tomatoes may well be the last ones I had to buy this summer: my own tomatoes are turning red! Or they may be not, you can always use more tomatoes, and I love to buy them.

The salad is garnished with mozzarella fresca and a few oregano leaves and dressed with balsamic vinaigrette.
In the book, the morell mushroom ragout with crème fraîche and fine herbs is served over a toasted brioche, but I found out that it's equally delicious over my homemade fettuccine.

'Shrooms come from the Market, of course. The herbs are growing in a pot on my garden table, and the chervil is already going to seed, so I have to use it fast.

You don't have to buy crème fraîche every time the recipe calls for it. I just have it going in the refrigerator all the time: when there is a little left on the bottom of the crock, warm up some heavy cream and use the leftover crème fraîche for starter. It keeps in the refrigerator very well.

Look at this, I cooked vegetarian again! I did have an idea to tear up some prosciutto and use it in the sauce instead of salt, then realized it's too strong for the rest of the sauce.

OK then, I'll do steaks tonight.

Fresh Pasta

I've been buying fresh pasta in plastic boxes in the supermarket untill one day I looked at the list of ingredients, and I couldn't read most of it. I don't read Latin. So I went on eBay, and instead of buying a couple of books - a chemistry textbook and a Latin dictionary - I bought a pasta machine. Same money, less reading to do. Now there are two or three ingredients in my pasta: eggs, semolina flour, and optional bread flour.

I love dried pasta too, but fresh pasta has a completely different taste (it's made with eggs while dried is made with water) and texture. Mine looks very different too - I don't know how to make complex shapes, especially the ones with a hole in the center, so mine is all flat. Also you have all the fun kneading and shaping your own pasta dough. And if there are guests, it's a show for them.

The dough recipe comes from Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef. You just mix together a little over 3 cups of flour and 8 egg yolks + 2 eggs and knead, knead, knead. Since the dough is very dry, this part is a workout. It's OK to add a teaspoon of too of water to make it a little more manageable, but it has to stay firm and dry, otherwise you'll have a problem of the dough sticking inside the machine later. Then you leave the dough to rest covered in the refrigerator while you relax with a glass of wine and think about the sauce for your pasta, about 30 minutes.

I used this time to clean and salt a pound of fresh anchovies, as described in my favorite Zuni Cafe Cookbook (I should write about this book later, it's not just any cookbook that you get for pretty photographs. I not only enjoy reading it, but actually follow recommendations and even the recipes, and learn something fun and useful every time).

Actually, it's OK to refrigerate the dough for much longer, up to a couple of days (it's just eggs, right?), and it only gets better, if it is covered tightly with plastic and doesn't dry. So if you have anchovies to clean, you can still have a glass of wine afterwards.
OK, the wine is gone, the dough is ready to roll out. For this amount of the dough, do it in 3 or 4 portions. You flatten it first with your hand, then start running it through the machine at the widest setting ( 7 on mine), folding it after each time. This will knead your dough some more, and shape the sheet. When you are satisfied with the shape, you decrease the width setting (6, 5 4, 3, 2, I don't use 1, it's paper-thin and only used for filled pasta) and run the dough through the machine ones or twice on each setting, dusting with semolina if it gets sticky.

The sheet will become too long to handle at some point, cut it in half with scissors. It feels and handles more or less like fabric!

My machine has an attachment that cuts the pasta sheet into either fettuccine or spagetti. My favorite format, pappardelle, is cut by hand. And I don't cut off the rough edges, so that the pasta looks obviously homemade.

I cannot give any recommendations on how much pasta to make per person, it's very personal. Jamie Oliver's huge portions definetely don't work for me. I get time and a half as many servings from his recipes. So I just cook as much as I need, dust the rest with a lot of semolina, fold it carefully, and freeze it in plastic boxes for the future. Right now the future looks good - there are a few containers with different pasta shapes in the freezer.

And yes, the fresh pasta cookes in about 1 minute, frozen - in 2-3 minutes. So by the time you put it in the boiling water, the sauce must be ready, the plates warm, and the diners at table.