Make Noodles
Posted: October 7, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cooking with kids, eggs, noodles, pasta 2 Comments
These handsome nephews of mine are busy rolling out some pasta dough to be cut into fettuccine. They were out to visit from New York along with the rest of the family which was super fun and these two were excellent rolling helpers. While I spent way too long on whatever else I was cooking that night, rolling fresh pasta is surprisingly quick. I think I timed myself from mixing dough to having noodles ready to cook at 14 minutes (and the dough should rest sometime in there) – and then cooking time is literally about three minutes depending on your noodle size. Anyhow, I do love to enlist the help of Addie and have mixed up dough in a couple preschool classes which was fun. So, yep, fun for the whole family. And other people’s too.
I usually make my dough by pouring two cups of flour onto a big board, counter or large flat-bottomed bowl. Mix in a little salt and I’ll often toss in some fresh herbs from the garden. Make a little mountain with a dome and crack three eggs in the middle, then mix up the eggs working in some flour until you can stir it all up. You can add some drops of water if the dough is too dry. Knead for a few minutes and then the professional folks will say to make a couple balls and wrap them up, which I’ll do if I have time, but I often end up making eight balls and just begin rolling when they’re formed. Having a wee roller is great but I’m sure a rolling pin and cutting works fine too, though maybe that would take forever (probably still worth it for how delicious it is). Coating with plenty of flour maintains separation in the noodles and clean up of the machine is easy too as it only involves wiping off the flour.
Okay, I thought I might write some silly pasta suggestions here or something, but this is already ridiculously long and boring so you one should get a prize for even reading this far. If you just skipped to this last short paragraph you don’t get a prize.
Tomato Bread Salad
Posted: September 6, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: basil, bread salad, capers, day old bread, herbs, mozzarella, salad, tomatoes 2 Comments
Did I mention that Rachel is really liking tomatoes this year? She has never liked tomatoes but each year really wants to since they are so lovely and I force her to plant tons of them. Well, with her newly found love we have been making bread salad full of tomatoes over and over. Our CSA comes with a loaf of bread on pickup at Grand Central Bakery, which these days means that the day after we usually have some beautiful tomatoes and a heal of crusty bread. perfect. The photo shows a version probably breadier than we usually make it and with mostly cherry tomatoes and some other small varieties from the garden, but the best is a salad heavy on big, meaty heirloom varieties. We typically toast the bread in the oven with some garlic and olive oil rubbed on then toss with tomatoes, some herbs from the garden (basil, lemon verbena, parsley sometimes). I like to make a vinaigrette with a touch of balsamic vinegar, but sometimes we just use olive oil and salt, then some mozzarella or a time or two we have tossed in some feta because its what we had (it works when the tomatoes are really flavorful but might overpower some). So easy. Oh hey, just noticed that this salad in the picture has fried capers too. Fun.
Lavender Honey Cakes
Posted: September 5, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: coconut, cook, cookies, lavender, oats Leave a comment
Rachel made these super cute and delicious Lavender Honey Cakes the other day. I like to make fun of her with lavender things because I once added some lavender to french toast and she said, “mmm… this is delicious, it reminds me of my bath water.” I hope you’re not drinking your bath water Rachel. That is gross.
Anyway, here is the recipe for the cakes.
- 2-1/2c quick rolled oats (she used old-fashioned rolled because thats what we have)
- 2c flaked coconut
- 1-1/2c white flour
- 1c brown sugar
- 1c butter (oh, that’s why they were so tasty)
- 1/2c honey
- 1t dried lavender flowers
Combine oats, coconut, flour in large mixing bow. Boil sugar, butter, honey and lavender in saucepan – pour over dry ingredients and mix well. Make into small balls or drop into lined or greased muffin tins (Rachel used mini muffin tins which is why they’re so dang cute).
Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Cool in tins before removing or whatever.
O’ the Summer Bounty!
Posted: September 1, 2012 Filed under: from the garden | Tags: artichokes, garden, pickling cucumbers, rachel austin, summer squash, tomatoes Leave a comment
Rachel is such a super gardener and this year our yard is finally starting to come together a bit. Well, half a bit. So, we have lots of cucumbers – the pickling ones shown and those cute round yellow balls which are cuter than they are tasty actually, but Rachel and I have each made some delicious pickles. And the UFO squash are pretty tasty, (if you like that sort of thing) though summer squash is not exactly my favorite. So, now that I whined about my not-favorites – I will sing praises for the neighboring basket of tomatoes and artichokes. Yum and yum. We let most of the arties flower this year which is so lovely, but Rachel grabbed these two to eat. And ooohhh tomatoes… are you the greatest thing about life?
I will write something again soon Rachel. I promise.
Kind of like Shakshouka
Posted: November 8, 2011 Filed under: eggs, garlic, tomatoes | Tags: coriander seeds, cumin seeds, paprika, shakshouka Leave a comment
So basically this is some eggs poached in a bunch of cooked tomatoes with lots of tasty spice. A bit like huevos rancheros and the like, Rachel spotted this recipe in Sunset and thought it would be a tasty way to use up lots of our tomatoes. This from the lady who doesn’t really like tomatoes, except cooked sometimes, so we gave it a shot. She was right and it was super delicious – it begins with a paste of cumin and coriander seeds, lots of paprika, then salt and garlic. Along with some peppers and several tomatoes and thats pretty much it. We made this a lot when we got a build up of tomatoes from the garden and so never got around to canning any whole tomatoes or sauce which is a shame, but oh well. It was also fun to cook over a fire, though of course heat is a little trickier to control and poaching the eggs in the sauce is a bit tricky already as the bottom seems to cook up pretty fast while the tops don’t get too much heat, even covered. Maybe an attempt to flip the yolks would have helped, because generally they went from way undercooked to overcooked in seconds. Still tasty though.
Broccoli pesto and green beans w/ tomatoes
Posted: October 30, 2011 Filed under: beans, onions, tomatoes Leave a comment
The broccoli pesto is from Super Natural Every Day, by Heidi Swanson, who also blogs at 101cookbooks where there is a similar recipe. I never have any really great ideas of what to do with broccoli, though Rachel makes some tasty soups, so it was fun to try something unique and even summery. This broccoli had a little bit of a bite to it which made the leftovers seem a bit too broccoli-ish if that makes sense.
The beans and tomatoes are from our yard and the CSA (yes this is from a while back – so what) and were super delicious. I love to throw this little business together, though Rachel maybe doesn’t quite as much since she doesn’t really like tomatoes, except cooked, and these are only cooked a wee bit.
Start with some red onion slice thinly and toss in olive oil warmed over medium heat. Cook until soft then turn up the heat and toss in the beans along with some salt and pepper. Cook that together a few minutes – sorry I’m not good at specific times or markers – just cook them until they are nice and warm and perhaps you even see a few spots where they are browning. Then throw in the tomatoes cut into chunks along with a pour of red wine vinegar and then a pinch or two of red pepper flakes. I suppose I should try this recipe with some fresh peppers sometime, but I think maybe I just want a tiny kick without overpowering with pepper flavor. Cook and stir until the tomatoes break down a little bit and you’re done. Eat it.
Pan fried trout
Posted: October 28, 2011 Filed under: fish, trout | Tags: pan fried trout 1 CommentLong title.
We ate a lot of trout over the last few months. Its so tasty, easy to prepare and pretty cheap too. And if you have a three year old, he or she might also like to chat with the fish. Addie sure does. She calls them face fish.
I like to pan fry these little fellers – sometimes after chopping off heads and tails, sometimes just heads as above and sometimes just whole. I usually take out the bones, which is relatively easy but sometimes time consuming – the meat pulls easily off the bones after cooking, but eaters like the ease of just digging right in. Becky Selengut’s Good Fish site has a great video (among many others) to show you how to debone. I can’t remember if she uses fancy pin bone tweezers in that video or not – I don’t have any – so it can definitely be done, but someday I think I’ll grab the tweezers since it does look easier. blah blah blah
Rinse and pat dry the trout before prepping. I usually brush the fish with some olive oil, salt inside, then dredge them in a mixture of cornmeal, salt, pepper and maybe some cayenne pepper. Toss some herbs and maybe some sliced lemon in the middle and fry in a hot oiled pan for a few minutes on each side until the skin is nice and crispy. These are also nice because they seem tough to overcook. If anything I tend to run nearer to undercooking the middle as I often have the stove too hot. I usually turn on the oven in the 350-400 range (often something else is/was in there which determines the temp) and then throw the whole pan in to cook up the middle if needed, or at a lower temp to just keep them warm for a wee bit. In general though these are super handy because you can get them all cleaned up and ready and then cook them up at the last in about ten minutes.
hmmm… I was going to write about the other things I served this trout with, but I seem to have rambled and rambled and rambled so I reckon I’ll save those for another post.
Ravioli with Poached Egg
Posted: September 7, 2011 Filed under: chard, eggs, pasta, ricotta Leave a commentI think my first Ravioli with an egg was at Table Bistro down on 28th and Couch-ish here in Portland. It was definitely a neighborhood favorite when Rachel and I lived on 28th. Rachel ordered the ravioli every time we went and finally convinced me to give it a try, though I wasn’t a big fan of runny yolks at that point in my life. The ravioli may have converted me because it is just such a beautiful thing to poke into the noodle and have the egg gently ooze out with the ricotta and chard filling. We’ve also had a super rich and delicious version at Spring Hill up in West Seattle made with a quail egg. Cute. I followed a recipe from Ethan Stowell’s New Italian Kitchen, also of Seattle.
Essentially just mix a tasty ricotta with some crushed garlic (if you like that sort of thing) and a bit of salt to taste with some blanched chard or whatever tasty green looks delicious at the time. I made some egg pasta, recommended in the book, recipes for pasta are everywhere I reckon. A rolling pasta machine is even surprisingly easy to use – especially compared to the KitchenAid mixer attachment I have used in the past. You can also roll the dough out several times by hand until flat enough if you don’t have a pasta machine.
Lay the pasta out in sheets and pile on the ricotta mixture. Flatten out a divot with a spoon and drop in an egg yolk. I have since seen a recipe that calls for covering the top of the egg with more ricotta, which might help more evenly cook the egg and give it a chance to set a wee bit more without overdoing the pasta. Then cover the top with another strip of the pasta after wetting where the edges will be and seal each ravioli around the ricotta and egg. Cut into the individual pieces and cook for just a few minutes (maybe 3-5).
Also lovely – zucchini blossoms!
Corn on the Cob
Posted: September 2, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentWe don’t buy corn too often. I think its a psychological complex that developed since pretty much every processed food now has corn and soy in it, so it just seems wrong to go and buy even more corn. But the CSA has delivered corn on the cob for a few weeks, and of course, some good fresh sweet corn is delicious.
Tossing it straight onto the grill has proven super easy, delicious and surprisingly forgiving. I honestly don’t know how long I’ve been throwing them on there – maybe twenty minutes or so. The outside chars prettyily and the inside gets nice and hot without getting soggy and takes on a nice smoky flavor. We have been eating them without anything on them because they are so sweet and tasty grilled. I also threw some on the fire while camping, which worked out okay too, but the husks burned through and started flaking off a wee bit before the corn was fully cooked.
food for three 