Best Pasta Ever!

by Christine | Uncategorized

The best pasta isn’t worried over or measured to death. Did you know that? I didn’t. I have shied away from making pasta since the unforgettable time that I had friends over and didn’t make enough pasta – so cooked regular pasta with my fresh pasta. Yeah. That didn’t work too well.

Recently, I learned a lot from this book, right here.

So avert your eyes from that gummy mess from my past, and look on this…fresh, beautiful pasta. No measuring needed. And believe it or not, but that amount below fed my family of four. No leftovers!

fresh-made pasta, waiting for the boiling water

You need flour, an egg or two, and some water. Mix together until it holds; then put dough on a flour-covered board and knead for about five minutes. Let it rest under a bowl on your counter (the same bowl you first mixed it in) for about an hour or so – more or less won’t kill you. (And yes, this is the recipe in the book, more or less. But not verbatim!)

Then roll it out with a rolling pin (or a pasta maker, if you have one), cut with a sharp knife or pizza cutter (I prefer the pizza cutter),  and you can either let it hang like I did until the sauce is made and the water boiling, or you can pile it gently on your cutting board until ready to cook.

Use a big pot, add a generous handful of salt to to the boiling water, and put your pasta in. Once it boils again, watch it – you shouldn’t need more than 3 to 5 minutes depending on how thick your pasta is. Cook until al dente, and top with your favorite sauce.

Delish! And no measuring needed. My oldest son watched me make this batch – he’s going to make it next week, since it is so easy to do. And so tasty.

The sauce, however, was something else entirely. Took way too long (though it was tasty).  This pasta works great with a simple (store bought) pesto sauce, or your favorite jarred sauce, as well as any fresh sauce recipes you may have. Or you can indulge with the following.

My favorite pasta sauce recipe is a garlic-cream-cheese sauce. Ready?  Here’s the recipe – 2 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup butter, 3-4 cloves fresh garlic, chopped, 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup shredded parmesan or asiago cheese. Chopped fresh basil if you wish.

Melt butter in heavy-bottomed saucepan on medium heat. Add garlic, stir briefly. Add cream and heat until it thickens and reduces a bit, maybe 5 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Don’t scorch! When thickened, add mozzarella cheese – stir until melted. Add final cheese, and fresh basil if desired. Can be made up to an hour in advance – merely reheat gently over low heat in pan, then pour over pasta. (Now, if you know me, you’ll know I always add more cheese than is called for in the recipe. Always. Just saying.)

I made this for friends, and added in fresh-steamed broccoli. I will also at times cut down the butter to 1/4 cup – there isn’t a noticeable difference in flavor (but yes in calories!). A little of this sauce over pasta goes a long way. (Put a good red wine behind this meal – either a blend that you like, or a Zinfandel or Pinot Noir – and you’ll have a dinner to remember!)

Sorry, no picture of this sauce – I didn’t think to take it. But consider making pasta from scratch – it isn’t as difficult as all the recipe mavens would have you believe. Nor do you need a pasta machine of any kind – though it does roll the dough thinner than you or I can roll it.

Experiment, and get the family involved. You won’t regret it!

The time-consuming tomato sauce...

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Thanks for stopping by! I hope to get back to regular posts next week. Stay tuned…and remember to Drink Responsibly!

The Best Salad – or, An Ode to Freshness

by Christine | Uncategorized

I am going to share the best salad I’ve ever eaten. My girlfriend Tally made it for me one year, and I’ve been making it ever since. It’s simple – it has only three ingredients, and if you want you can add/change/endlessly make variations on this salad, but there is a trick to it, which I’ll get to later.

First, heap a bowl with the best fresh spinach you can find. Then (depending on the number of people you’re having) toss in the best quality sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil – chopped or not, as you like – that you can afford. Add a teaspoon or more of the oil – that’s your dressing. Then sprinkle in a handful of feta cheese, and voila! You have a great salad. These three ingredients, when put together, create a tasty, flavorful, healthy salad that will add to any meal, and is better than ANY salad you can get at any restaurant.

It works brilliantly all summer long, as well as in winter. The big trick, though, is the spinach.

It should be as fresh as possible. If you don’t grow your own, then hit up your farmer’s market first thing in the morning. Or go out to a market stand, if you happen to live in a town that has them. When you finger the leaves, they should be firm, crisp to the touch. Don’t settle for bagged grocery store spinach unless you absolutely have to! (Though that spinach is terrific for cooking with.)

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If you do put in a vegetable garden each year, or think you might want to start, the best bang for your gardening buck will be in herbs. Why? Herbs are the most expensive item to buy, whether you buy fresh or dried. Rosemary and thyme are perennials; they’ll grow year after year as long as you keep them trimmed and watered. Oregano and marjoram, too, as well as others.

Basil and parsley are best bought early in the season and put into pots, because as winter comes in they will die off. Buy early and buy often – my first bunches of basil this year died due to the strange fluctuating weather we had in March (soft freezes and then 80 degree temps). 

This bed, above, has two types of basil at the foreground, then to the left is a baby spinach plant. There are three of them in a row, then two bigger spinach plants from the nursery. We’ve been munching on that for a month now.  Beyond that, to the right is some thyme – garlic and onions are in this bed, along with the two big sunflowers at the left and the row of sunflowers also at the right. It’s a motley bed, to be sure!

By far the easiest after herbs is spinach. There is nothing – and I mean NOTHING  – like fresh-picked spinach. It’s bursting with flavor and vitamins. In general, the deeper the color of your salad greens, the more nutritious it will be (though to be fair there is a place for iceberg lettuce). So your spinach bed (which is truly gratifying to grow from seed, but you’ll be eating better and sooner off of plants from your nursery) can also play host to some lettuce. Again, I grew some from seed – my plants won’t be ready to eat for quite some time, but once they are I’ll be able to harvest leaves from my lettuces all summer long.

Seeds don’t cost much, and provide a lot of bounty. Go ahead, experiment. You don’t need much to start a garden – just some dirt, some manure to add to the soil, seeds or plants and water. Voila – you’ve got a garden!

Remember though, you’ve gotta get out there and water those seeds every day, twice a day, until they sprout – and then every day, twice a day, until they get big enough to withstand a day without water. When it’s breathtakingly hot, water in the early morning and after the sun has gone down but it’s still light out.

Later, you’ll be able to tell by the plant itself if it needs water. But if you think it does – and the soil around it is dry – it probably does.

We had a real bad grasshopper problem (one or two grasshoppers in your garden will decimate it). Tom planted garlic all over the place, and then we sprayed with a crushed garlic and mineral oil and water mixture – organic, but the bugs hate it. No grasshoppers for the last few weeks – maybe they’ve gone to bug the neighbors!

How about you? Any garden tips? And here’s some apple blossom for you!

These apple blossoms are now tiny apples! This photo taken 2 weeks ago.

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