fresh pasta with beans and bacon

I am a slight oddity in that I don't have cable television at my home. I have a television, and it is hooked up to a digital converting thingamabob which turns the signal that my bunny ears antenna picks up into something useful. Or some such technical silliness. Point is, I don't have a lot of channels. This means I spend a good deal of my tv-watching time with PBS.

Specifically, I watch PBS's Create! channel. And I love it. Mostly. Bob Villa, I could take or leave.

Create! programming involves a ton of cooking shows. And as someone who would gladly sit in front of the tv languorously absorbing Food Network all day, I am so pleased to have these cooking shows from PBS (the rest of Create! is rather silly, IMHO, although I do enjoy cracking jokes to myself at the expense of some of the hosts).

Anyway, one of the shows is called Lidia's Italy, hosted by Lidia Bastianich. Her food is so easy to make at home. And somehow I feel like making it fulfills the Italian side of me (my Dad's side) that wants to make big Sunday dinners and encourage people to make babies.

Last weekend, I watched her make a delicious-looking recipe. Now, normally, I just go grab the recipe details from her website. But for some reason, this recipe isn't there. Horrors!

So, I'm going to try to recreate (no pun intended) it without a recipe. I haven't done it yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to write. Let me give you an ingredient list.

Fresh, homemade pasta
Pancetta
Cannellini beans
Tomato paste
Olive Oil
Parmesan cheese
Celery

Nothing with such simple and wonderful ingredients could taste bad. I think.

If you've been a reader of mine for any length of time, you know I shy away from celery. This is because I find the texture of raw celery incredibly offensive. Because I'm crazy. However, this celery is diced very finely and cooked. So I'm hoping it will be like when I put celery into a gumbo - where it cooks to a point that you can't even tell it's there, texture-wise.

Results to follow. Wish me luck.

And as is becoming my normal sign off, please vote for my brother's essay about cooking well on Anthony Bourdain's website.

Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw Challenge

a 60th birthday dinner - pork chops, mac 'n' cheese, sauteed spinach, blackberry cobbler

I went out to California last week to celebrate my step-mom's 60th birthday. As part of said celebration, my brothers and I put our collective culinary brains together and made a delicious meal for her. We decided to do a take on Southern food - some real rib-sticking dishes with a bit of a continental flair.

My older brother, J, put himself in charge of marinating and making a sauce for some thick cut pork chops (he also completely forgot that we have five people in our family, and only bought four chops). Isn't it just like an older brother to put himself in charge of things? Maybe it's just like my older brother. Perhaps yours is the epitome of egalitarianism.

My younger brother, D, was relegated to being sous-chef. As you know from his guest posts, however, he is as skilled as I in the kitchen. Wow, doesn't that sound pompous? I just mean his food is yummy. He did eventually take over the actual cooking of the pork, however, as J flubbed up his sauce the first time round and needed an extra set of hands. Knowing how difficult it is to perfectly cook pork, and having absolutely no skill with a barbecue (seriously, I can't even light mine), I was very impressed by his results.

With the pork, J made sauteed spinach with garlic, and I made butternut-squash macaroni and cheese. So the menu was pork chops, mac 'n' cheese, and greens - southern enough, no?

For dessert, I put together a blackberry cobbler, which we served with vanilla ice cream and a blackberry-rum sauce. So delicious.

As I wasn't really involved in the pork-making, I can only say that J marinated the pork for about 4 hours. His marinade involved olive oil, molasses, soy sauce, shallots, garlic, and salt and pepper. He cooks sort of like I do, which was evidenced as he made the marinade. He put the pork in a large zip-top bag and wandered from the pantry to the fridge, bag in hand, pouring in little bits of this and that. Then he stuck it in the fridge.

He made a sauce for the pork which consisted of stone-ground mustard, honey, olive oil, sauteed shallots and garlic, and lemon juice. As a said above, he did it twice, as he felt the first go-round was too mustardy. That's the thing about this kind of cooking, you just keep tasting as you go along until you find something you like.

The spinach (two bags) was sauteed gently with garlic and shallots that had been softened in olive oil and butter. We love us some shallots.

On to my dishes! As has been my wont lately, they were not my recipes.

I made the cobbler ahead of time, meaning I put it all together in the morning, and popped it in the fridge until about two hours before we wanted to serve it. I got the recipe, once again, from The Pioneer Woman. You can find it here.

The only changes I made to the recipe are that I used about double the amount of lemon juice and lemon zest than is indicated in the recipe. Also, I used brown sugar for sprinkling over the top of the cobbler. I did this because J loves brown sugar. I mean, loves it. When he was deployed with the military for 8 months, I sent him 4 dozens cookies every week, none of them containing a speck of white sugar, as per his request.

Anyway, having never made this recipe before, nor having ever made a cobbler before, I was unsure about how many pints of blackberries would make up the six cups needed for the recipe (yes, you'd think it would be 3 pints to make six cups, but you would be wrong - luckily we erred in the other direction, buying 6 pints), and was unaware of just how much juice the blackberries would produce in the bottom of the cobbler pan. So, armed with about 2 cups too many blackberries and fearing that the cobbler would be dry, I made a sauce. Finally, something I can actually give you a recipe for!

Blackberry Sauce

Ingredients
2 cups fresh blackberries
1 tbs. water
2 tbs. sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
2 pinches cinnamon
2 oz rum

Put the blackberries and water into a saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium-high. Use a wooden spoon to crush the blackberries a little. Sprinkle in the sugar. Let it cook until the blackberries have let out their juices. Add the lemon, cinnamon, and one ounce of rum (dark rum is best). Stir it gently, then allow to boil until it reduces by about half. Take off the heat and allow to cool.

At this point, run the syrup through a sieve to remove the blackberry seeds. I didn't want the texture of the seeds messing with the texture of the cobbler - but if I was serving this sauce over something simpler (like just ice cream), I'd consider leaving the seeds in.

Right before you're ready to serve, put the extra ounce of rum into the sauce and either nuke it in the microwave for about 1.5 minutes (that's what I did, as I'd had it in the fridge all afternoon), or just reheat it in the saucepan. Pour over cobbler and enjoy the blackberry blissfulness.

On to the Macaroni and Cheese!!

Again, I used someone else's recipe. This one, from The Tasty Kitchen. Here's the recipe for it. I wanted to make it a little more sophisticated, so I used Cellentani. It's like elbow macaroni for grown ups.

As usual, I fooled with this recipe too. But not by much! I used all of the pulp from a roasted butternut squash. I wanted to kick up the squash flavor and the health aspect, since macaroni and cheese is so delightfully bad for us. You'll see the recipe says to use a food processor or blender to mash up the squash - trust me, you don't need to go to such great lengths. I cooked my squash for a little longer than recommended (just over an hour), covered tightly with aluminum foil. The squash becomes so very soft that you can actually mash it up with a whisk - so don't bother with the food processor! Who wants to clean it anyway?

So, I had about 1.5 cups of mashed squash (as opposed to the .5 cup in the recipe). I recommend just buying the smallest squash you can find, and using all of it. I also used more Monterey Jack cheese than recommended, increasing that to about 3 cups. What can I say? I love cheese.

When I make this recipe again, I will likely change up the cheese a bit. Something in me feels that a blue cheese or a havarti would be delicious. Should it be so, I will let y'all know.

Bonus: my father, who is not especially fond of squash, loved this macaroni and cheese. This indicates to me that it is a perfect way to hide vegetables for picky children. The squash provides that great orange color that the "blue box" macaroni and cheese has, while also adding all the health benefits of squash. Awesome!

I hope this post wasn't too rambly for y'all. Have a great week.

Oh, oh, PS: vote for D's essay! This bleg with continue for months, folks.

pizza pizza

I know, I know, I've been away. And no one reads a blog that doesn't have new content. I'm sorry.

Part of the reason I haven't posted is that I really haven't been making much of anything original. I mostly have been tweaking other people's recipes. What I'm giving you here is one of these tweakings. Is tweakings even a word? No matter.

I am an avid reader of the thepioneerwoman.com. This is partly because her recipes are simple, delicious and full of step-by-step photos, and partly because I find her quirky and often hilarious. Point being, I used her pizza dough recipe (tweaked!) when making my pizza.

Anyway, here's a link to a pizza recipe on her site. It includes a whole pizza, soup to nuts. But you can make the dough and put whatever you want on top. I made the dough a little differently though - first, I substituted half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I figured I'd try to make the pizza as healthy as possible (right before I smothered it in cheese). Also, I probably ended up baking the pizzas for closer to 15 to 18 minutes. This is possibly because of the wheat flour change - I don't know, I'm not a scientist.

Finally, we get to the recipe (and really, can you even call it a recipe??).

Ingredients

Pizza dough by the Pioneer Woman

Sauce
2 tsp. olive oil
1 can of whole roma tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 tablespoon of honey
a chiffonade of 4 or 5 basil leaves

Toppings
1 can of artichoke hearts (not the marinated kind, although I'm sure that would be delicious), drained and sliced
20 or so greek olives, pitted and diced
1 or 2 cooked chicken breasts, sliced into thin bite-sized pieces
About 3 cups (I know, I know) of good cheese - I used half mozzarella and half Peccorino Romano, shredded

Follow the PWs instructions for the pizza crust. And while it's rising, you can make the sauce and get your toppings together.

I find that I like pizza sauce that's really thick and super-concentrated. I want it to taste like I bit into a cooked tomato. Also, I don't like tomato seeds in my pizza sauce. So to get them out, simply take each whole tomato out of the can and squeeze it like a stress ball over a large bowl. I suggest poking a whole in it first and wearing an apron - they squirt when you squeeze.

Put each squeezed tomato into a pot in which you've already got the gently heated olive oil (medium heat should do). Then, pour the juice from the can and from the squeezed tomatoes through a sieve into your pot. Finally, use a potato masher to pulverize the tomatoes.

Add about 2 tablespoons of the tomato paste. You may need to add more, depending on how thick you like your sauce. Now just let it concentrate itself, but give it a few stirs here and there. It'll cook down quite a bit. When it's nice and thick, add the honey and the basil. You can season it with salt and pepper, if you want. But I didn't because there's quite a bit of salt in the rest of the ingredients. Now, the honey is important. With all that tomato in there, you've got a lot of acid. The honey really has a job to do here, beyond creating a sweet(ish) sauce. It cuts that acid quite a bit.

The rest is easy - get your pizza dough pressed into a cookie sheet or pizza pan. Get your oven super-hot. Spread about a half-cup to three-quarters of a cup of the sauce on the dough. Sprinkle the cheese on liberally. Sprinkle the rest of your toppings on, liberally. Bake. Enjoy.

PW's recipe makes enough dough for two pizzas. Make yourself an old standby - pepperoni or plain cheese is always a crowd-pleaser.

It's good to be back.

One more thing, please do vote for my brother's essay on Anthony Bourdain's website (see Tuesday's post). Thanks so much!

Guest Post - Sausage Sandwich

During the few months’ hiatus where she travelled the world in search of bigger and better recipes to share with you it seems Catherine-Anne was pinned under a large rock whilst sampling roast grubs in the Himalayas. It has fallen to me, her loyal and not-at-all-money-grubbing brother to keep PFE alive until she gets back from the shaman’s hut with her newly grown arm.

Today’s recipe is classic summer man-food. Sausage and onion sandwiches with provolone cheese (roast beef optional but recommended).

Ingredients

2 Italian Pork Sausages per sandwich
1 crusty but soft Italian or French roll for each sandwich, sliced lengthwise but leave a hinge on one side
1 - 2 large sweet onions (a brown one will do if you can't find sweet), sliced
2 slices provolone per sandwich
Beer, a Bud Bomber to cook with and a 6-pack of something with flavor for drinking
1lb of thin sliced roast beef
1 Tbsp Olive or Peanut Oil
1 Pat (tbsp) of butter

Open the Bomber and pour it into a standard size medium pot.

Open a good beer and pour it into a standard size human mouth.

Bring the beer to a boil and place the sausages in there, add water to cover or more beer if you have another Bomber handy. Cook for 10 minutes, set aside when done.

Drink more beer.

In a pan heat the oil and the butter until it sizzles, throw in the onion and toss it in the fat mixture. Cook on medium low heat, stirring often, until the onions start to soften and brown.

Drink more beer.

Pour a bit of beer into the pan to appease the kitchen gods.

Cut the now boiled sausages in half lengthwise, move the onions to the outer edge of the pan or take them out completely and place the sausage halves flat side down in the pan. Cook over high heat for a minute or so to get them a bit textured on the outside.

Drink.

Lay the sausages on the bread. I find that three halves lay best but...who wants to eat an odd number of sausage pieces? Put the fourth one on.

Place the cooked onions on top of the sausage.

Take a drink.

Top the onions with cheese.

Close the sandwich and wait 45 seconds to let the heat do its thing to the cheese.

Devour with more beer.

Here’s the optional part with the roast beef:
Heat up the roast beef with the sausages in the pan, place the beef on top of the cheese slices. Consume as above.

You’re welcome. Enjoy your summer. I’ll be back with more soon. In the meantime, vote for my essay on Anthony Bourdain's website where I answer the question, "what does it mean to cook food well?"