Hello People

Well, I moved to Seattle for a while and thought with my beautiful new kitchen I'd be blogging like a maniac. Obviously that did not happen-- the FMs here are highway robbery ($7.99 per pound for 'baby' zucchini? I don't think so) and there's just a general dearth of produce. Except for apples. It's like salt on a slug for a native Californian. I will be back in LA (forever!!!) in about a week so expect some serious spring-funtime-bloggin' to resume over here. Oh and I've been making jewelry. So now this will be a blog about both of my hobbies.

So anyway, hey, I'm back, and I still cook and I will blog more about it.

Best Fall Roast Chicken EVER

I didn't take pics tonight but I have to share this recipe anyway-- it was SO GOOD and such a perfect fall recipe.

Roast Chicken Fall Style

1 whole chicken
1 bunch fresh thyme
3 parsnips
3 sweet potatoes
3 apples (I used Fuji and Winesap)

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut the fruit and veggies into chunks. Chop a couple of the thyme sprigs (if the stems are woody remove them). Toss fruit and veggies in olive oil, chopped thyme, salt, and pepper. Do this right in your roasting pan or Dutch oven.

Rub the chicken with salt, pepper, olive oil, and a little soft butter. Put it on top of the fruit and veggies. Stuff the rest of the thyme in the cavity of the chicken.

I was lazy tonight so I roasted the chicken breast up for the first half of the cooking time and breast down for the second half instead of doing my typical three turns. It turned out wonderfully, so this might be my new method. Cooking time will depend on how big your chicken is and how cold it is when it goes into the oven. I roasted mine for about an hour and 45 and it was cooked but still really juicy. The apples were incredible with the chicken!

Mini Cheese and Bacon Souffles

Last night I made these little cheese souffles; I had been at an organic gardening workshop all afternoon (more on that later) so by the time I got home I was pretty hungry and I had two hungry boys to feed too. Maybe souffle sounds intimidating, and I'll be honest, I wouldn't attempt it if I didn't have my trusty KitchenAid mixer to whip the egg whites for me, but if you have some kind of tool to do the hard part they're actually really easy. They're also a great "pantry recipe" and a fun way to turn everyday ingredients into something fancy. I adapted these from an Alice Waters recipe.

Mini Cheese and Bacon Souffles

2 slices of bacon
3 TB butter
3 TB flour
1 cup milk
4 eggs, separated
about 4 ounces cheese
salt and pepper


Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut the bacon into little pieces with kitchen shears and cook it in a saucepan until the fat renders. Remove the pieces of bacon with tongs and set aside. In the bacon fat, melt your butter. Cook the flour in the fat and butter mixture for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Pour in the milk a little at a time, whisking well after each addition, until you've added all the milk. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Don't forget to stir or a skin will form on top.

When the bechamel has finished cooking, remove it from the heat and let it cool for a bit. Stir in the egg yolks and cheese. You can use whatever you like; last night I used Basque Shepherd's cheese from Trader Joe's and it was great. I've also made this with ground Romano and with goat cheese. Whatever floats your boat! Stir in the reserved bacon pieces. Season with salt and pepper; you want the sauce to be just a touch too salty because you'll be folding in the egg whites.

Whip the egg whites in your mixer or by hand if you're awesome. You want them to increase in volume by quite a bit. When they're ready they'll look shiny and have tiny, uniformly sized bubbles. If you still see some big bubbles they aren't whipped enough. When you take out your beater there should be stiff peaks on the top of the eggs. Don't overwhip them either; they will break down if you whip them too much. Just keep your eyes open for tiny bubbles and a pretty, glossy look.

GENTLY fold about half of the egg whites into your cheese sauce. It took me a while to get the hang of this because my instinct is to really really mix everything. You DO NOT want to do this; it'll pop all the tiny bubbles in your egg whites that make the souffle puff. So, gently fold: scoop in some egg white, and with a wooden spoon just push a little sauce over it. Keep going until you've put about half the egg whites in, then fold the egg white/sauce mixture into the remaining egg whites. I do this right into the mixing bowl. The aim is for light and fluffy and airy.

You can cook whole thing in a souffle dish, or if you're pressed for time (as I often am in the evening) you can cook mini souffles in only 10 minutes. I used mini springform pans because I don't have ramekins for the oven, but ramekins would look nicer. If you're cooking the whole thing, pop it in the oven for about 40 minutes. When you pour the souffle mixture into your container of choice be very gentle.

When the souffles are done, they will be puffy and golden and just a tiny bit jiggly in the middle. My little souffles were so puffy last night and started deflating pretty soon after I took them out of the oven; if this happens to you, don't worry, they taste really good either way.

Cappellini with Zucchini and Sausage

This recipe is super easy. All the amounts can be adjusted according to your preferences.

2 or 3 zucchini
2 or 3 fresh chicken or pork Italian sausages
1/2 lb cappellini
Fresh Parmesan
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Cut the zucchini into bite-sized pieces. Toss with olive oil and salt and pepper on a baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until soft and slightly browned underneath.

Cut the sausage into pieces (I use kitchen shears for this) and fry it in a little olive oil in a large pan. Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. When the pasta is cooked and drained, toss it in the pan with the sausage. Stir in the cooked zucchini. Dress with a little more olive oil, grate some fresh parm over it, and season with salt and pepper. That's it! My husband loves this dinner and it's so easy-- great for the end of a long day.

Mushroom Ravioli

I've made this a few times now, and I love love love it. I hope you enjoy it too! It's a lot of work but it's worth it.

Filling:
About 1 lb mixed wild mushrooms, diced
About 1/2 lb fresh ricotta cheese
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
S&P



I used a combination of regular button mushrooms from the store and fresh wild morels and fresh shiitakes. It was delish! Cook the mushrooms in olive oil until they've sweated out their liquid. Set aside to cool. When they're cool, mix in the ricotta, chopped parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Now you're ready to assemble the ravioli.

Set up a work station for yourself; make sure you have plenty of room. You'll need a small pastry brush and a small bowl of warm water, your ravioli filling, your pasta sheets, something to cut the ravioli with, and a baking sheet dusted with semlolina to put the ravioli on when they're assembled.



Lay out one sheet of pasta. With a teaspoon, put some filling on the sheet. If you're using a long sheet, you might want to put little mounds of filling at intervals. Now brush a little water around the filling, especially at the edges of the pasta sheet. Lay another sheet of pasta on top, pressing to seal. As you seal, make sure you push the air out. Cut the ravioli out with a little rolling crinkle cutter, or with a knife. I've even used a cookie cutter for this. Press the edges to make sure they're sealed and put your finished ravs on the cookie sheet. Repeat until you've used all your pasta or all your filling (preferably both). You'll have a lot of leftover scraps of pasta. Don't throw these away! They're great to throw in soups; they'll keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.








These ravioli need to be cooked very soon after they're assembled or the pasta will get wet and gummy. This isn't something you can make ahead of time, I'm afraid. Boil a big pot of salted water and cook the ravioli in batches. When it floats to the top let it cook about 2 minutes more, then skim out with a spider or slotted spoon. When you're ready to serve, dress with a little olive oil, fresh Parm, and freshly ground pepper. I like to serve this ravioli with cooked greens, partly because I am too lazy to make anything more elaborate once I'm finished with the ravioli.

Basic pasta recipe

I wrote my first draft of the mushroom ravioli post a month ago and I just haven't been able to finish it because it's so insanely long. So instead of forcing myself to write a three-page entry about mushroom ravioli that will leave you too exhausted to attempt the recipe, I will break it into parts...and here is part one: the basic pasta recipe.

A confession: you can find a fresh pasta recipe anywhere, but most of the ones I've found are a little too basic. Forgive me if I'm going over familiar territory here. Another confession: making pasta that tastes good requires special equipment, unless you have limitless time and patience for rolling out pasta dough by hand. My husband thought I was crazy to buy the Imperia pasta machine, but I use it like once a week and I think it's just great. The one time I attempted to roll out pasta by hand it took forever and didn't turn out. The other piece of equipment I rely on for this is my KitchenAid mixer; I'm sure you could more easily forgo the mixer than the pasta roller.

4 large eggs
4 cups flour
Olive oil
Salt

4 cups of flour and 4 eggs will make A LOT of pasta: desirable for making ravioli or canneloni, too much if you're just cutting it up into noodles. All that matters is your ratio of one cup flour to one large egg.

Put the flour and eggs in the bowl of your mixer. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a generous pinch of salt. Mix with the paddle attachment over low speed (1 or 2) until a yellowish dough starts to form. If you're not using a mixer, just use your hands. The dough should be clumpy.

Cover the bowl and let the dough stand for about 15 minutes. This gives gluten time to form, which will give your pasta a nice smoothness. Knead the dough so it's one big nice ball. Divide it into golf-ball-sized balls to put through your pasta machine.

Before you start rolling out your pasta, here are some problems you might encounter and how to fix them. If the pasta is sticking to the machine or your hands, it's too wet so you should sprinkle a little semolina flour on and knead it a bit more. If it's dry and cracking, add a bit of olive oil and knead.

Generously dust a baking sheet with semolina flour. Now for the rolling (I'm assuming you're using the Imperia, if not, please consult the manual for your pasta machine). Put the machine on the widest setting and crank a ball of pasta through it. Fold the now-flattened piece into thirds and run it through again. You'll need to do this about ten times. Then start thinning it out by rolling it through each setting until you get to the thinnest one. Once I've rolled the pasta through the thinnest setting, I like to cut it in half with kitchen shears. Put your pasta on the baking sheet and repeat with the remaining balls of pasta. Make sure that each sheet of pasta has plenty of semolina on both sides before you put another layer of pasta on top of it-- you don't want them to stick!

Now you have fresh pasta. There are lots of variations-- you can add pureed spinach (you'll have to adjust the flour) for spinach pasta, or mix in herbs or spices. I made a saffron pasta once that I really enjoyed. Do whatever you want!

Semolina Blueberry Cookies

Somehow time escaped me and I went almost all the way through May only having posted once! Sorry guys, I'll be better from now on. I've been working on an epic post about mushroom ravioli but for now I'll tide us over with a cookie recipe. This recipe was adapted from one I found in Sunset (May 2009) but does not seem to exist online.

About 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1 1/2 c flour
3/4 c semolina
1/2 tsp salt
1 c unsalted butter, softened
1/2 c powdered sugar
1 large egg
About 2 tbs cornmeal

Combine flour, semolina, and salt. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar together until smooth. Add egg and mix until combined. Add salt and flours and mix slowly until everything is incorporated. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and shape into a disk, then wrap it in plastic and chill it for at least two hours (and up to two days).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap the dough and roll it out on a pastry mat or a floured work surface; the dough should be about 1/3 of an inch thick. Sprinkle two baking sheets with cornmeal. Cut the dough with a two-inch cookie cutter and space the cookies slightly apart on the baking sheets. Reroll the scraps as needed (the dough may also need to be chilled again if it's getting sticky).

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they're a light golden brown. If you put both cookie sheets in at once, you'll have to swap their positions halfway through cooking. I prefer to do them one sheet at a time; you'll get more even cooking without fussing around with hot cookie sheets. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.

You might notice that semolina pops up with some regularity as an ingredient in my kitchen; I got started with it when I bought a 3-pound bag of semolina flour at the Armenian market for $1.50 a couple of years ago. Since then I go and replenish every few months. The spices at that market are super cheap too; I love it. I don't know what semolina prices are like at grocery stores. If you can even find it, it's probably expensive, so I'd recommend looking for it at small ethnic markets or in bulk bins.