Overlooked Recipes

I put a stop to my website as of last September. I had been steadily working to add in to this blog all the recipes that had previously only been posted on the website, but inevitably, some get overlooked. I want to post three I discovered I had missed.

I have been horribly lax with working on my blog, or putting out a newsletter, or even cooking much of anything new. Why? I got into a project and it has occupied all my attention and interest for months, now. I periodically like to put together "books" with comb bindings for myself or for family. Often these are cookbooks of collected recipes for a family member, as well as being a quick reference for me. Sometimes I have dedicated myself to identifying flowers (as after a trip to California, with a slew of flowers I'd never seen before, living in the east) and making a small booklet, so I have them as a reference. I have done this with birds, using my own photos as well as photos my sisters had taken. We love birds. That book was immense, and it is in a large binder. Another was butterflies. Most often it has been recipes just because I love to cook.

Cactus Flower

The one that has occupied my time these past three months or so has been any and all plant photos taken in Arizona. I had visited AZ a fair bit in past, as one of my sisters lives here, but really never thought to live here myself. But, here I am, and now I am seeing cactus plants and wondering what kind they are, or other plants in general. While some seemed very straightforward, having been labeled, others not so much. And I have spent countless hours researching online. The last in a long line of plant types are succulents, and soon I will be wrapping up this project. I still have orphan plants I cannot identify, no matter how long I search. Alas. 

So back to these missed recipes. I just found that I had omitted them yesterday, and was horrified, because they are some favorites. So, without further ado:

Turkey or Chicken Tetrazzini

Serves 6

Turkey Tetrazzini

6 ounces spaghetti
¼cup butter
½ cup flour
2¾ cups chicken broth
1 cup light cream or evaporated milk
¼ cup dry sherry
1 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
1 can sliced mushrooms, drained (6 oz. can)
½ cup green pepper, chopped
1 small jar chopped pimiento, drained
2 cups diced cooked turkey, or chicken
½ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded

Cook spaghetti in boiling salted water till just barely tender; drain. In a large skillet melt butter; blend in flour. Stir in broth, whisking so no lumps form. Add cream. Cook and stir till mixture thickens and bubbles. Add the wine, salt, pepper, spaghetti, mushrooms, green pepper, pimiento and cooked turkey. Turn into a 12 x 7½ x 2" baking dish. Sprinkle top with Parmesan. Bake @ 350 for about 30 minutes.

NOTES: I have on occasion tripled this recipe for a party. Divide the mixture into two 9 x 13 inch pans, and add on about 10 minutes of cooking time, or until it is bubbling all through.

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Smoky Pork BBQ Ribs

1 (3½ pound) rack pork loin ribs

Smoky Pork BBQ Ribs

6 - 8 tablespoons Sweet Smoky Cocoa Rub
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
3 cups mesquite wood for smoking
½ cup Sweet Tangy BBQ Sauce

Early in the day, soak the wood chips in water to cover, for at least 2 hours or more. Pat the Sweet Smoky Cocoa Rub onto both sides of the slab of pork ribs, plus 1 teaspoon of the salt per side, and allow to stand at room temperature, while the wood chips are soaking; 2 hours.

Once the wood chips have soaked long enough, cut two sheets of foil. Place half the wood chips onto each piece of foil and make a packet enclosing the wood and poke holes into the top.

At least 5 hours before you want the ribs done, start the grill, heating only one side. Once grill is ready, place the slab of ribs onto the hottest side and allow to sear well, about 10 minutes. Flip over and sear the other side for about 10 minutes. Move the ribs to the unheated side of the grill. Set one of the wood chip packets onto the hot side of the grill. Close the lid and monitor the temperature, keeping it relatively low; below 300 degrees if possible for at least 2 hours. Midway between, if the first wood chip packet has stopped smoking, place the second packet onto the hot side of the grill, to keep up the smoking. 

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Once the ribs have spent at least 2 hours on the grill, prepare a sheet of foil large enough to completely enclose the slab of ribs and set it into a large baking sheet with sides. Remove the ribs from the grill and set onto the large foil sheet. Cover the top with ½ cup of Sweet Tangy BBQ Sauce and then fold the foil around the ribs, completely enclosing them. Place the baking sheet into the oven and allow to bake slowly for another 2 to 2½ hours, until completely tender.

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Tzatziki Sauce

Makes about 1½ cups sauce

Tzatziki Sauce

1 cup plain Greek yogurt or 1½ cups other plain yogurt
½ cucumber, peeled, seeds removed, diced small (optional)
2 tablespoons good quality olive oil

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh dill, minced finely
1 - 2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

If using a good quality Greek yogurt such as Fage brand, you may not have to drain the yogurt. If using other brands or the larger amount of just plain yogurt, set the yogurt into a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl. Place in the refrigerator and allow to drain for at least 1 hour or more.

If raw garlic upsets the stomach, set the minced garlic into a small bowl and just barely cover with vinegar. Allow to stand for at least 10 minutes, then drain. This removes the raw taste. Add to the recipe and continue.

Discard the yogurt liquid. Place the drained yogurt into a bowl. Add the olive oil. vinegar, garlic, dill and salt and stir to combine. Taste for seasoning. If using cucumber, stir in. 

Note: Cucumber, while true to the recipe, will add liquid if it sets for too long, making the mixture runny. If using cucumber, it may be best to stir in just before serving. Use this tzatziki when serving Falafel or Butternut Squash Falafel. 

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

A Savory Supper Dish

After my last blogs about desserts, I thought it was time to give attention to something savory. Last evening I created a "Stroganoff" of a sort, using turkey breast cutlets. While considering what I would do to create this recipe, I thought about serving it with fettuccine, and then thought about making my own pasta. 

I do not expect that many people will be making their own noodles or fettuccine for dinner, so please feel free to cook some boxed pasta to serve with the "Stroganoff." But just on the off-chance that you are interested in making your own pasta, I will give you the recipe for what I did. I have been measuring things in grams more and more often. I have a scale, and grams are nicely small, so with tiny amounts of things, grams come in handy. If you do not have a scale, so sorry, because I never gave thought to how much the measurements would have been in either ounces or by volume measure.

Turkey Stroganoff over Kamut Mushroom Fettuccine

Just to make all this even more complex, I wanted to give my bag of "00" Pasta flour a go, so I used some of that. Also, I have recently made pasta twice in my pasta making machine and used freshly ground Kamut® Khorasan grain (ground using my electric grain mill). I had read that Kamut® Khorasan is a more "relaxed" grain, and tends not to try and pull back quite so much when rolling it out. This is very handy when making pasta. As it happens, Kamut® Khorasan grain is a pale golden color, so the pasta is a pretty light gold, instead of brown, like with whole wheat. It also produced beautiful spaghetti, which held together nicely and did not become brittle. It was beautiful pasta! So I truly had no other reason to use the "00" flour, aside from that I had it and had not yet tried it out.

Then, to add to the whole thing, since I was making Stroganoff, with lots of mushrooms, I thought I would make the pasta mushroom flavored. I have a quantity of dried Shiitake mushrooms, so I took a couple of hands full and smashed them into smaller bits, then removed stems, since the stems are so hard. Then I put the pieces of dried mushroom into my coffee/spice grinder (used only to grind spices) and ground them fine. I passed the powder through a fine sieve, and then weighed out the 14 grams I had decided on. None of this is strictly necessary. The pasta can be made without the mushroom powder. Simply add 14 grams more of either the "00" pasta flour, or 14 grams more of the Kamut® Khorasan flour. As it turned out, the mushroom powder made the pasta as dark as it would have been with whole wheat flour. Oh well.

Kamut Mushroom Fettuccine

Kamut Mushroom Fettuccine

Makes just over a pound

180 grams Kamut® Khorasan flour
170 grams "00" pasta flour, or all-purpose flour
14 grams dried mushroom powder
3 large eggs
3 to 4 tablespoons water

Place the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Whisk the eggs slightly and pour them into the well and add in 3 of the tablespoons of water. Using your hands, begin stirring in the middle, slowly incorporating more and more of the dry mixture. The goal is for all the dry mixture to be moistened, so the dough comes together. If it does not, drizzle in a little of the remaining tablespoon of water at a time until it does come together. Turn the dough out onto a surface and begin kneading. The dough should be quite stiff. Knead for at least 5 minutes. At this point, you can either roll the dough out by hand, making it quite thin, then rolling the flour-dusted dough into a cigar and slicing across in ¼-inch increments, to make fettuccine, or, if you happen to have a Kitchen Aid mixer, with a pasta roller and linguine and fettuccine cutters, you can roll out the dough using the pasta roller, then cutting with the fettuccine cutter. If not ready to cook right away, toss with a little flour so the individual strands do not stick together. Cook in a good quantity of salted water until al dente.

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Back to the Entree! 

As I mentioned above, I have a quantity of dried Shiitake mushrooms. When we lived in the greater Chicago area, back in the late '90s, we visited Chinatown there. Someone was selling huge bags of these dried shiitake mushrooms, for a very inexpensive price. We bought a bag, and After all these years, I still have a gallon sized container left. My husband and I both love mushrooms, and these dried ones, once soaked, are a very "meaty" type of addition to a dish. Far more so than freshly cooked mushrooms. Since I had not yet gone grocery shopping for the week, I did not have any fresh mushrooms, so I just grabbed a couple of large hands full of these dried shiitakes and poured boiling water over them. After the time it took me to make the fettuccine, I got back to the mushrooms, which were ready to use. I removed stems and sliced each one, then weighed them, out of curiosity. They were almost exactly 8 ounces. 

Had I bought a pound of cremini mushrooms, sliced and cooked them, I doubt that the cooked mushrooms would have been even 8 ounces, since they let out an amazing amount of liquid when cooking. In that case I might have added in more, but you can decide how much you love mushrooms when you make this dish. I would start with a pound.

I have a lot of dry thyme, still in the pot it grew in during last summer. The tiny, dried leaves are perfectly useful, so I snipped a few sprigs and stripped the leaves to use in this dish. However fresh thyme would be perfect, in which case double the amount. Or if using dried thyme leaves in little spice jars, use as much as you prefer. My amount of thyme leaves were quite fluffy, not having been broken up at all, so start with a half teaspoon, if that is the case.

The use of Sherry or dry white wine is something I love to do when cooking mushrooms. Adding in the wine and letting it cook out completely just adds a dimension of flavor that I love. It is not absolutely necessary. The same goes with the Chicken marinade by Lea & Perrins. Regular Worcestershire would be just perfect as well, and most people have that in their array of pantry items.

Turkey Stroganoff

Serves 4 - 6

Turkey Stroganoff

1 pound mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil, more, if needed
1 tablespoon butter, more if needed
1 pound turkey breast cutlets, sliced into ½-inch wide strips
1½ teaspoons salt, divided
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 - 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
½ cup dry Sherry or other dry white wine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
a few grinds of black pepper
2 teaspoons paprika, preferably Hungarian
2 teaspoons of Lea & Perrins "Rooster Booster" or Chicken Marinade (or just use regular Worcestershire sauce)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
¾ to 1 cup of sour cream

Melt the butter and olive oil in a large skillet and sauté the mushrooms with ½ teaspoon of the salt until all the liquids have cooked out and evaporated and the mushrooms are browned. This takes a while; be patient. Turn the mushrooms out into a bowl and set aside.

In the same skillet, adding more oil and butter if necessary, fry the turkey and another ½ teaspoon salt until the turkey begins to brown in spots. Turn the turkey out into the bowl with the mushrooms.

In the same skillet, add more oil and butter if needed and turn the heat to low. Add in the onions and the last ½ teaspoon of salt and cook slowly, stirring often, until lightly golden. Add in the garlic and continue to sauté until the onions are golden. Add in 2 teaspoons dried thyme leaves and the Sherry and raise the heat to cook out the Sherry until almost dry. Sprinkle on the flour, pepper & paprika and stir until no white flour shows. Lower heat and add in 2 cups of water (or unsalted stock) and allow the mixture to come to a boil, stirring often. Add in the chicken marinade (or Worcestershire) and Dijon and cook until the mixture has boiled for at least 10 minutes to cook out the flour. Check for seasoning and correct, if needed. Return the mushrooms and turkey to the skillet and stir in, reheating. Off the heat, stir in the sour cream to combine.

Serve over rice or noodles.



My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Additions to Fettuccine Alfredo

Afternoon Snacks with Julia

My (ex) daughter-in-law, Julia (now just considered daughter), came to visit last weekend. We bond over food, among other things and enjoy discussing what we might do next. When she was planning to come, I asked her what foods she would like me to make, and one of them was a Fettuccine Alfredo dish. 

The main reason was that since my husband got me a pasta maker, she figured it would be de rigueur to use it at least once. So once she made that part of the decision, it went on to additions to the dish. She suggested chicken and asparagus, mushrooms and Italian sausage. Lots of stuff to add in, but I will say it was absolutely delicious. Normally I am really not a sausage person. Especially not fresh sausage. I do eat smoked sausage on occasion but almost never fresh, unless I add it to spaghetti sauce. So it was an experiment for me.
 

Fettuccine Alfredo with Grilled Chicken, Sausage & Asparagus

I opted to grill the chicken, sausage and asparagus, as grilling just makes things taste so much better. To make the Alfredo sauce, I started out by steeping a lot of garlic in butter for a couple of hours over a low warming burner. I added some sage leaves for flavor. Before starting the sauce, I took out the spent sage leaves and added a couple tablespoons of Fino Sherry and cooked it out. Unfortunately, at this juncture, I was also starting to make the pasta, showing Julia the use of the pasta machine. Distracted, as we tend to get when discussing almost anything, I completely forgot about the garlic butter and Sherry on the stove and suddenly I smelled something burning. The pot was blackened, so I had to stop, scrub out the pot, and start over from scratch with garlic and butter (no "steeping" this time round), add the Sherry and go from there. Oh well; it happens to the best of us. It still came out great.
 

Fettuccine Alfredo with Grilled Chicken, Sausage & Asparagus

I had grilled the chicken (2 very tiny breasts) whole, then sliced it in long strips. I grilled 2 Italian sausage links (probably about 6 to 7 ounces total) whole, then sliced them on the bias. I grilled the asparagus whole, then cut into lengths. Julia sauteed the mushrooms while I was cutting the meats. All in all, with the amount of meats in there, I feel that this should feed about 6. We sort of pigged out a bit between the three of us at the meal and after giving her some to take home, we had only one portion left. It was just delicious, and I loved the sausage in there so much that a few days later I decided to make it again, only this time with only the remaining 3 Italian sausage links (no chicken), mushrooms and some sugar snap peas, just because I had them in the fridge. 

Fettuccine Alfredo with Grilled Sausage,
Mushrooms & Sugar Snap Peas

The first time we made it, I chose to add the sauteed mushrooms to the Fettuccine Alfredo, pour that into a large bowl and top it with the grilled meats and asparagus, as shown in the photo above. It made a pretty presentation, though you couldn't really see the pasta underneath all the toppings. The second time, I just combined the mushrooms, sausage and sugar snap peas with the pasta and served it that way, seen at left. Either way was great. The type of meats is totally optional. The kind of vegetable is optional. This was just Julia's particular craving, which I was more than happy to create.

I will admit though, that it is a but of a production to make all this and combine it. Lots of "moving parts," so to speak. The garlic and butter to steep ahead of time. The pasta can perfectly easily be cooked store bought pasta of your choosing. The meat or meats can be baked, fried or grilled at your leisure, and the vegetable, whether asparagus, sugar snap peas or other, can be grilled, steamed, microwaved or whatever. The mushrooms can be from a can, if preferred, or left out if mushrooms are not to your taste. But there are still lots of items to be prepared. And then, of course, the Alfredo sauce. Assembly is simple, once all the ingredients are readied. Another option is to grill (or bake or fry) the meats ahead of time and just reheat before adding to the pasta. As for the vegetables, they are much nicer at that "crisp-tender" stage than leftover and reheated to an unappetizing color, so I suggest that those, at least, are cooked just before adding them in.

Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken, Sausage & Asparagus

Serves at least 6
 

Fettuccine Alfredo with Sausage & Snow Peas

8 ounces fettuccine noodles

ALFREDO SAUCE:
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 to 6 cloves garlic, minced
10 fresh sage leaves, whole
2 tablespoons Fino (dry) Sherry or dry white wine
¾ cup milk
¾ cup heavy cream
5 - 6 ounces cream cheese
¾ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
¾ cup grated Pecorino-Romano cheese

MEATS:
4 - 6 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried oregano leaves
½ teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon paprika

6 ounces mild Italian sausages

VEGETABLES:
8-ounces fresh mushrooms (Baby Bella), sliced
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons Fino (dry) Sherry
1 bunch asparagus, seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder and a drizzle of olive oil
(or substitute 8 ounces sugar snap peas) 

Start the Alfredo Sauce, time permitting, at least ½-hour and up to 3 hours ahead by setting the butter in a medium-large saucepan with the sage leaves and garlic and allowing it to steep in just barely warm butter. If time does not permit, simply saute the garlic with the sage leaves very gently until softened and the harsh, raw flavor is cooked out. Remove the sage leaves before continuing with the sauce. 

If using chicken, dry the meat and sprinkle with a combination of the salt, oregano, onion powder and paprika. Grill (or fry or saute) the chicken until done and set aside. Grill the Italian sausage until done, at least 14 to 16 minutes, until completely cooked through and set aside. When ready to use, slice the chicken into long narrow strips and slice the sausage on the bias.

Grill the asparagus until it just barely starts to bend in the center. Once done, slice them into lengths as desired. If substituting sugar snap peas, slice them in half, diagonally and steam for 7 to 8 minutes.

Saute the mushrooms in the 2 tablespoons of butter. Sprinkle them with salt and saute until browned. Once browned add in the second 2 tablespoons of Sherry and cook until completely evaporated. 

Set a large pot of water to boil. Just as it boils, add in about 2 tablespoons of salt and then add the fettuccine. Cook as per package directions. Once cooked al dente, drain the noodles, reserving about ½ cup of the cooking water. Rinse the noodles briefly, drain and return them to the dry pot.

To finish the Alfredo sauce, add in the Sherry and cook over medium heat until the Sherry is evaporated. Add in the milk and cream and bring to just under boiling. Add in the cream cheese, in chunks, and stir until very soft (it may not completely melt). Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino-Romano cheeses and cook until they melt. Add the mushrooms to the sauce. Pour the sauce over the noodles in the pan and toss with pasta tongs to combine. Pour out into a large bowl and top with the meat(s) and vegetable. Alternately, just add all the meats and vegetable to the pot and stir, then turn it all out into a large bowl to serve. 

If the sauce looks too dry, add in some or all of the pasta cooking water to thin down. 


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Ravioli Worth the Making

I love ravioli, always have. I favor cheese fillings over meat fillings, preferring to have meat in the sauce to go with it. My husband on the other hand, has never once, ever, ordered ravioli if at an Italian style venue, but always has gone with spaghetti with meat sauce and meatballs or sausage, if available. 

My earlier free-form ravioli experiment

With that in mind, while I have a couple of times in all my years made ravioli, I had never gotten a rave from him. Since I know that is not his "thing", that's okay, but at least I attempted them. Once I made them - earlier this year in fact - and used some of the leftover cheese pieces (of Romano and Chevre mashed together) I had used in the center of one of the flank steak rolls (appetizers for a Winefest here). There ended up more of the cheese filling than flank pieces, and I just got the idea to mash them up with some of my homemade pesto and fill ravioli. They were really good, but to try and explain what I did would have been near-impossible, so I didn't even try. Still, since my husband seemed to like those ravioli well enough, I had kept this in back of mind to try again at a future date.  

Making the pasta for the ravioli was another thing I  hadn't done too much of, despite having the pasta rolling attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer. I did make the past for the earlier ravioli. I was absolutely 100% sure that the recipe I used was in the booklet for my new Breville Sous Chef food processor. I went to the booklet to recreate the pasta. And . . . it wasn't there! I looked through the recipes at least 5 times. I was THAT sure it had been there! Oh well.

My new Ravioliera

Also, in the last couple of weeks I was on the Williams Sonoma website for hours and hours, just feasting my eyes. I went there specifically for a tablecloth, which I bought, but the only other thing I ordered after those hours on end was a ravioli mold. This is not a machine, or even a plate to fit into a machine, but just a mold with 12 little wells. The raised edges are meant to cut the ravioli, once filled and topped with pasta. It seemed, at the time, to be a good idea. Lots of people complained about not having a tool to press the dough into the wells. Others complained about the ravioli sticking in the wells and not coming out easily. Despite this, I ordered it and it came about a week ago. The tablecloth is stunning, and I am so very happy with it. The little ravioli former was beckoning.

Just formed Cheese & Pesto Ravioli

When I made ravioli in the past, it was free-form, seen in the photo above. I am no Mario Batali to just whip them out easily and readily. When I saw this little "ravioliera", I didn't know how large or small the ravioli would be, and there was nothing in the description (nor on the box once I received it) to say what size ravioli it would turn out. I used it the other day, with great success (after an initial learning curve), and it makes 2-inch ravioli. 

Keeping in mind all the negative comments on this little device, I was determined to make it work. I used a pasta recipe from the latest Food and Wine magazine, though I totally forgot to add the water! I tried, belatedly, to work in some water, accomplishing maybe 2 tablespoons worth. The pasta was nicely dry, which usually doesn't happen for me, so I had less problem with things sticking than usual. I rolled the pasta through the pasta roller attachment and though the recipe stated how many times and how thin to roll it - possibly because I forgot the water in the recipe, but there was no way I could form ravioli into the little wells without the pasta tearing. It was just too thin. I went one roller setting less thin, and had no more problems. I did find that it was easier to make one very long piece of dough (ultimately both top and bottom of the ravioli), setting half of it way off to one side covered with a damp towel, while working with the other half set over the ravioli former. I held the dough up while gently pressing the indents into the wells with the thicker end of my marble pestle. One of my round measuring spoons would probably have worked as well. If this is confusing to read, it was not that difficult. Just a matter of some common sense. 

Exquisitely flavorful Cheese & Pesto Ravioli

One comment I had read stated that it was best (rather than heavily dusting the ravioli wells with flour as the instructions suggest) to instead heavily flour the bottom of the pasta dough before setting into the mold. This worked well for me. With a little bowl of water nearby, I moistened the perimeter of each filled well before flipping the long pasta tail from off to the one side back over the wells. After pressing very well all around the edge to seal each individual ravioli, I ran the little wood dowel over the top to cut them apart. I will say this was not exact. It appears either the raised ridges are not of even height, or the wood dowel is not totally smooth. However, it did most definitely leave a deep enough impression so it was easy to go and run my pastry cutter (with the same zig-zag edge) over the parts that were not separated. All in all, after the first piece of dough through, I had a system going and it went very well.

In the same Food and Wine magazine article that I used the pasta dough recipe from, was the recipe for the ravioli filling. I liked the thought of the cheese part, though the actual recipe was for much larger ravioli that would have an egg yolk dropped into the center of the cheese filling before sealing. With my little ravioli of a bare 2-inch diameter, there was no way to add an egg yolk into them. I used the Feta, Romano and Parmesan, then added some of my own Pesto to flavor it instead of adding other herbs and such. 

This was the absolute best ravioli! Even my husband raved about them. Granted, I did nothing special with the sauce part. I fried hamburger, added some onion and green pepper and a larger jar of Ragu and cooked it. But no matter how you look at it, these ravioli were most exceptionally good! If you prefer a simple marinara, Puttanesca or a raw tomato mixture, any of these would be great. I think these were good enough to serve alone with a drizzle of olive oil, but my husband would so not go for that!

Cheese & Pesto Ravioli

Cheese & Pesto Ravioli with Parmesan shavings

Makes 58 - 60 (2-inch) ravioli 

PASTA
2 large eggs
4 large egg yolks
2 - 4 tablespoons water
2 cups "00" or semolina flour (I used semolina)

FILLING
7 ounces preferably sheep and/or goat milk Feta 
7 ounces whole milk ricotta
1.5 ounces Romano cheese, finely grated
3 tablespoons (preferably homemade) basil pesto
a few grinds of black pepper
a few gratings of fresh nutmeg

Place the flour in a food processor. Separately, whisk together the eggs, yolks and water. Drizzle into the processor while pulsing, once all added, process until the mixture starts to come together. Turn out onto a surface and knead a few times to form a ball. Wrap well in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Wipe out the food processor bowl and add in the Feta, broken into chunks, along with the grated Romano. Pulse, then process to completely break down to crumbs. Add in the ricotta, pesto, pepper and nutmeg and process until well combined. Pour into a bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

To roll the pasta, a pasta roller of some kind is preferable, unless you have great experience at rolling pasta dough thinly. (I don't.) Cut the dough into quarters, working with one quarter at a time and keeping the remainder well covered. Roll the dough out slightly, into a long oval. Run it through the pasta roller on its widest setting at least 4 times. Turn the setting to the next smaller setting and run it through twice more. Turn the roller to the next smaller setting and run the dough through twice. The dough should be quite thin. If not, use the next narrower setting twice and possibly even one more narrower setting if needed. The dough should be thin, but not so easily torn.

You should now have a very long, narrow piece of dough. Drape half over a ravioli former, or if free-forming, cover half the dough with a towel while forming ravioli with the other half. In a mold, press the well-floured dough into the wells. Use a very small cookie scoop to make even sized little mounds of the filling. If free forming, simply keep the filling mounds evenly spaced for ease of cutting. Moisten the edges all around the filling with water. With the mold, flip the long tail of dough over the top, pressing well around each well to seal. If free-form, moisten the dough all around the filling, and then mold the long remaining tail over each mound of filling, pressing tightly all around each mound to seal. With the mold, run the dowel or rolling pin over the top to make the cuts. Turn out and separate any places that stick, using a pastry cutter. If free-form, simply cut between the mounds with a knife, use a biscuit cutter or use a pastry cutter. Whichever works best.

Once formed, make sure the ravioli are well dusted with flour so they do not stick. They will cook in boiling, well-salted water in about 3 to 4 minutes. Serve with your favorite sauce.

MAKE AHEAD:  The ravioli can be frozen. Make sure  the bottoms are well dusted with flour, then set the ravioli in a single layer on a baking sheet. Freeze until solid, then remove them to a zip-top bag and return to the freezer for up to 3 weeks. They can be cooked straight from the freezer, though the timing might require another minute or two to bring to temperature all the way through.



My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Another Bread and Another Noodle Side Dish

I have continued trying out new bread recipes from Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." Yesterday I made a plain white sourdough bread, though there is nothing "plain" about it. This recipe called for a starter made the day beforehand, using the barm starter already in the fridge and adding more flour and water to it. Again, this new starter did nothing the entire day long, though it was supposed to have doubled in 4 hours. I have no idea why some of my starters work just as planned and others do nothing at all. Regardless, no matter what, the starter was to be refrigerated overnight. 

Interestingly, I again chose to measure everything by weight, as I mentioned in yesterday's blog. The book stated that the amount for making the pre-starter was ⅔ cup of the barm, or 4 ounces. When I scooped out ⅔ cup of my barm, it weighed in at 8 ounces! That is a radical difference. Possibly, if the barm was much more active, i.e. lots more bubbles, it would have weighed less, due to all the trapped air. I don't know. My barm was active, with plenty of bubbles, so that left me wondering. Despite this, I used only ⅓ cup of the barm to make the starter, and went with the weight.

My Sourdough Bread

As the main recipe stands, this starter is the only "yeast" of any kind in the recipe. That said, it is perfectly acceptable to add a little yeast to the dough on the day of making the bread, and since my starter was a non-starter, I added the 1½ teaspoons of yeast to the dough yesterday morning. Making the bread without the addition of extra yeast would mean much longer rising times, and possibly another chill in the fridge overnight before getting around to baking. This extended rising and chilling would ensure a stronger "soured" flavor. This would be just fine with me, but I don't believe my husband would care for it as much. Plus, there were other things I wanted to get to yesterday and didn't want to babysit the dough all day long, plus today, for it to warm to room temp before baking. So, adding the yeast  makes for more normal rising times and a less soured flavor. With the yeast the dough rose just as it should, in the times allotted in the recipe. It baked just beautifully, too, and the crumb is tender and the crust is thick and chewy. 

Soba Noodle Package Label

As I also mentioned a couple of days back, I just had a tooth pulled, so I have to be a little careful of what I eat, so I don't hurt that tender spot. Eating this beautiful sourdough bread meant being very, very careful, but that sure didn't stop me. It was GOOD. But for dinner I decided on a pasta dish with mainly soft things in it so I could eat more normally. I had planned to make a pasta dish a couple of days ago, but didn't get to it, and when I did, I noticed I had a package of Japanese 100% buckwheat "soba" noodles in my pasta drawer. I have no idea when I might have bought them, but I figured since I was cooking only for myself I would make the soba. I like buckwheat a lot; my husband does not. If you do not care for soba noodles or if you cannot fine them, feel free to use any type of pasta desired.

When I went grocery shopping last I bought some tomatoes. I wanted to make a RAW tomato soup one of these days, but I also wanted to put some into the pasta dish. I also got a couple of types of cheese and some basil, to keep my options open. I had  some of the pickled red onions I made last week so I chopped some of them and used them in the pasta salad, though any onion you prefer would be fine. I don't care for completely raw onion, but scallions would have been my second choice. This noodle dish was a complete "throw things in till it tastes right" kind of dish. It is entirely up to you what you might want to use or not use. My original thought was to make a pasta dish I used to make long ago for the kids and myself. I would boil wide egg noodles, drain and add some ghee, Parmesan and lots of cracked black pepper, basil and a can of mushrooms. This was often "dinner", just because we all loved it so much. Last evening somehow things went sideways and I ended up with an entirely different sort of dish, though I did use ghee, basil, and mushrooms.

Soba Noodles with Feta and Basil (pickled red onions on top)

Pasta should always be cooked in water that is salted to the salinity of the sea, as Mario Batali always says. If your pasta water is salted well, the pasta will come out tasting great. If not, it will taste flat. This will determine whether you need to salt the finished dish or not. I always use at least a tablespoon of coarse sea salt in my pasta cooking water, and more if I have a big pot. It absorbs enough to be flavored properly. I added no salt to the finished dish. It was my dinner last evening and it was so good, as well as beautiful. This is what I did:

Soba Noodles with Feta and Basil

Soba Noodles with Feta and Basil

Serves 4 - 6 as a side dish

8 ounces soba noodles (buckwheat pasta)
1 tablespoon coarse salt for cooking water
2 teaspoons ghee (or olive oil)
1 ounce Romano cheese (or Parmesan), grated
½ jar mushrooms (about 2 ounces), drained
2 - 4 tablespoons fresh basil, chiffonade
1 medium tomato, cut in small cubes
2 ounces Feta cheese, crumbled
2 tablespoons pickled red onion, chopped (or substitute scallions or shallot)
fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Bring a 4 to 6 quart pot of water to boil. Once boiling, add the salt and the t]pasta and cook according to package directions, until al dente. Drain and rinse. Pour the noodles into a large bowl and add the ghee or oil and toss well, then add in all the rest of the ingredients. Toss to combine.



My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.