Walnut and Ricotta Pasta
Derek is dietarily distracted (and indifferent). This is an online guide for my children's father, so he can feed them well when I am at the office.
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May 26, 2012
May 21, 2012
Pasta: General Discussion
This is what I know so far about pasta:
1. Add a huge handful of salt to the boiling water.
2. It is not true, as an erstwhile friend of mine used to insist, that different shapes have different flavours (she also believed that everything needs soy sauce; a sentiment with which Lorelei would heartily agree). Different shapes are, however, amenable to different treatments.
3. Save a mugful of the pasta water before you drain it.
4. Whole wheat pasta is wretched. I’m sorry to all of the healthy people who reject refined carbohydrates (but not really). I say anyone who says whole wheat pasta can be just as good as high quality normal pasta just isn’t doing it right.
Actually, everything I currently know about pasta, I learned from this article. It changed my life. And as long as you are prepared to forgo the butter and the cheese (which I am currently not), pasta can be vegan and still very gratifying.
May 14, 2012
Weekly Dinner #4 - Alphabet Pasta, Broccoli and Toast
The list of ingredients for no name alphagetti is water, tomato puree, alphabet-shaped pasta, sugar, soybean oil, Romano cheese, salt, modified corn starch, onion powder, cheddar cheese, spices and citric acid. I am not overwhelmed by a sense of maternal accomplishment in the Nourishing Your Children category, but on the other hand, I’m sleeping fine tonight.
This is Weekly Dinner #4, an it’s not pushing any boundaries culinarily speaking or in terms of Lorelei’s palate. And that’s the point. Also, let’s be honest, dinner time is merely a symbolic ritual of parental obligation in our house lately since no one f#@*ing eats anything anyway. The dog will eat most of it in the end.
Almost no other commentary is required. Heat the pasta and serve with a hard sell to Lorelei about finding her ‘L’. Broccoli is obligatory to counter-act the sugar, salt and modified substances. The only acceptable substitute is spinach.
And let’s just say I am publishing this to lower expectations, so that my several forthcoming posts on pasta will really impress you.
(Source: Flickr / bugandzoe)
May 10, 2012
May 9, 2012
May 4, 2012
Chicken Soup
I am a person who has never thought chicken soup is anything to get excited about. This one is special. It’s the only chicken soup I need to eat ever again. This recipe came to me years ago from Bon Apetit via epicurious.com under the banner “Mom’s Hearty Chicken and Rice Soup.” Whatever. My mum never made soup like this.
It’s amazingly simply (and simply amazing!). The only bad thing I can say about it is that when pregnant, I find it so offensive and revolting that I can’t stand to have it in the house even in the freezer.
Note: You may no longer avail yourself of this soup meal after meal until it is gone as has been your habit in the past. Though I am happy to please you [said in a tone of wifely duty and affection], your pleasure is not actually my target, so keep your hands off it.
Ingredients
chicken ~ two skinless breasts with bones and two skinless whole legs.
carrots ~ three or four cut lengthwise but not sliced up yet.
celery ~ three or four strips cut into three or four inch lengths.
onion ~ one sliced.
garlic ~ at least two cloves chopped.
bay leaf ~ one. (I secretly think using bay is a form of witchcraft since I don’t particularly perceive its flavour, but that is perhaps my own failing).
brown rice ~ ¾ cup
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
First of all, I always double this recipe, but the amounts above are not doubled. I always intend to freeze some, but even when it was just the two of us, it always got eaten.
Another decision you must make is whether you are going to make rice in the rice maker concurrently with the soup, or if you are going to follow the original recipe and wait for some broth and cook it separately. The latter produces much firmer rice, but we accidentally did the latter last time, and I’m not sure it mattered.
Along with eight cups of water, put everything in the pot except the rice. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 40ish minutes.
Put the chicken and carrots on a plate and strain the rest of the stuff out with a slotted spoon and discard.
At this point, either make the rice in some of the broth (1 ½ cups broth to ¾ cup rice) or don’t.
Remove the chicken from the bones, slice up the carrots and return to the soup.
Serve with parmesan or pecorino if you wish.
(Source: Flickr / bugandzoe)
May 4, 2012
"I want Raisin Bran…No! I want Raisin Bran with sugar on it, like Daddo has."
— Lorelei
April 30, 2012
Minestrone Soup
One of the first times I ever met your sister was in the apartment that you shared with her very shortly after you and I met. I don’t know if we were even together then (if you know what I mean). You were sick, so I did for you what I have always done for myself when I have a cold: I made spinach salad with tons of fresh vegetables and a lot of raw garlic. I’m sure there was bacon too.
Your sister, who already knew about you what I know now – that you don’t eat things that grow in the ground or things that are green, especially if they are spinach – watched in amusement.
You ate the salad. You ate it without making a face. I had no idea how offensive it must have been to you. I now share your sister’s mirth because I now know that you were either trying to impress me or sleep with me, and that is the only reason why you ate that salad. And now that I think about it, you could not have just been trying to impress me. That would not have been enough to induce you to eat a huge bowl of spinach.
Over the years, and especially now that you are over forty, I have been worried about your health, and especially your colon. It struck me like lightning recently that I have always had all the information I ever needed to fill you with healthy vegetables; even those members of the cruciferi that you eschew so absolutely. You love soup! And you love minestrone soup, the chief ingredients of which are white beans, cauliflower, kale. And if you forgo the parmesan (which you won’t), it’s vegan.
The soup I made this weekend was from Umberto Menghi. I haven’t included the recipe because we’re not quite there yet. We can do better, but from now on, there will always be minestrone soup in the house for you to take to work and to feed Gray, until she smartens up about it. I will not be eating because I cannot stand zucchini and would certainly not have eaten it in order to have sex with you.
(Source: Flickr / bugandzoe)
April 29, 2012
This photo has nothing to do with food, but I think some things must transcend the subject of the conversation.
April 26, 2012
Weekly Dinner #3 – Nigella Lawson’s Cold Sesame Soba Noodles (with veg on the side)
This recipe is not exactly how Nigella outlines it, but it’s pretty close. It’s also not actually vegan because of the honey, but I’ve tagged it this way anyway. This might be egregious. Also because of the honey, Gray cannot have it. I can’t remember when she can have honey, but it’s still not for quite a while.
Anyway, I don’t mess around with green onions because Lorelei is rigidly anti-“bips” and lately refuses to eat anything heterogeneous. For some reason, she accepts sesame seeds. These photos depict the dinner that I devised for her yesterday. I find she is more able to focus and partake in food when it is served to her on tiny dishes. We call this “fairy dinner.” I don’t need to tell you that she needed all the help she could get, considering the content of the meal below (all of which is food she loved at one and two years old). In this case, I served the noodles with roasted beets and marble cheese and roasted sweet potato with a bit of sesame oil stirred in. Gray loves all that. Lorelei does not.
Ingredients
sesame oil ~ ¼ cup
honey ~ ¼ cup (I have discovered that if you measure the honey with the same measuring cup directly after the oil, the honey slides out and into the bowl easily rather than sticking)
rice vinegar ~ ¼ cup
Chinese soy sauce ~ ½ cup
soba noodles
Directions
To cook soba noodles, you follow the package (which will tell you to cook for five minutes in boiling water and then rinse with cold water). Do NOT salt the water.
Mix everything but the noodles and seeds in a bowl. Because there is no mustard or anything to really chemically emulsify this sauce, you need to really mix it together with a fork until it is smooth.
Add the cooked and properly drained noodles and coat. Put them in the fridge for at least a half an hour. The longer the better.
Toast the sesame seeds in a hot dry pan. This time I used half black and half light sesame seeds for aesthetic reasons. Note that it’s harder to tell when the black ones are about to burn. I judge it as being right after they start to jump like fleas in the pan. You really can’t walk away from them. It’s a very fine line: the closer you get them to burning without actually burning them, the better they taste; however, once you think they’re starting to burn, you’re pretty much fracked.
Nigella says to leave them undisturbed in a bowl for half an hour to allow the flavour to develop. Then mix them in with the noodles and continue to chill or serve.
(Source: Flickr / bugandzoe)
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As odd as this is, I kinda like it. It can be hard to visualise what 0-10cm looks like.
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Source?
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Woah
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roasted. 1302 kitchen. san francisco. ca.