Raccoon and Lobster

Making ravioli can be a bit of a pain, but if you already have something you can use for filling, it significantly reduces your workload.

Filling: Braised Pork Shoulder, pulled apart with a fork and roughly chopped. For extra flavor, include some of the gelled stock, which will offer a soup dumpling style burst of juicy goodness with every bite.

Wrapping: Basic Pasta Recipe (sans herbs this time)

Roll out the dough into sheets and scoop out spoonfuls of pork shoulder. You can dip your ravioli cutter into flour and lightly press onto the sheet before you do this to have a guide for how much filling you can use and how far to space them out. Dab lightly around the filling with water and cover with a second sheet of dough. Press firmly to seal and cut.

Freshly made pasta is so superior to the store-bought kind that I always feel bad that I don’t do it more often. I managed to pick up the KitchenAid pasta roller set on sale so now I definitely have no excuses.

In fact, take a look at my setup:

That is the power of parallel processing, folks.

Fresh Basil Pasta
serves 4-5

4 large eggs
400 grams flour (14.1 oz)
1 tablespoon olive oil
3-5 leaves of fresh basil, finely chopped
½ teaspoon salt

Combine ingredients and gently knead into a smooth dough. If the dough is too sticky or too dry, adjust with small amounts of flour and water. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 20 minutes. Cut the dough into quarters and run a piece through the rollers at the thickest setting a few times, folding in half lengthwise between each run, dusting lightly with flour to avoid sticking. Then run it through without folding, reducing the thickness setting between each run until you reach the desired noodle thickness. Cut the sheet to a manageable length and run it through the cutter and then hang the noodles up to dry as you finish processing all of your dough.

To serve this, I replicated a recipe from the Old Spaghetti Factory that The Boyfriend was exceptionally fond of back in the day. They claim that Homer—the Greek poet, not the Simpson—lived off of the dish. Always one to fiddle with the classics, I added in some heirloom tomatoes and steak strips to  jazz it up and also to help counteract the saltiness of aged mizithra cheese.

Fettuccine with Mizithra Cheese and Browned Butter
serves 2

3 cups cooked pasta, drained
3 tablespoons of butter
1½-2 cups of hard mizithra cheese, grated
2 large tomatoes, chopped
cooked steak strips or other protein source

Brown the butter in a saucepan and add the pasta. Toss the pasta to coat with butter and mix in most of the cheese. Remove from heat and top with tomatoes and steak strips and season with remaining cheese. Garnish with a little more chopped basil for flash.

I am sitting down to write this post having just consumed approximately double the recommended serving size for an North American moose. Perhaps I would have more of a lead-up to this recipe if I wasn’t desperately in need of a post-meal nap. The one thing I will point out is that instead of regular bread crumbs, if you happen to have a slightly stale roll of Rich Man’s Brioche, it makes things even better. And by better, I mean fatter.

Marcaroni and Cheese adapted from Saveur’s “favorite mac and cheese” recipe

serves 4 gluttons or 6 people with self control

1 lb tube shaped pasta
2 tbsp butter
1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp rosemary
sprinkle grated nutmeg
1/4 cup white wine
2 tbsp flour
3½ cups whole milk
2 tbsp dijon mustard
1 lb grated cheese – aged gruyere or sharp cheddar are particularly good choices
salt and pepper
2 tbsp coarse bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400°F. Boil a large pot of water and cook the pasta until not quite done, about 5-7 minutes. Drain.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and add the onions, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and nutmeg. Cook over medium heat until the onions are soft, 8-10 minutes. Add wine and cook for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute, so the flour taste is cooked out. Slowly whisk in the milk then the mustard. Reduce heat to a simmer and stir until the sauce is thick and creamy and coats a spoon, 15-20 minutes. Remove pan from heat and add 3 cups of the cheese to the sauce, one handful at a time. Stir until melted in before adding next batch. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Add pasta to the sauce until well coated and transfer to a baking dish. Scatter remaining cheese on top and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake until bubbling and the crust is golden brown, about 25 minutes. Gorge yourself.

On Monday evening, UPS delivered the patio chairs that we finally got around to ordering. Naturally, it rained all day Tuesday and Wednesday and it’s still damn and wet out today.

Although not a native Californian, I have apparently lived here for too long, as I immediately fell into a melancholia that did not lift until the sun reappeared today. I was not alone in this. Traffic jams were abundant, people fled the streets and the dogs steadfastly refused to go to the bathroom lest a single droplet of water moisten their pretty little heads.

Yes. This dog.

And this dog.

Afraid of the mild drizzle that plagued Southern California for over 48 hours.

In fact, I had an idea for a post about how bizarre and inconsistent their attitudes were towards water but I was feeling too bleh to actually finish it.

It was only the guilt of posting a double-down challenge last week for Couch-to-5k that persuaded me to leave the house and complete my jog.

Therefore it should come as no surprise that my culinary escapades have been less than spectacular of late. The vast majority of what I consumed would be more accurately termed “calories” than actual food. It was only with a fair bit of luck that I was able to make an actual meal, and even then, it was only the second time I made it that I was able to get a decent picture so I could blog about it.

This is not the prettiest pasta in the world, but it’s pretty fast to put together if you know the steps, and it’s delicious and filling and great for a rainy day. I’ve been meaning to make this for a while because Bridget ranked it among her top ten recipes for 2008 and she knows her way around a kitchen. I happened to have walnuts leftover from the cookie swap and an overgrown basil plant in the front yard so I managed to overcome the desire to dump some sauce from a jar on top of some pasta and actually made a meal.

Salmon Pesto Pasta adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles
These quantities are approximate and you have a ton of wiggle room

Pesto

¼ heaping cup walnuts, toasted
10 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
2 cups packed fresh basil
¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
copious amounts of parmesan cheese

Toast the garlic in a small skillet over medium heat until fragrant and cloves just begin to soften, about 7 minutes. I like to cheat and toast the walnuts in the same pan to speed things up. Walnut pieces take about 4-5 minutes to toast so wait the appropriate amount of time and just add the walnuts in. Peel the garlic and add it to a food processor along with the toasted walnuts. Pulse until finely chopped. Bruise the basil leaves and toss them in along with the oil and salt. Process until you achieve a …well, pesto-like consistency. Mix in the cheese and add more salt as needed.

Pasta

8 ounces pasta
12 ounces salmon
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 ounces heavy cream
½ cup pesto
grated parmesan cheese

Everyone knows how to cook pasta right? As you’re waiting for that to happen, season the salmon with salt, pepper, lemon zest, and olive oil. Lay it skin side down a baking pan lined with aluminum foil and broil about 8 minutes or until flesh is firm and no long translucent. Sprinkle the salmon with the lemon juice and use a fork to flake it into bite sized chunks.

By this time the pasta should be done, so drain it and set it aside. Pour the heavy cream into an empty pot until heated and then add in the cooked pasta. When the cream starts to coat the pasta, add the pesto and stir until combined. Add the salmon to the mixture, stir, and remove from heat. Top liberally with more parmesan cheese and serve warm.