Penne ala Vodka

Vodka sauce is something that I always thought of as being ridiculously heavy, but a little cream goes a long way, to make this delicious sauce smooth and creamy without feeling like you are eating a stick of butter. The spiciness of the red pepper and the sausage go so perfectly with the creamy texture, on bite made me forget I was ever afraid of this sauce. This is a perfect way to "winter" up pasta night, something about the cream and spice just warms you inside out. Enjoy.

Penne ala Vodka:
1/2 lb of penne pasta
1 tbsp of olive oil
3 links of Hot Italian Sausage (optional)
1 small onion
1 29 oz can of tomato sauce
1 tomato
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp of oregano
1 tsp of red pepper flakes
1/4 cup of vodka
1/2 cup of heavy cream
salt, pepper

Make pasta according to package directions. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown sausage on all sides then remove from pan, and slice, add back to the pan. Dice onions and add to oil, cook stirring occasionally until onions soften about 5 minutes. Add tomato sauce and bring to a simmer. Dice tomato and garlic and add to sauce, and oregano and red pepper and cook and bring to a boil. Add vodka and stir, then reduce to a low simmer. Simmer sauce until pasta is cooked, then turn off heat and stir in heavy cream. Pour cooked pasta into the pan, and stir until pasta is coated. Enjoy.

Happy Eating.

Daring Cooks: My Noodle Hands

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

I loved this challenge, but I have already done it. I love making pasta, and I got a hand roller for Christmas this past year, so this is how I make pasta (although I do sometimes use the food processor to make the dough). So I decided to add a personal challenge to this: ravioli. I have wanted to make ravioli for some time, this is actually a second attempt at it. The taste great and texture came out great, and these came out a lot better than the first attempt. However, I'm not going to put this in the total win column yet, because as you can see, they are not so pretty. They tend to come out very large and in a variety of shapes and sizes. But they are delicious, and one day they will be beautiful too. I did learn something very important from this challenge. It is MANDATORY to let the dough rest. It makes it so much easier to work with! I cannot even believe the difference. The dough was so beautiful (before I mangled it into ravoli that is), I am confident that had I just done fetticuni it would have come out looking so incredible (but less cheesey, tradeoffs). Here is my methodology and recipe for this awesome challenge!

Pasta Dough:
2 cups of unbleached AP flour
1/2 tsp of salt
3 eggs
1 tbsp of water (varies)
Semolina flour, for dusting

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl and form into a dome, make a hole in the center. Crack eggs into the hole. Slowly mix the flour into the eggs, until flour is incorporated and a sticky dough forms, add water as needed to form dough. Knead the dough until smooth, about 5 minutes. Roll the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap, let the dough rest for at least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours. Assemble your pasta roller. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Keep the pieces you aren't using covered with plastic wrap. Flatten out a piece of the dough using a rolling pin until it is thin enough to go through the pasta machine. Lightly flour dough with semolina and run through the machine on the 0 setting, then fold the dough in half and run through again. Repeat until dough is extra smooth, about 9 times, ending so that the dough is in a fairly uniform rectangle. Change the setting to 1 and run the dough through. Run the dough through each setting until 7. Lay the rolled dough on a paper towel and cover with a damp paper towel. Be careful not to let the dough touch itself or the other pieces because it is very sticky. Repeat with remaining dough.

Filling:
1 cup of part skim riccotta cheese
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 cup of mozzerella cheese, shredded
1 egg

Mix together the cheeses and salt. Beat in the egg. To assemble ravoli, Take one sheet of pasta at a time and cut it in half. Along one sheet drop cheese by heaping teaspoon, about 1 inch apart, (I did about 5-6 per sheet). Place the other half of the sheet on top and press edges. Using a knife or a pizza roller, cut inbetween the cheese. Press the edges to seal. Repeat with remaining sheets. Cook the ravoli in boiling water until they float to the top, about 5-6 minutes.

Tomato Broth Sauce:
1 can of italian style plum tomatoes
1/2 cup of tomato sauce
3 cloves of garlic
1 handful of fresh basil
Any leftover of the riccotta mixture, (I had about 1 tbsp)
Salt, pepper
Extra Virgin Olive oil, for drizzling

In a large skillet over high heat, heat the tomatoes and their juices. Break up tomatoes using a wooden spoon. Add the sauce. Dice the garlic and basil and add to sauce. Add any leftover cheese and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over cooked ravoli. Drizzle ravoli with olive oil before serving.

Happy Eating.

Summer Perfection

What is summer perfection? For food it is those exceptionally delicious items that can only found (or found decent) when it is so sunny and warm. Namely, tomatoes, corn, watermelon and peaches. There are more, but that is my list. I love seasonal things, they are so much more special than food that can be found any old day of the year (this is why I only make ginger snaps in the fall, even though I technically could make them any time, but more on that in October). I will admit the corn that I have had so far this year has been fairly disappointing, but the other three have more than made up for it. Especially the tomatoes, the wonderful, juicy tasty, perfect tomatoes, and I am growing them, which makes it even more satisfying. For this recipe I used a combination of some from my garden and some wonderful colorful heirloom tomatoes from the store. The resulting concoction was absolutely amazing, summer in a bite. I am not sure exactly how to classify or call it, but here it is...


Warm Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad:
1 Tbsp of olive oil (I used a Chipotle infused olive oil)
6-8 oz of your favorite French or Italian bread (something hearty will do best)
1 1/2 lbs of delicious tomatoes (I used a mix from my garden and heirlooms from the store)
1 medium shallot
2 oz of soft goat cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, grated

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut bread into large bite size chunks. Heat the oil in a large pan and toss in bread to toast lightly and coat with oil. Chop tomatoes into roughly the same size pieces as the bread. Dice the shallot. Add shallot and tomatoes to the pan and toss to combine. Crumble in goat cheese and toss to combine, pour everything into a glass bake dish, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, bake for 30 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the tomatoes are bubbling. Serve and enjoy.

I served these wonderful tomatoes along with an Chipotle marinated pork tenderloin (although the tomatoes stole the show, the pork was also delicious, and spicy) and some corn on the cob.


Chipotle Pork Tenderloin:
1 small can chipotles in adobo
2 limes, juiced
2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
salt, pepper
1 pork tenderloin, about 1 lb.

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl to taste. Put pork in a plastic freezer bag and coat with marinade. Let marinate at least an hour and up to overnight. Cook at 350 for about 15 minutes then 400 for about 10 minutes, or until pork is cooked to desired level. Serve and enjoy.

Happy Eating.