American Style Pasta Fagioli

We never get tired of pasta. There are so many ways to serve it. We literally could invent a new sauce everyday. I generally can make a satisfying sauce in the time it takes to boils the salted water and cook the pasta with ingredients in our pantry. I started some olive oil heating in a sauté pan, added some chopped garlic, sliced garlic sausage, thyme, crushed red peppers, and, after those flavors had time to meld, tossed in about 1 1/2 cups of cooked black-eyed peas. I tossed in the drained pasta and let it flavor in the sauce for a minute or two, added shredded cheese and served up tonight's new dinner classic.

Smashed Potato Skillet

"I have simple taste," James said as he dug into this skillet casserole of bacon, potatoes, garlic, and melted cheese. I nodded along and didn't mention the quality of ingredients that made this "simple" supper worth noting. While I slowly cooked lardons of slab bacon in a bit of olive oil to render out as much fast as possible I boiled some fingerling potatoes. When they were soft and a bit cooled I smashed the drained potatoes so they were flat but still in one piece and added them to the pan with the bacon and garlic to crisp the skins. When the potatoes had just browned I turned them over to crisp on the other side, stirred in a bit of cooked asparagus I happened to have in the fridge, 1 TB of butter and topped the skillet with easy to melt cheese (if I'd had Fontina I would have liked that but we had left over Raclette that worked out nicely). After a couple minutes in a hot oven our skillet dinner was ready to go.

Rethinking Mark Peel

Okay, maybe I was too hasty. Right on these "pages" I complained about the days of cooking it took to turn a brisket into Mark Peel's version of Bolognese sauce. I reasoned that my usual sauce was just about as good and took at least 40 hours less to whip up.

Did roasting those tomatoes really make a difference? Was brisket better than bones?

Well, as you can see from these unusually unattractive photos, Mark Peel's recipe (all four large tomato cans worth) made plenty to store in the freezer.

The other night when I got home late and James felt like spaghetti I reached into the freezer and reheated some of the stored sauce while the pasta cooked. Wow -- even better reheated. Apologies to Mark Peel. I'm still not sure I'll be making this sauce on a regular basis or that anyone but Peel would call it Bolognese -- but straight from the freezer weeknight supper. Wow, delicious.

Yard Salad

Fresh salad with homegrown greens straight from the garden.

I called it a breakfast salad. Hard boiled eggs --fresh from "the girls", torn garlic croutons, and bacon vinaigrette.

For the croutons I trimmed the crust off some not so fresh bread and torn it into pieces about 1 1/2 inches long, I popped those in a frying over medium low heat with some garlic oil and (after about 10 minute cooking time) about 1 TB butter. While the croutons were crisping, I cooked some lardons of slab bacon in a sauté pan over medium low heat until the bacon colored and crisped but the pieces were still soft inside. I set the bacon pieces aside to drain on a paper towel and added the fat from the pan, along with 2 tsp of dijon mustard, 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, and S&P to taste to the blender. While the ingredients blended I poured 1 cup of canola oil into the blender (pouring it down the side of the glass not right into the mixture). To serve I tossed the salad with the bacon pieces, croutons, hard boiled eggs, greens and dressing right from the blender.

Breakfast salad for dinner.

Italian Rye

Not commonly thought of as Italian bread, this light rye from Jim Lahey's cookbook (I know it's becoming quite a theme) has a firm texture and a subtle almost sourdough flavor. By now we all know the no-knead method made famous when the New York Times' Mark Bittman published bread genius Jim Lahey's pot cooked procedure. This loaf is no different -- a mixture of bread and rye flour ( 2 1/4 cups to 3/4 cups), yeast, salt and cool water quickly turned into a sticky dough and left to rise and flavor for around 20 hours. After being quickly shaped and left to rise (2 hours) again, the soft dough is turned into a pre-heated 5 quart pot and baked at 475º for 30 minutes covered and 30 minutes uncovered until the crust is a deep rich brown and the crumb light and tender. So far James' favorite is Lahey's delicate whole wheat bread. All I know is when homemade bread is this easy to make there is no reason to buy anyone else's loaves.

Homemade Buratta

Well what else would I do with a spare afternoon?

When I saw a posting about homemade burrata, starting with Ricki "The Cheese Queen's" 30 Minute Mozzarella Magic recipe I immediately sent it to my cheese-making partner Shari and we set a date for the adventure. These days work's been a little crazy and there never seems to be enough time to even get the essentials finished, so Shari and I -- unlike my usual plan -- opted for Ricki's microwave method -- no sink filled with hot water or additional pot of near boiling water needed. All we had to do was bring milk up to temperature, add rennet and citric acid, drain the curd and microwave at 30 second intervals until the cheese could be stretched and filled with a combination of soft curd and cream.

To be honest this first attempt was more like the plastic packaged mozzarella you might shred for pizza then it was the silky soft fresh cheese packed in water -- although perfectly edible But, the microwave method gives just the confidence needed to try the more involved hot water process. Stay tuned for our fresh cheese progress.

Loaf of the Week: Crisp Crust Pancetta Bread

Counting down my way through Jim Lahey's cookbook. Crusty white bread with bits of crisp pancetta and red pepper flakes. Nothing really to complain about there. Once again this is sort of a flavored version of Lahey's famous no knead white bread, this time with a bit of the bacon fat (grease from pre-cooking the pancetta) mixed into the dough.

I admit it -- I was lazy and used the pre-chopped, packaged pancetta from Trader Joes. I can't help but feel this silky textured loaf will be improved by better pork products with a heavier dose of the traditional Italian spices. All in all though -- not too bad and maybe the dream slice for a gooey pan fried grilled cheese sandwich.