Pasta at Home
Pasta night, here we go again.
Remember out last entry? That same friend who planted too many tomatoes gave us another basket full. Heirloom orange, yellow pear, plain red, etc. This time, we won't let them go bad. We're going to try that some recipe from the October 2006 issue of Cooks Illustrated 'Fresh Tomato Sauce with Rosemary and Bacon.' BTW, we love bacon!
We make a few changes to the recipe (we don't seed or skin the tomatoes), and we added cipollini onion and basil. Here's what to do:
Chop roughly 3 pounds of tomatoes down (see photo below). It wanted us to seed and peel, but neither lavendersoda or I are too concerned, so I don't. Set aside.
Fry up 4 slices of bacon (we get ours at Viande at City Market, the applewood-smoked rather than the pepper), cut into 1/2 inch strips. Fry and dry on paper towel. Leave roughly 2T of bacon grease in pan.
Add garlic (2 medium cloves), onion (1 medium cipollini), and crushed red pepper (3/4 teaspoon). Saute a little. Add rosemary (1/2 teaspoon, minced) a bit later. Saute some more. Add basil (2 tablespoons minced) when onion and garlic are almost translucent, nearing brown round the edges. Shortly thereafter, add tomatoes. Simmer down for about 30 min (or until the tomatoes stop looking like tomatoes and begin looking like sauce). Add bacon and stir to incorporate.
Meanwhile, boil water and make a pound in penne. As there are just two of us, we make a half pound of pasta and keep half of the sauce for later, but I digress.
We had some greens too. Before we added the pasta to the water, lavendersoda quickly blanched some green beans. We find that a quick blanch (for beans, "exactly one minute," says lavendersoda) in heavily salted water really adds flavor and fixes the color. A bit later, in an omelet pan, we melted some homemade butter, sauted a chopped shallot in it, added spinach, and cooked it until just wilted. Then, in the same pan with residual butter, we quickly warmed the blanched green beans before serving.
And you gotta have bread, right? We got a ginormous ciabatta loaf from Ken's on NW 21st (a steal at $3.50). I mean, it was the size of a hubcap (but thicker and tastier). We made some homemade butter to go along with it.
Everything was served with a little red wine (2003 Coupe Roses Minervois "Bastide") and coarse French gray salt.
For dessert, we had cannoil from City Market. Did you know they make them to order? A thick crusty shell filled with a ricotta/marscapone blend punctuated with chocolate chunks. Sprinkled with chopped pistachio and dusted with powdered sugar (and consumed while watching Colbert on DVR).
All in all a lovely meal.
Remember out last entry? That same friend who planted too many tomatoes gave us another basket full. Heirloom orange, yellow pear, plain red, etc. This time, we won't let them go bad. We're going to try that some recipe from the October 2006 issue of Cooks Illustrated 'Fresh Tomato Sauce with Rosemary and Bacon.' BTW, we love bacon!
We make a few changes to the recipe (we don't seed or skin the tomatoes), and we added cipollini onion and basil. Here's what to do:
Chop roughly 3 pounds of tomatoes down (see photo below). It wanted us to seed and peel, but neither lavendersoda or I are too concerned, so I don't. Set aside.
Fry up 4 slices of bacon (we get ours at Viande at City Market, the applewood-smoked rather than the pepper), cut into 1/2 inch strips. Fry and dry on paper towel. Leave roughly 2T of bacon grease in pan.
Add garlic (2 medium cloves), onion (1 medium cipollini), and crushed red pepper (3/4 teaspoon). Saute a little. Add rosemary (1/2 teaspoon, minced) a bit later. Saute some more. Add basil (2 tablespoons minced) when onion and garlic are almost translucent, nearing brown round the edges. Shortly thereafter, add tomatoes. Simmer down for about 30 min (or until the tomatoes stop looking like tomatoes and begin looking like sauce). Add bacon and stir to incorporate.
Meanwhile, boil water and make a pound in penne. As there are just two of us, we make a half pound of pasta and keep half of the sauce for later, but I digress.
We had some greens too. Before we added the pasta to the water, lavendersoda quickly blanched some green beans. We find that a quick blanch (for beans, "exactly one minute," says lavendersoda) in heavily salted water really adds flavor and fixes the color. A bit later, in an omelet pan, we melted some homemade butter, sauted a chopped shallot in it, added spinach, and cooked it until just wilted. Then, in the same pan with residual butter, we quickly warmed the blanched green beans before serving.
And you gotta have bread, right? We got a ginormous ciabatta loaf from Ken's on NW 21st (a steal at $3.50). I mean, it was the size of a hubcap (but thicker and tastier). We made some homemade butter to go along with it.
Everything was served with a little red wine (2003 Coupe Roses Minervois "Bastide") and coarse French gray salt.
For dessert, we had cannoil from City Market. Did you know they make them to order? A thick crusty shell filled with a ricotta/marscapone blend punctuated with chocolate chunks. Sprinkled with chopped pistachio and dusted with powdered sugar (and consumed while watching Colbert on DVR).
All in all a lovely meal.
posted by None if by Sea at 6:16 PM
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