making fresh pasta

Last night we had one of my favorite veggie meals, “pasta with asparagus and shiitakes.” Since Jim isn’t such a big fan of “vegetarian night” as we call it, I also made fresh black pepper pasta to make the dish more exciting for him. Making pasta isn’t really any more complicated than any dough recipe. For two people, I generally use about a cup of flour and one egg, a bit of salt and a tablespoon or more of water. I added about 4 tsps of freshly ground pepper to the flour. This can easily be doubled and if we’re hungry, I double it since this is not a whole lot of pasta.


Combine all the dry ingredients on a flat surface or a super big bowl, make a well in the center and put the egg and water in, mix the egg with a fork, incorporating the flour slowly, until you have to use your hands. At this point, the dough will be very dry and incredibly annoying because it just won’t come together. Add water, a teaspoon at a time, until most of the flour is incorporated and the dough is just barely kneadable. If you over do it on the water, just add more flour. Then knead on the counter until you can get a smooth ball, about 5-10 minutes. Put in a large plastic bag and allow to rest for an hour. I like to put mine in the fridge for this because I don’t like to leave food on the counter for too long but, some recipes have you leave it on the counter.

I cut the dough into 4 chunks and use an ancient pasta roller to roll the dough and cut it into noodles but, I suppose if you are strong enough, you can use a rolling pin to roll nice flat sheets and cut the noodles by hand. This takes me about 20 minutes for a 4 person batch of pasta. The dough doesn’t really need to dry, so, I usually roll it right before I am going to cook but, you can do it earlier in the day, put it on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready. I cook it for 3-4 minutes.  Yum!  There is nothing like fresh pasta.

dinner ideas

this week's meal plan:
Chili glazed salmon with orange salsa
Chicken Potpie with Chive Mashed Potato topping the recipe seems rather complicated but, it looks like good comfort food
Shrimp Posole this soup is a favorite of mine cuz it's so easy.  Recipe calls for scallops as well as shrimp but, I only use shrimp which I buy frozen (I always have a bag in the freezer.)  I also add a TBS or two of fresh lime juice to brighten the flavors a bit.
Grilled clams with lemon-ginger butter - this is amazingly simple and tasty
Spicy Turkey Burgers - another fave.  I use a tsp of chopped chipotles in adobo instead of the hot sauce

We're trying a new restaurant in Falls Church, Argia's, this weekend so, I'll have some feedback on that next week.

The Kofte experiment

Yum! We had the Kofte tonight and it came out just the way I had hoped. I made some minor changes to the recipe (of course!) I added garlic to the yogurt sauce and I made this more authentic Muhammara sauce, one with walnuts and bread crumbs but I left the cumin out based on a review of my Middle Eastern cookbooks, which have more authentic (and complicated) recipes and I used panko breadcrumbs - not sure the authentic recipes would include japanese breadcurmbs but, it worked! : -). I opened a bottle of Chateau Musar which is one of the premier wines of Lebanon and I hoped it would compliment the lamb. The first bottled I opened had a damaged cork (wine had actually leaking out around the cork) so, I had to throw it away (I admit, I thought about drinking it anyway because it smelled great!) I opened my last bottle of Musar and I thought it was quite tasty but, Jim really didn’t like it at all, actually, he didn’t like Chateau Musar the first time we tried it but, I didn’t tell him that until after we tried this bottle. He thought it was too musty - so much for aged wine!!! I drank part of his glass too :-). Ahhhh! Happy mouth!

recovering from a month of indulgences

Well, it's been an unhealthy food fest around here so, this week's meals are aiming to be on the healthy side.  Epicurious.com was my go to for this week's menu plan.  Lots of yummy stuff in the buzz box, etc.  Here's the plan:
Mussels with Sherry, Saffron and Paprika.  I'll be adding clams to this for Jim since he doesn't care for mussels
Poblano Albóndigas (meat balls) with Ancho Chile Soup  I'm replacing the ground beef with turkey
Sauteed Tuna with warm olive vinaigrette.  This is a long time favorite of mine. YUM!
Lamb Köfte with Yogurt Sauce and Muhammara.  I  guess lamb's a bit unhealthy but, I love kofte in yogurt
Seared Sea Scallops with Lemongrass Sauce and Basil, Mint and Cilantro Salad
Saffron Linguine with Spicy Shrimp and Vegetables.  This recipe has you toss the linguine with a saffron mixture but that doesn't really work well so, I will probably make real saffron linguine.

Definitely a fishy week, I hope to get my cholesterol under control before I see my Dr....

I also read some interseting recipes by Alex Jamieson, the wife of the supersize me guy.  She wrote a book called "The Great American Detox Diet" about how they "detoxed" him after that month.  Wondering if the book is any good....