It's been a long haul ....

It has been a long time since we were active with our blog. As we said back in 2011 - life has been busy. The kids are older and the time flies. But no excuses! Cooking is our hobby and we love it! So with renewed vigor we are recommitting ourselves to keeping everyone up on our travels down the culinary highway.

Since we last posted (almost 2 years ago!!!), there has really only been one significant change in our foody habits - we found out we really like wine ...

We are no experts when it comes to wine. In fact, we're really very simple - we like what we like and will drink it with whatever we want to. See simple! We don't like whites, so we have reds with everything. And, you know what, they always seem to taste really good. Who knew wine could be so simple.

So, as we jump back on the cooking bandwagon, we are going to include the different wines we have along the way. Stay tuned. We welcome your company as we keep trying different foods and wines. Remember, it's not the destination, it's the journey.

To get back in the swing of sharing, this is one of our favorite wines at our current stop in life - Cheers!

Off our hiatus ...

I know it has been a while - just over a year!!!!!!!! We have been so busy with life that cooking (one of our true hobbies) got pushed aside. Well, that is going to change. We are entering the new year with renewed vigor! We will be going back to some of the basics - of course after a year there might be a couple of repeats - and expanding our horizons. Still keeping it within what we can do from our kitchen in rural Missouri with ingredients we can mostly get locally.

Please check back often - I think you will find some interesting recipes .... Ray

1000 Things to do with a Grocery Store Salad Bar #2 - Chinese

This one is really a no-brainer. It's thin spaghetti, veggies and meat of your choice and a little sauce thrown in. Stir fry it all in a large skillet and you're done. The kids all eat this. The vegetarian has tofu cooked separately from the meat.

Salad Bar Chinese

• 4 C. cooked spaghetti. I like thin spaghetti but regular works. (You could use rice, too if you don't like lo mien.)
• 8-12 oz. veggies from salad bar. I use things like radishes, onion, carrots, garbanzo beans, sprouts, etc. Anything you like will be fine.
• 6-8 oz. meat. I use a combo of raw stew meat and chicken breast. Any other meats, fish, shrimp,steak, etc. will work. It can be cooked leftovers or raw. Marinate in 2 Tbsp. soy sauce while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
• 1 large onion cut into 8ths.
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 tsp. grated ginger

Sauce

• 1/2 C. Chicken broth or water
• 1/2 C. Soy sauce
• 4 tsp. rice wine vinegar
• 4 tsp. sesame oil
• 1-2 tsp. hot pepper flakes (to taste)
• 2 tsp. sugar

Mix in a 2 C. measuring cup.

Heat vegetable oil on high (about 1-2 Tablespoons. I throw in some sesame oil for additional flavor) in large skillet for a few minutes. Add the onion and brown. Add raw meat and stir for a few minutes. Add vegetables and stir around for a few minutes until the meat is cooked. Add garlic, ginger and stir through. Remove from skillet and set aside. Add a bit more oil and reheat the pan on high. Add the cooked spaghetti and stir until heated through. Return the rest of the cooked ingredients to the pan, including the sauce and stir through. Serve in a big, pretty bowl.

Heavily adapted from How to Cook without a Book by Pam Anderson, p. 136.

Raw meat - stew meat (cheap) and
chicken breast (not cheap, but was on sale.)

Sauce

Salad bar vegetables - whatever looks good that day.

Casoncelli with Sage and Pancetta (or Casoncelli alla Begamasca)

This is it - all the work comes together and what a gastronomical delight it is!!

Casoncelli - as made in the previous posts
1 cup unsalted butter
4 oz pancetta, julienned
20 small sage leaves

Put the butter, pancetta and sage leaves in a skillet over low heat and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the pancetta and sage are getting crispy; the butter should also be browned at this point. Remove from heat to keep from burning the butter but keep warm.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the casoncelli, in batches if necessary to prevent crowding and sticking, and cook for 5-6 minutes or until just tender (add 1-2 minutes if you are using casoncelli you had frozen).

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the casoncelli to a warmed shallow bowl. Pour the butter over the pasta and sprinkle with the bits of crispy sage and pancetta. You will be amazed at the richness of the flavors!

We forgot to get a picture of the prepared dish but in the table setting below the casoncelli can be seen in the left of the picture. Looks as good on the table as it does in Marc Vetri's cookbook il viaggio di vetri where we got the recipe.

Enjoy.
-Ray

Casoncelli - making the stuffed pasta

The meat filling and pasta dough were made the day before Thanksgiving to keep it manageable on Turkey (not so much this year) day. In preparation for cooking dinner we pulled the pasta dough and meat filling out of the refrigerator early enough to allow it to reach room temperature before use. That is where the story begins ...

We cut the dough log into six even pieces and ran them through the pasta press 3-4 times starting on the thickest setting and getting thinner with each pass until they appeared to be "just about right". The recipe called to press them to the thinnest setting but the dough was almost see through at that point and we did not trust we could make the stuffed pasta with dough that thin without tearing, etc. We pressed the dough into long strips approximately 4 inches wide and placed them on a lightly floured working surface.

Spray the pasta sheets lightly with water to keep them from drying out - if you don't do this you will have a terrible time trying to get the pasta to seal around the filling - and cover with a towel.

Place 1/2- to 3/4-inch balls of filling at approximately 1 1/2-inch intervals down the center of the center of the dough sheet. Carefully pull the dough over the meat filling like a blanket and then press the dough tightly around the filling balls to seal the filling in the dough. If your dough is too dry, or if you did not mist the sheets with water (failing to follow the recipe like we did the first round), you can dribble water along the edges need sealed and carefully work the dough together - it works but can be very messy!

Once you have the pasta sealed together you can use a biscuit cutter to make the individual stuffed pasta.

Place the finished pasta on a lightly floured baking sheet, cover and refrigerate for at least 1-hour before cooking. At this point the casoncelli can be frozen in freezer bags for up to 1-month (just be sure to add 1-2 minutes to the boiling time if you are cooking it from the freezer).

Casoncelli - the meat filling

The meat filling for the casoncelli was easier than the quantity of ingredients would suggest - and we even shortened the list! So, here we go:

1/2 lb beef chuck roast
1/2 lb boneless chicken thighs - we purchased regular chicken thighs and boned them
2 oz salami - we chose to use a really nice German salami we picked up at a specialty store
2 oz prosciutto

Now the recipe actually called for 1/2 this amount of the chicken and beef using veal and pork. Based on how good it came out I cannot imagine the veal and pork could have made it any better, though.

1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1/2 celery stock, finally chopped

1 cup dry red wine - almost blasphemous to not drink the wine!!
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
8-10 sage leaves, finely chopped
2 large eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup raisins - we did not chop the raisins - would work better if we had
1/4 cup crushed almond cookies - one of the hardest ingredients for us to find!!!
Ground nutmeg
Salt & pepper

Cut the beef chuck and chicken into like-sized chunks (makes them cook evenly). Cut the salami and prosciutto into thin strips. Heat 2 tbs olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Place the meats (beef, chicken, salami and prosciutto) into the hot pan - cooking until deeply browned (15-20 minutes at a pretty high heat).

In a separate skillet heat the remaining 2 tbs of olive oil over medium high heat. Add the carrots, onion and celery - cooking for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned.

Add the cooked vegetables to the meat, pour in the wine (again what a waste!) and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any browned on bits. Cook for 2 minutes and then add the garlic and sage. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 30 minutes or until very browned. Remove from heat and cool.

At this point the recipe calls to use a meat grinder to grind the cooled meat mixture. As we do not have a meat grinder we used the food processor - pulsing it to keep from making mush. Once the meat is ground, add the eggs, Parmesan cheese, chopped raisins and almond cookie crumbs. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly with hands - like you are mixing a meatloaf. Cover and refrigerate until ready to make the filled pasta. In our case we made the meat mixture the day before and refrigerated over night.

Casoncelli - The Pasta Dough

Jenifer and I have always said we wanted to make homemade pasta but always allowed the excuse of not having a pasta press keep us from actually doing it. For Thanksgiving we decided to change that and went out and bought a relatively inexpensive ($59) hand pasta press - Viola! We are now set to make pasta and it was sooo much easier than either of us thought it would be.

We sort of dove into the deep end for our Thanksgiving meal by choosing to make a filled pasta this first time. With that said, we followed Vetri's basic pasta dough recipe to the letter and it turned out great. The dough recipe was incredibly simple and cooked up as good as we could have hoped.

Simple Basic Dough - Vetri with our interpretation
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoons semolina flour
9 large egg yolks
3-4 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon EVOO

Combine flours in mixer with paddle attachment. With the mixer running on medium (slow enough as to not make a mess of the flour - lesson learned) add the egg yolks, water and oil; mixing until the ingredients just stick together. Take the dough from the mixing bowl and kneed for about 5 minutes on a lightly floured working surface. When done the dough will be smooth and gently pull back into place when slightly stretched. Shape the dough into a 6-inch long log, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 days (we made the dough the day before we needed it to make making the filled pasta more manageable).

When ready to use the dough cut it into six equal pieces and let them return to about room temperature. The dough is now ready to run through the pasta press into whatever shape desired.