Pasta with salami, ricotta and vegetables

I've never bought ricotta before, and at the supermarket today whilst having a good peruse of the cheese section found a nice little pottle at a reduced price of only $3.  I do love my bargains, and the ricotta had a good six days to go till its use by date.  I happily popped it in my trolly along with some bocconcini and grana padano.

Once home and being peckish I decided to whip up a bit of an early dinner consisting of the following.  Use as much of the following ingredients as you need for the amount of people you have.  i.e I made enough for two servings.

Salami, cut into chunks and fry till crispy. Drain off the oil once it's almost done and add the tomato. Cook for a min or two longer then turn off the heat and stir through red capsicum, chopped basil, spinach and rocket, a tablespoon of ricotta (per serving).  Stir everything together
At the same time boil a pot of water and add (preferably home made) pasta, recipe here.
Once you're done, add a tablespoon or so of the pasta water to the mixture in the frypan.  Serve with a drizzle of lemon juice and some toasted nuts (I forgot these unfortunately on mine)

I will never buy packet pasta again

The real, rich, soft, lightness of home made pasta cannot be compared to the dried factory product.  I can hardly believe the two share a name.  Even the supposed 'fresh' pasta product from the refrigerated section in the supermarket is real pastas uglier second cousin.

The fifties have got a lot to answer for when it decided that convenience was the way to go and proceeded to pre-make and package as many foods as possible.

My first batch of pasta probably took maybe an hour tops to make.  And the recipe I used gave enough for 3-4 good servings. I used a smaller recipe to start incase I made a big mess and wasted the ingredients.

Most recipes used lots o eggs, including one using seven eggs by my beloved Jamie.  I found one from online blog smitten kitchen, which I then halved. It uses just two and a cup and half or so of flour. I used high grade from the super market.  Plus I used my food processor.

Fresh Pasta from Smitten Kitchen and adapted from Gourmet Magazine

3 cups all-purpose flour
 

4 large eggs
 

1 teaspoon salt
 

4 tablespoons water 

To make pasta dough in a food processor: 

Blend flour, eggs, salt, and water in processor until mixture just begins to form a ball, adding more water, drop by drop, if dough is too dry (dough should be firm and not sticky). Process dough for 15 seconds more to knead it. Transfer to a floured surface and let stand, covered with an inverted bowl, 1 hour to let the gluten relax and make rolling easier.

 















Also being the first time I had used my food processor to make dough.  The result was fast easy and fabulous.  After letting the dough sit for an hour I divided it into 3 and started using my new fav piece of equipment, my pasta machine, rolling the dough through each of the nine settings.  The key through out the whole process to keep everything well dusted with flour.  I then dried mine over night on clothes hangers.    
I ate with the following sauce.

Zucchini and prosciutto sauce (it has meat I know but it was an end of the fridge thing...)

Chop up roughly some prosciutto, or bacon or parma ham.

Fry in a saucepan with some onion

Add some halved cherry tomatoes and a knob of butter

Grate two zucchini and toss in the pan

Stir around a bit and glug in some olive oil.

Toss through somr of you fresh pasta which has been cooked in boiling water for a couple of minutes

Delicious  : )

Pasta success

I won a pasta machine on trade me last night. Hurrah - quite a good brand at a good price.  That's what I love about trademe.

Anyway so we were back from Keri Keri after the long weekend, and I have a big bunch of basil left over from the Farmers market.

All this has got me to thinking what delicious dishes I could make with home made pasta!

Of course there is good ole pesto - which I think I'll make this afternoon, and this wee little tasty treat which I'd call- 

Pasta with Two Sauces.

• Grab some fresh fettucine
  
• Make some rocket and walnut pesto - a fairly thin mix as per The new Penguin Cook Book
  
• Fry down a mixture of mushrooms, they will start getting a bit wet as their juices come out - but keep frying till this is also fairly dry, add some milk to the mix and some herbs like flat parsley and basil.
  
• Mix the pasta through with the pesto and divide into bowls. Pour over the mushroom cream, and top with parmesan.
  

Sounds bloody delicious - and yet again lives only in my head...

Food musings

I like thinking about food. Sometimes ideas just pop into my head and sometimes I have to think harder about a certain ingredient or half a dish I have going on in my head and try and find the match for it.

While I was ohmmmming at the meditation course I had a while to think about food - and definitely got a few good bursts of inspiration there.  

Dinner tonight was parmesan scrambled eggs and baked beans from a can.  It got me thinking about making my own baked beans - which is certainly not a new idea.  Suddenly I visualised the finished meal in my head:  

Chickpeas (cannellini beans? kidney beans?  cannellini and broad beans? - maybe any bean) cooked with tomatoes and herbs (thyme, parsley,basil, lemon juice) with a poached egg and parmesan cream sauce.  Sounds divine. May have to cook it this weekend.

The dishes I created in thought form only while away over New Years are:

• Tuna Ravioli with a pea sauce
  
• Smashed potato, haloumi and quinoa stack, with green beans on the side and a tomatoey sauce.
  
• Won ton soup -nothing new here, just would lie to make one. However it will need to be vege now.
  
• Mango chicken - probably also a no-go now, but still keen on the coconut rice and salad with walnuts and lime dressing

Ohmmmmm tasty  ;)