My Current Obsession: MacGourmet

Don't you love it when you're not even looking and a great tool falls right into your life? The other day I was searching for some killer writing software, and MacGourmet Deluxe politely waved to me from my Google Search window. Of course I had to go check it out. And since it was designed for Mac, I really had to check it out. And since there's a 20 session full-version free trial, I had to really, really check it out.

Downloading is easy. The learning curve is gentle. Within just a few minutes, with the help of Safari, I was importing recipes from Time to Cook as well as many of my other favorite food blogs.

This is a fabulous find for me because one of my life's goals is to collect all of my recipes in one place, create a cookbook, and give a copy to each of my five children. MacGourmet makes that very easy and even pretty fun.

From the Mariner website, creator of MacGourmet and MacGourment Deluxe, you can:

• Build, print, and share your own cookbook from your recipe collection.

• Use the Mealplan feature to plan and organize meals. Since this is a Mac program, you can Sync your plans with iCal.

• Easily calculate the nutritional content of your recipes.

• Publish your recipes to your .mac account or to your web site.

• Manage your wine collection by recording notes about your favorite wines.

• Import recipes from your favorite online source.

• Create shopping lists from the Weekly Meal Planner or from one or more recipes.

• Store and manage all your cooking notes.

• Organize your collection with SmartLists.

• Plan a meal using the Cupboard find or Potluck find features.

There are a few things about the software that I don't care for, like the inability to customize the layout before creating PDF files, or to customize the preparation, course or categories lists (I'd like to add courses, equipment and categories) and the limited "help" files, but it's definitely miles above my current system of throwing my recipes in a ring binder or in a drawer in the kitchen. Plus, the "Clippings" feature, which allows you to go to any website, select the recipe and import it into the recipe editor, is simply killer and in itself is worth the $44.95 purchase price (you can only do five clippings per session with the trial version). This feature only works with Safari, Camino and Opera web browsers.

When I've entered all of my favorite recipes, I'll print them on cardstock, laminate them, and put them together with a single binder ring. They can even be color-coded according to category, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Kids' Recipes, etc. I have a few recipes like this from years ago and they've held up perfectly.

I also plan to create a cookbook which can then be sent to self-publishing services like Lulu, CreateSpace and CafePress and then given as gifts to friends and family.

If you have a Mac, you really must give MacGourmet Deluxe a try.

My Current Obsession: The Splendid Table

When my new iPod Touch arrived in all of its glory, one of the first things I did was take the advice of my college-age daughter--I packed my pod with podcasts from every source I could think of. One of the great gifts that fell into my favor is The Splendid Table, an American Public Media program described as "the show for people who love to eat," and indeed it is. One listen to TST and I was hooked, making my way through the archives at lightning speed while folding laundry, driving in my car, or walking on the trail. TST features fascinating segments on all things food, whether it's the locavore movement, the food scene in Moscow, eating to increase your longevity, improvising dishes, or roadside diners along The Mother Road, Route 66, the potential for learning and bringing something new and lasting to your own table is practially bottomless. Even the philosophy that comes from TST is astounding, and I often find myself nodding my head in agreement when I hear guests spouting wisdom, such as this tidbit by Neal Rosenthal, wine merchant and author of the book Reflections of a Wine Merchant:

"We passed through a period of a decade or so where people gave up their right to choose. We became a bit slavishly entrapped in a media process which is to say that people would give over their choice of selecting to things that were praised in the press, but I sense there's a revival of all things artisan.We appreciate what values this brings to our life and our culture."

This bit of wisdom was in reference to consumers' wine choices, but it could be applied to all foods. We, as an American culture, are in danger of allowing mega-stores to make our food choices for us. One look at a natural foods distributor's catalog and we begin to see what foods we're missing, what we won't find at our local Everything*Mart chain. Things like Greek yogurt, heirloom tomatoes, truly artisan breads and cheeses, high-quality baking products, fair trade chocolates and beverages are not available in these places, and if they are, their quality will likely diminish, their power to choose their growing practices decrease, and the cost of transporting will continue to rise. And once they're the only guy on the block, what they choose will become what we choose, and our local farmers, dairy producers, bakeries, winemakers, and orchards will suffer and, eventually, disappear. We will shop ourselves right out of our choices, and right out of our unique communities.

And if you think this isn't important, think about this piece of information by Dan Buetter, author of The Blue Zones, Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest, also a guest on TST.

"Food plays about 25-30% of longevity. All of the longest-living people eat mostly plants. Gardening is an ideal longevity activity because it reduces stress, uses the range of motion, and you emerge with organic vegetables. Having a sense of purpose, to know why you wake up in the morning, you're going to eat better food, exercise, and be more engaged with the world."

What we choose to eat, how we grow it, how we harvest it, and how we feel about our purpose in life are three major contributors to living a long and healthy life. Do we feel a sense of purpose by buying our foods from a mega-store shelf? Do we contribute to the sense of purpose of others by purchasing items that are not fairly produced? Do we have a first-hand (literally) part in producing our own foods straight from our garden, which increases our physical health in multiple ways, from getting fresh air, gentle stretching, contact with the earth, and receiving the ultimate in fresh foods?

But there is more than food philosophy on TST. They bring practical tips to the table, too. Recipes and cooking tips abound. Just listening to charming host Lynne Rossetto Kasper's ideas on improvisation has inspired me to step outside of my cookbook-bound comfort zone to create dishes that rely on what I have in my garden and in my community. Here's a spin on Lynne's suggestion for a potted chicken, as given on the August 1st show in response to a call-in guest's request for suggestions for a braid of garlic.

Potted Chicken

1 locally-raised, free-range (preferably organic) roasting chicken
6-10 whole heads of garlic, rinsed, cut in half side-to-side (giving a cross-section look). Remove any loose papery skin, but leave heads as much intact as possible
4 large lemons
4 large onions, sliced
olive oil
kosher salt
fresh-ground pepper
fresh sprigs of rosemary
heaps of baby carrots or cleaned carrots cut into small chunks
handfuls of chunked potatoes, either Yukon Gold or red-skinned potatoes

In a dutch oven, lay the sliced onions and 4 of the cut heads of garlic. Salt and pepper the chicken very generously inside and out. Remove the rind from the lemons and cut them in half, or scoop out the lemon pulp. Stuff the chicken with the lemon pulp, several more of the heads of garlic, more onion, and then sprinkle in more salt and pepper and a few sprigs of rosemary.

Top the whole thing with as many heads of garlic, slices of onion and sprigs of rosemary as you like. Tuck as many carrots and potatoes as you would like or can fit around and on top of the chicken. Sprinkle with more salt and pepper and more rosemary sprigs. Drizzle with olive oil.

Bake, covered, in a 350 degree F oven for about 3 hours. The chicken will literally fall off of the bone. Dig the garlic heads out, scoop the buttery-soft garlic out of the skins and spread on the chicken or on pieces of crusty bread, like the No-Knead Rosemary Bread or Genovese Basil Bread. Serve the carrots and potatoes on the side. When you've finished the meal, separate the chicken from the bones and skin and use it later for delicious chicken salad. Transfer all of the garlic pulp, juices and soft onions to another container and use it for a stock base or a fabulous gravy for your next batch of mashed potatoes. If you're lucky enough to live on a farm, feed all of the bones and skin to your pig, which you'll eat later!

And be sure to check out The Splendid Table. You'll thank me.

No-Knead Bread--The Trend Makes It to the Sticks

After church this morning, I walked up to my friend Susan to ask if she'd be interested in splitting a case of bread flour through our church co-op, and she asked me if I'd tried the No-Knead bread recipe. My jaw dropped. How had she known? Just the day before, I'd finished serving the last bits of my first No-Knead Bread venture, and it was definitely a big hit. "It's making its rounds," she said. Well, yeah, but why did it take me so long to find out about it?

The No-Knead bread recipe was first published in the New York Times, and republished everywhere (many people feared they'd take away the link or start charging for it). There have been corrections, updates and adaptations everywhere, including the Almost No-Knead Bread Recipe put out by Cook's Illustrated, which includes many variations--The Olive, Rosemary, Parmesan looks the most appealing to me, but you have to have a subscription to see the recipe. It appears that the first printing of the NYT version had a misprint, that there should be only a cup and a half of water, not one and 5/8 (who has a 5/8 measuring cup, anyway?) and I wondered, too, if the water had to be warm, or room temp, or did it even matter? As if that's not enough, there seems to be some debate about the definition of "instant" yeast. I used what I normally use, SAF-instant yeast, which I buy at a local bulk food store or through our co-op.

So, even with my minimal knowledge of the recipe, and my moderate amount of bread-baking experience, the final product was a great success.

This definitely qualifies as a recipe that takes time, but time is really all it takes. Everything else is buttah, as easy as...well, as easy as no-knead bread. Mix this up right before dinner, and you'll be ready to make it the next day for lunch. The only special equipment needed is a dutch oven, though it can be any kind of dutch oven--cast iron, ceramic, Pyrex, enamel--and cotton cloths.

So take some time, and make some bread.

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No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1 1/2 hours plus 14 to 20 hours' rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1.5 cups warm water
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1.5 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest for 18 hours (yes, 18...12 will work, but 18 is the best), at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1 1/2-pound loaf.

My Current Obsession: Greek Yogurt!

I recently started a food buying club at our church, and I've already found it to be worth it.

One of the ladies there ordered some Greek Yogurt, and I decided to give it a try. I wasn't sure if about it at first, because I'm a big fan of Stonyfield Farm's Whole Milk Yogurt, but I was willing to give it a shot after my friend's glowing review.

She had described it as almost like the kind of yogurt you get when you strain plain yogurt through a cheesecloth. She was right, but the taste of the plain Greek yogurt is more like tangy sour cream. As a matter of fact, that's how I've been using the plain--like sour cream. We've used it for dipping homemade potato chips, for a replacement for sour cream in cheesecakes, in muffin recipes, and every morning in our scrambled eggs.

For years, I've made scrambled eggs with a couple dollops of sour cream added during the beating process. Last week, I decided to give the Greek yogurt a shot, and the recipe got rave reviews. It adds just a hint of tang and creaminess to the eggs, but the most important thing is that it makes the eggs light and fluffy, and they retain the moisture and warmth much longer.

Here's how it's done...

Scrambled Eggs with Greek Yogurt

6 farm-fresh free-range eggs (if you can get them)
a handful of garden-fresh chives, chopped
2 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt (the brand I've been using is The Greek Gods)
A dash of salt
A dash of pepper

Beat the eggs, and then add the chives, yogurt, salt and pepper. You can also toss in just a smidgen (maybe 2 teaspoons) of fresh chopped tarragon.

Heat a cast-iron skillet (or other skillet) and melt a tablespoon of butter, swirling it around to cover the bottom of the pan.

Pour the eggs into the pan and cook over medium heat, scraping the bottom of the pan to make sure the eggs don't stick.

Cook until the eggs are all soft and fluffy.

Serve immediately with English muffins or toast.

You can add the greek yogurt to your other egg dishes, too, like fritattas or omelets.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

My Current Obsession: Concord Grapes

In my endeavor to eat as locally as possible this year, I've been searching out local growers of foods that can be processed and preserved for eating throughout the winter. Finding local tomatoes was a cinch. Finding local peaches was a bit more of a challenge, but it could be done. Finding local apples isn't a problem at all. And then I started thinking about grapes. I remember as a child seeing grape vines in all of the neighbor's yards, but I haven't seen grapes offered at the farmers' markets. Grapes! A staple! A standard! Whose grandmother didn't make grape jelly thirty years ago?!?

So I started inquiring of my friends who all said that they just buy their grape juices, jams and jellies and don't bother with the mess. While I do have access to a local manufacturer of jellies and jams that don't contain high fructose corn syrup, I don't know where the fruit comes from. I kind of doubt that it's exclusively locally-grown. It's not that we wouldn't eat things that weren't local, but I felt pretty sure I could find someone who could point me to some locally-grown grapes.

After thinking about it for a while, I remembered a former co-worker who'd mentioned that she and her husband had a vineyard of Concord grapes. I stopped by her office and she took me to the kitchen where she had some vine-ripened grapes just waiting to be tasted. We set a time for me to do some picking.

What a fabulous way to start the Labor Day weekend. A beautiful day and a beautiful drive through the countryside, Natalie Merchant on the tape player (thrift store find--25 cents), my husband by my side and the three youngest children tagging along--who could ask for more?

But we were given more.

Have you ever seen 2,000 grape vines up close? When Kathy lead us to the vineyard, I was overwhelmed by the abundance! Grapes hung in pregnant clusters under twining vines and protective leaves. Armed with half-bushel boxes and clippers, Kathy, Bo, eight-year-old Sweetheart and I started harvesting. After about an hour of picking, we'd filled eight half-bushel boxes. And we'd only moved about ten feet down the first row. Kathy told us that the big Concord harvest will take place on Saturday, and they'll have less than a dozen people doing all the work.

A sun-warmed grape is a beautiful thing, and these grapes were breathtaking. I was tempted to crawl under the vines and stretch out on my back, just staring up at the full and perfect light-bathed fruit. But even a beautiful thing has its limits. One can only eat so many fresh Concord grapes (and I did eat so may fresh Concord grapes), and I wasn't about to down four bushels. The plan was to make juice and maybe a couple of jars of jam or jelly. With my new toy and a special grape seed spiral for my new toy, I planned to turn out quart after quart of delicious grape juice concentrate.

And then, a serendipitous moment arose. Just after our grape-picking venture, we headed for our friend Sara's house for a hot-dog roast. When I told her what we'd done with our day, she said, "Then you have to see what I have!" She led me to the basement, to rows of purple liquid in quart Ball jars, beside which stood a gleaming, stainless steel Norpro Krona Steamer. Sara beamed, "Just put water in the bottom, grapes in the basket, and the juice comes out the tube, straight into your scalded canning jars! Wanna borrow it?"

Did I ever!

Watching the steamer at work was a lesson in appreciating the simple things. Basically, the steamer works like a double-boiler with a steamer basket on the top and a clear lid over that. You wash the grapes, drop them into the basket (the instructions say that you don't even have to remove the stems, but we did), and boil the water until the steam extracts the juice from the grapes. Within about forty minutes, light-purple juice appears in a clear tube that's held closed by a clamp at the end. When the juice is ready, about an hour after you begin steaming, the grapes look pale and slightly empty. Open the clamp, empty the juice into a prepared, sterile, hot quart-sized jar leaving 1/4 inch headspace, wipe the rim, top with a two-part lid, hand-tighten and then process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes. Set the jars in a draft-free place and listen for that satisfying "POP!" that means the lids have sealed properly.

We saved a bit of the juice out, of course, and found that we could use about one part juice to two parts water, a bit of sugar to taste, to have a very delicious drink.

The pulp that was left in the top of the steamer looked like it still had some use, so we put it through the Roma strainer and ended up with a very substantial puree. I added some sugar, froze a bit of it and then brought the rest to a boil, poured it into prepared quart jars and boiling-water bathed them for 15 minutes. That grape puree will be used to flavor vanilla yogurt, will be poured on pancakes, and might even find its way into a batch of ice cream.

I was thankful for my husband's help and companionship in the kitchen as the grapes were being processed. I asked him what he thought he'd be doing with his Labor day weekend if he weren't married (certainly not canning grape juice, I thought), and he wasn't really sure. A camping trip, maybe. Something outdoorsy. "What would you be doing?" he asked me. I thought about it for a moment, and then realized with a giggle that I probably WOULD be canning grape juice. It's just part of who I am, what I love to do, what inspires me. It's a beautiful thing to see those multi-colored jewels marching along the fruit-cellar shelves, promising sustenance long into the winter. When a child complains because he's come to the bottom of the jar of home-made applesauce (when he'd never TOUCH the commercial version) or proclaims the grape juice better than store-bought, it's just icing on the cake.

Tomorrow, a bit about butter--apple butter, that is.

Fettucine with Carmelized Onions and White Wine Sauce and A New Kitchen Tool

There are times when chaos rules all around me and I just don't care. Today was one of those days.

We'd just returned from morning service at church and I'd decided to experiment with a new pasta and a couple of sauces. The kitchen was still in a state of limited functionality after my previous day's venture into cleaning the spice drawer and reorganizing the pantry and cupboards. Everything hadn't been put back into place yet, but I didn't care. A clean washcloth to make a clear surface on my butcher block, my food processor and a couple of pots and pans were all I needed. Everything else could tumble down around me.

And it practically did.

Kids were tracking snow through the house. Other kids were scattering toys. Other kids were playing board games on the floor of the piano room. There was delightful chaos everywhere, and I was embracing it.

After sixteen-year-old Bard finished the Simple Hot Cocoa, I enlisted her help to make the two sauces I'd be tossing the fresh egg noodles in. She did all of it but chop the onions. The food processor did that.

She even used the best cheese grater in the world to turn a block of Pecorino into a bowl of light, fluffy flakes. If you regularly grate hard cheeses, the Microplane Classic Zester/Grater is the only way to go. It runs about $13.00 at the MegaKitchenType store and is totally worth it. Microplane originally began as a woodworking tool until the wife of a hardware salesman picked up a rasp to zest an orange for a cake after her other zesters just didn't cut it. She was pleasantly surprised by the results and made the Microplane Grater a regular kitchen tool. After trying rotary cheese graters and not being impressed, I'm thrilled to have added the Microplane to my list of favorite kitchen tools. I hope to soon add the Medium Ribbon Grater for soft cheeses, butters, chocolates and apples. It may even give my Cuisinart a run for its money!

Both of the sauces were good, but the one that follows was delicious and proved the favorite of my seven testers. I'm not sure it was quite enough sauce for one pound of fresh egg noodles, and I did have to add some cream during the last stage, but it was still quite tasty. It even stopped the chaos long enough for the masses to be fed.

It takes a good bit of time to make fresh egg pasta, so be sure to set aside an hour for a pound and another twenty minutes or more for the sauce, depending on how quickly your onions brown.

For a bit of variation, try browning a 1/2 pound of bacon, removing the bacon and leaving 1/4 cup of grease, omitting the olive oil and browning the onions in the bacon grease instead. Continue with the recipe from there.

For best results, serve the pasta in warmed bowls. It loses heat fairly quickly.

Enjoy!

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After making your egg pasta into one pound of fettucine, bring four quarts of water to a boil.

Grate 1/2 cup of Pecorino Romano very fine, maybe a bit more if you like to sprinkle the cheese on top of your pasta. Maybe even more, because you must sample it after you've grated it. It's just too light and fluffy to resist. Don't use pre-grated. It doesn't melt as nicely. It's better to just invest in a good grater and buy fresh wedges of cheese. Often, the pregrated cheeses are of lower quality and have anti-caking agents and other preservatives added to them. If you can't find the Pecorino Romano, you can substitute a good-quality parmesan, like Parmigiano Reggiano but you still need to fresh-grate it.

While the water is boiling and the egg pasta is resting, chop four onions very fine.

Heat 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil in a saucepan that will be big enough to accomodate the noodles and the sauce. Saute the onions in the oil (or use the bacon variation suggested above) until well browned but not black.

When the onions are just about done, add two cloves of minced garlic and saute until onions are finished and garlic is lightly sauted.

Turn the heat up to medium and add 1/2 cup of white wine. Bring this to a simmer and make sure all of the onion bits are scraped off the bottom of the pan. Simmer it for about three minutes.

Add 1/4 cup of heavy cream to the pan and heat just until warm. Taste it and add salt to taste.

When your water comes to a boil, add one tablespoon of salt, then add your egg noodles. Cook them just until al dente, then quickly drain them and add them to the sauce, along with the 1/2 cup grated cheese.

Serve it warm with some more cheese on the side. A nice dish of steamed broccoli would go really well with this.

It will be worth the chaos, I assure you. Dishes, after all, can wait until tomorrow.

Fresh Egg Pasta with Alfredo Sauce

Just as with the egg pasta, the alfredo sauce is beautiful because of the few ingredients it requires. Heavy cream, unsalted butter, salt, Parmesan cheese, pepper and nutmeg. The result of combining these ingredients with fresh egg pasta is divine. Serve this as an appetizer, because it's so rich, and you'll have enough for 4-6 people. If you want to make a full meal of it, better double it.

The real keys to richness and thickness are to use cream that has not been ultra-pasteurized, to use really good, fresh-grated parmesan cheese (the pre-grated stuff has stuff added that makes it lumpy and isn't fresh enough to melt properly), and to cook the pasta to al dente before adding it to the sauce and then completing the sauce and the cooking of the noodles. These tips come from The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles by Cook's Illustrated, a fabulous source for pasta and sauce recipes, hints, tips and step-by-step instructions.

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Fresh Egg Pasta with Alfredo Sauce

1 2/3 cups heavy cream, preferably not ultra-pasteurized
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
Salt
1 Pound fresh Egg Pasta cut into tagliatelle
1 cup high-quality Parmesan cheese (I used Parmigiano Reggiano)
Ground white pepper
Pinch ground nutmeg

Bring four quarts of water to a boil.

Combine 1 1/3 cups cream and the butter in a pan big enough to hold both the sauce and the pasta. Heat over low until the butter is melted and the cream just begins to come to a simmer. Turn off the heat and set aside.

When the water comes to a boil, add one tablespoon of salt and add the pasta. Cook until almost al dente, drain it, and then add it to the sauce.

Add your last 1/3 cup of cream, the grated cheese, salt to taste, white pepper to taste (you can use black pepper, but the white pepper leaves the sauce white), and a pinch of freshly-grated nutmeg (which isn't necessary, but my tasters really love it).

Cook over very low heat, toss to combine ingredients, and watch carefully until the sauce is slightly thickened, a couple of minutes.

Divide among 6 warmed bowls and serve hot!

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The Pasta Experience

As part of my current obsession of making my own pasta dishes, I recently acquired an Imperia pasta machine which arrived on Saturday. Sunday, I promised, would be the day to make our first home-made pasta.

The beauty of pasta is that it requires only two ingredient: flour and eggs. How much more basic can you get than that? The time element to making your own pasta is in the actual rolling and cutting of the dough into noodles. Having a pasta machine is very helpful for this process. While you can make noodles without a machine, using a rolling pin and knives or rolling cutters, the pasta machine makes it much easier. The dough is rolled very, very thin, to the point where you can see the silhouette of your hand through the rolled dough.

You can get more fancy with the ingredients than just the flour and eggs, but it's not necessary. Still, I hope to experiment with some other recipes and techniques, and I'll pass those outcomes on to you as I find them.

The first experiment in The Pasta Experience was to make tagliatelle with alfredo sauce. It took us a long time to make the whole dish, from start to finish. I think the total time was about two hours, and some of that time was spent figuring out how to work the machine and exactly what the dough should feel like. Actually rolling the dough through the machine was not hard at all. My best cooks, which are my two sons, jumped right in to help, and my older son, who is 15, ended up finishing the noodles while I started the sauce. Having an extra hand helps. Even the three year old got into the act, turning the handle to produce long tendrils of fresh noodles. This is a very fun family activity. Make a few appetizers to stave off hunger, whip up your dough, and start rolling! Better than television any day.

So turn off that one-eyed monster. It's time to cook!

Are you ready? Here we go!

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We'll begin with an easy-way-out method, and that's using a food processor to make the dough. If you don't have a food processor, keep your eyes peeled because we'll experiment with hand-mixing the dough.

2 cups of all-purpose flour
3 large eggs, beaten

Ingredients should be at room-temperature before you start, so if you keep your flour in the freezer, like I do, be sure to let it warm up before starting. Start with very fresh eggs, too.

Put your flour in the work-bowl of the food processor, fitted with the steel blade. Pulse it a few times to get the flour all nice and fluffy.

Add the eggs and process the eggs and flour together for about thirty seconds. After thirty seconds, you should see the dough form a rough ball. If it really sticks to the sides of the work bowl, add a bit more flour, little by little, until you get a moist, cohesive dough. On the other hand, if it's too dry and looks like crumbles, add water 1/2 teaspoon at a time until you get the right consistency.

Put the whole mass, including any crumbs or chunks or un-mixed egg, onto a clean work surface and start kneading. It'll be a little tough, not like bread dough, so you're basically just going to keep folding and turning and folding and turning until you get a nice, smooth dough.

Put the dough into a zip-type bag and let it rest anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours at room temperature.

Divide the dough into about six or eight pieces, take one out, and put the others back in the baggie. Flatten your piece a bit and lightly coat it with flour on both sides.

If you haven't used your pasta machine before, you'll want to throw this piece out after you run it through. I had to throw out two pieces before the pasta machine ran the dough clean. This is a good chance to experiment with the dough and the pasta machine, so have fun with it.

When it's time to run your first real piece of dough through the machine, start it on the lowest number, which is the widest setting. Fold the dough ends so that the meet in the middle, and then put the piece through the machine again on the widest setting, feeding the open end of the dough through first (not the folded end, but the other end). Run it through the widest setting again, getting a nice, smooth dough. Remember to use flour when the dough gets sticky, but not too much so that you make a tough dough.

Now, each time you run the dough through, narrow the setting until you've run the pasta through the narrowest setting and your dough is very, very thin.

At this point, if the dough is stable enough, you can run the pasta through the cutter attachment. If you want to make all of your dough sheets first and then cut them, stack your sheets of dough between layers of moist, clean kitchen towels. If the dough seems too sticky to cut, let it rest a few minutes before you cut it.

After the dough has been cut, hang it on a rack to dry for about fifteen minutes to cure before boiling it. You can leave the noodles out for up to two hours before cooking, if you need to.

Then, you're ready to make your pasta and sauce!

For excellent instructions with photos and illustrations, see The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles by Cook's Illustrated and The Pasta Bible by Jeni Wright. Check your local library for other books on pasta, pasta-making and sauce.

Up next, Fresh Egg Noodles with Alfredo Sauce.

Pasta Success!

Today, we christened the pasta machine and turned out two pounds of eggs-ellent egg pasta, tagliatelle-style. We cooked it up with a nice, creamy alfredo and all of my testers devoured it gladly. It was thumbs up from them! One tester rated it above the local authentic Italian restaurant.

Sound delicious? You can do it, too!

Stay tuned here tomorrow for details and recipes for today's dish, and join me for the next couple of weeks as I experiment with different pasta recipes, techniques and sauces!

It's here!

Finally, my pasta maker has arrived! Believe it or not, after all of this waiting, I'm now feeling intimidated by this hunk of metal sitting on my kitchen table.

But I shall not be deterred. Fresh pasta tomorrow, I tell you.

In Today's Bookbag: Pasta Books

Now, let's veer back to my current obsession--pasta--just long enough to drool over these two books I brought home in today's library bookbag. I can't go into depth with them, because my pasta maker has still not arrived (this is now Day Five of my wait. Sigh), so I only tortured myself with the stacks and stacks of Italian cookbooks long enough to determine that I must own these two books:

This one truly is a bible of pasta knowledge. It covers all of the different types of pastas-- fresh, dried, designer pastas, shaped pastas--as well as instructions on how to make, cook and serve pasta, what wines to serve with your pasta, creating striped and silhouette pasta, sections on herbs and seasonings to have on hand, oils and vinegars, tomatoes and cheeses. And, of course, there are tons of recipes--over 150--for soups, salads, sauces and baked dishes. Be sure to look for The Pasta Bible by Jeni Wright if you've found pasta to be your current obsession, too.

The Williams-Sonoma book, Mastering Pasta, Noodles & Dumplings includes, as expected, lots of gorgeous pictures, recipes for basic and flavored pastas, and step-by-step instructions on pasta making, accompanied by plenty of photographs. While I haven't made any of the recipes in the book yet, it sure is delicious eye-candy!

Enough torture. As soon as that pasta maker arrives, we'll be revisiting these books for recipes and inspiration.

I'm the proud owner of an Imperia 150!

It was a close one, but I won the bid in the last six seconds.

My husband and I danced around the room when I won.

I'll be watching the ol' lane for the delivery man to bring my new pasta maker straight to my door, and for $20 less than the one at the specialty shop.

And then? Pasta time!

Pasta Maker Quest

After reading several books on pasta and doing some searching on the web, I determined that there are generally two hand-crank pasta makers that are the best, the Atlas and the Imperia. So this week, as an anniversary gift from my husband, we went on a quest for a pasta maker.

Now, that might sound grammatically incorrect, like the quest was the anniversary gift. But there is no error in grammar here. Truly, the quest was all we ended up with. So far.

Together with my long-suffering husband, I searched EIGHT kitchen supply stores or stores that featured very large kitchen departments, including one home/kitchen/bath supply mega store, one department store, one kitchen appliance store, one specialty imports store, two high-end discount stores, and two small kitchen specialty shops.

Ironically, it was at the second small kitchen specialty shop, just fifteen minutes from my very rural country home, that I found not one, but three brands of pasta makers in several different package choices. Unfortunately, they were all about twenty dollars higher than I had found them to be suggested during my online searches.

I really struggled with this, standing in the aisle debating about whether to buy one immediately for the higher price and have pasta steaming on the table by dinnertime, or go home and do some online shopping where shipping might negate the savings and I'd have to wait a week.

While staring googly-eyed at the choices and trying to make a decision, another more seasoned couple entered the pasta-maker zone. They hadn't done much research, they said, but the did have an electric pasta maker, and it wasn't worth a darn, they said, so they wanted a hand-crank (this confirmed what I'd read about the bread-machine-like pasta machines). They did know, however, that the Imperia brand, the one I was leaning very heavily towards, was the one they'd heard was the best.

My husband and I determined to buy the model I thought I wanted--the Imperia with just one cutter for $59.99--try it, and return it if it didn't work the way I had hoped. Unfortunately, the store had a no-return policy on items that had been used, which is perfectly understandable but didn't help my decision too much.

Then again, I suppose it did.

I decided that, since these pasta makers were just minutes from my home, I would go home and do some more research and return if I found that I couldn't purchase these more reasonably online. Part of me feels badly about doing this; I should support local businesses--especially ones that carry otherwise hard-to-find items. Part of me feels badly about the idea of spending an extra $20 on something when that money could be better spent.

Eventually, my husband found a variety of both makes of pasta makers on eBay and we're currently watching several of them. The prices for them this way were decidedly cheaper--along the lines of thirty dollars cheaper, including shipping.

So I guess I have to wait.

After all, this cooking blog is about slowing down, isn't it?

My Current Obsession: Pasta

My current obsession is fresh pasta.

About six months ago, my sons made fresh egg pasta as a science project, and I was completely blown away by the difference. I've had what was called "fresh" pasta at finer restaurants, but there was simply no comparison between those and the ribbons of thick, delicious, flavorful pasta my sons turned out that day. We topped it with a simple alfredo, and it was fabulous.

So, I have been reading extensively about fresh pastas and homemade sauces, different types of cheeses and cheese graters, and searching both local stores and online sources for a hand-crank pasta cutter.

The two top recommended types of pasta cutters are the Atlas and the Imperia. Reviewers say that the Atlas is the best, most stable and easiest pasta cutter they've ever used. Cook's Illustrated says that either can be difficult to find in kitchen or retail stores, so to buy whichever one you find; they both cost around $40 each and don't seem to have any distiguishable differences that would set them apart from each other. If you have a different opinion, be sure to let me know.

The one thing I really like about the idea of a pasta cutter is that you never need to clean it. Okay, maybe that's a bit of a hyperbole. You do need to clean it, but only with a soft cloth and a little dry brushing. It's not to touch soap and water.

To journey along with me on my quest for s-l-o-o-w-w pasta, check out The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles from the Cook's Illustrated folks. I have recently fallen in love with Cook's Illustrated, and if you are just getting into real cooking and want to learn more, you should, too.

In the days and weeks to come, I'll be experimenting with fresh pasta, different recipes, different ways of cutting it and different shapes, different ways of preparing it and different sauces to combine with it.

If you have experience with fresh pasta, pasta cutters or makers, sauces or other pasta-related information, share 'em in the comments.