One thing I don’t emphasize enough on this blog is my love for cooking.  I would be lying if I said that I didn’t love eating out, but the more I learn to make meals the way I like them the less I enjoy eating out at places unless they have something really special that I am looking for.  My style of cooking is a little different, because I enjoy throwing a bunch of different things together, measuring be damned, and hope it turns out good.  This is how I’ve always went about the process, and I’ve learned a lot more because of it.  Rarely do I ever follow recipes exactly how they are written.   I always like to change things and add my own ingredients.  This is what makes it fun for me.

I cooked a big dinner the other night which consisted of some of my favorites.  I felt the need to share.  Maybe next time I’ll try to write down a recipe.  Until then, enjoy the pictures.

The dinner started off with an appetizer plate consisting of garlic stuffed olives, grape leaves, artichoke hearts, and a feta spread.  The plate is drizzled with a pureed combination of garlic, olive oil, and red pepper.  This is how we do fancy over here.

One of my favorite things to make is baked potato soup.  Why?  Well, to be completely honest because it’s nearly impossible to screw it up.  You can throw almost anything into the pot, taste it, and if it needs more of something you just throw it in.  Cheese?  Great.  Broccoli?  Throw some in.  Sour cream?  As much as you like.  Chili beans?  That’s kinda weird, but sure.  It’s like an pot of imagination soup.  Oh, and I forgot the best part.  The most integral part of any baked potato soup is bacon.

My baked potato soup starts with the most delicious smelling combination in the entire world.  Sauteed onions and garlic.  Keep this a secret, but I have plans to turn this smell into a candle and market it nationwide.  From there I pour in some chicken stock, whole milk, a little flour, and 3-4 potatoes with a dash of salt and a good amount of pepper.  I let this boil until the potatoes are soft, then I let my immersion blender go to work.  I’m not a big fan of completely pureeing potato soup because I like a few chunks of potatoes in my bowl.  After the blending, in goes some crispy bacon, green onions, and whatever kind of cheese you like.  I stick with either Romano and/or cheddar.

This particular night I attempted to make a salad.  If you’re a regular reader you probably know that I’m not much of a salad guy.  Just never saw the point.  For some reason I decided that I was going to try and make a salad that I could enjoy.  The ingredients pretty much ruined the entire point of a green side dish, but I made a salad.  Give me some credit here.  My best idea for a salad that I could eat ended up being a buffalo chicken salad.  This consisted of baby Romain lettuce, Frank’s red hot mixed with ranch dressing, buffalo style chicken, and crumbled bleu cheese.  This turned out to be pretty tasty.  If I’m going to eat salad, this is what I’m going to require from now on.

Since a hearty soup and salad just weren’t enough, I made a main course for some reason.  I mixed up some ricotta and Romano cheeses with chopped spinach, pancetta, and some random Italian spices, and stuffed them inside of some Manicotti shells.  I poured some Bove’s roasted garlic marinara sauce over top, and left them in the oven on 350 for about 15 minutes.  If you’re ever looking for a quick dinner, this is perfection.

I understand this might be the most random combination of foods you have ever seen, but it was a fun dinner.  The tastes didn’t exactly go together, but who really cares?  The food was delicious, and everyone was full at the end of the night.  Until the next time I undertake a cooking endeavor such a this, I bid you good eating.  Damnit, that sounded too much like Alton Brown.

For the longest time I’ve heard that fresh pasta will make you never want to eat boxed pasta ever again.  Once you have the ability to make fresh pasta it makes the meal, not the sauce that covers it.  I clearly recall Mario Batali saying that the sauce is simply an accompaniment to the real star of the dish, which is the pasta.  In my extensive pasta eating past, the pasta has always been like an edible plate for the sauce covering it.  Who really cares what it tastes like as long as I have a delicious marinara, vodka, or alfredo sauce covering it?

Well, Christmas time came and an Imperia pasta maker ended up under my tree.   Time to end these years of breaking dry sticks of Kroger brand pasta and boiling them into submission.  My kitchen was to be transformed from a cramped apartment kitchen into a cucina.  That’s Italian for kitchen, by the way.  I looked it up.  In my mind, I felt like this was going to be a fairly simple task.  Mix some eggs and flour with a few ingredients to add a little taste and we’ll be eating like the Corleones in no time.  I was wrong.

Little did I know, making fresh pasta is a process.  You can’t just make up dough, send it through the pasta maker, and invite Giorgio Napolitano over for dinner.  He’s the president of Italy by the way.  I looked that up too.  Making pasta takes a few times to perfect.  That is, I hope it only takes a few times.  My first time was a complete failure.  For some reason, I feel the need to share this failure with you.

To start off, I dumped three cups of flour on my clean kitchen counter.  The initial pile made me look like I was Scarface in the kitchen or something.  I was tempted to dump my face into it, but thought better of it.  My Mother always said my biggest problem was always not thinking before I act.  I am proud to say that I now have that problem under control.  There will be no Tony Montana flour face pictures in this post.

Say hello to the bad guy!

Before my roommates starting thinking I had a problem, I turned this white pile into an egg volcano.  The middle of the pile needs to have have a hole in the middle to fit four eggs, and then patted down so the eggs are enclosed in the middle and not seeping into the outsides.  Kind of like an egg pocket.

After I had my eggs in the middle I added a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil, and it was time to swirl them around with a fork, gradually mixing the egg with the flour.  I guess this is supposed to be the hard part because you need to be able to judge how much of each ingredient you need until you have the perfect dough.  This comes with experience because the wrong amount of either ingredient can completely ruin your dough.  My guess is that this ended up being my downfall.  At the time, I was thinking how easy this was and began using an accent when saying only certain Italian words, just like Giada(spaGHEEti).  It was getting out of control.  As you can see, my confidence was unjustified.  What a mess.

The dough began to come together and after a while the fork becomes useless.  It came time to use the most universal tool in the kitchen:  My hands.  The dough needs to be kneaded as much as possible, so there came a point when I was sitting in the living room kneading it while watching TV.  This is a rough process.  More flour needs to be added while the dough constantly sticks to your hands.  This also requires experience on knowing how much of each needs to be added.  I simply kept adding flour until the dough wasn’t completely stuck to my hands.

There came a point in the mixing process where I thought I had completely ruined the dough.  It wouldn’t stop sticking to my hands and I kept adding flour.  After a while I finally came to a point where I felt that the mixture was perfect.  It was still a little sticky, but was firm enough to send through the pasta maker and not fall apart.  After completing this I wrapped my ball of dough in some plastic wrap, which is one of the greatest inventions ever, and left it in the refrigerator for about 45 mins.

After the dough had its chill time, it was time to flatten it out.  My pasta maker has 10 different “thickness” settings, so I decided to run it through a few times starting at 10, gradually moving it down to 1.  This would continue the kneading process and ensure that we have nice, strong dough to cut into noodles.

Which ever process I did incorrectly is a mystery to me, but the pasta was terrible.  In fact, it never reached a stage where it could be classified as pasta.  It was was just flat dough with holes in.  A Swiss cheese style dough, if you will.

For a while the process was looking OK, aside from the holes in the dough.  When I felt the dough was ready to be cut into noodles, it felt the need to laugh in my face.  This dough had a lifelong dream of becoming trash dough rather than noodles.  That’s exactly what happened.

I may have failed this time, but I will not let it end my dream of having fresh pasta hanging everywhere in my kitchen.  One day I will have a chandelier and there will be pasta hanging from it.  I am going for attempt number two very soon, and I promise you will hear the results.

]]> http://www.epicportions.com/2010/01/07/fresh-pasta-failure/feed/ 10 http://www.epicportions.com/2009/12/21/early-christmas-present/ http://www.epicportions.com/2009/12/21/early-christmas-present/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:08:59 +0000 John http://www.epicportions.com/?p=3031

Upon browsing through what may be my new favorite blog, I found what may be the downfall of this diet of mine.  This needs to be made at my household, and unfortunately I may need to invite some meat eaters over to help crush it.  Feast your eyes on the Timpano, and visit The Food in my Beard for cooking instructions.

Just a quick play by play.. From the top that’s pasta with alfredo sauce, pasta with marinara, italian sausage, mozzarella sticks and meat balls mixed in, and chicken parm on the bottom.  All that deliciousness is surrounded in a puff pastry.  Sweet jesus.

Amidst all this fast food and competitive eating information I’m putting up here, I thought I would post documentation of ME actually cooking!   Yes, I do cook.  Just the other day I threw together this beautiful dish:

Breaded chicken topped with pancetta and cheese
Red pepper and cream pasta
Garlic Bread

This is the first time I’ve ever made a pasta sauce using red bell peppers.  Here’s the recipe I used..

Ingredients

• 3 red bell peppers
• 1/2 onion – diced
• 4 cloves garlic (more if you’re like me and love garlic)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 – 1lb heavy pasta

Directions

• Roast your red peppers until the skins are black.  When you’re done, they should look like this:

• Place red peppers in a sealed zip lock bag and allow them to sweat for 10-15 mins.
• Take peppers out of bag, remove skins, stem and seeds.
• In a blender, puree the red peppers.
• In a pan, saute onions and garlic in olive oil.  After slightly browned, add pepper puree.
• Add cream and stir together.  Let it sit and cook for a few minutes.  Add salt to taste.
• Add pasta and stir together.  Top with shaved Parmesan cheese