Ravioli with meat sauce

Tonight was the last regular (to the extent that they ever have been) Tuesday night dinner, ironically, on a Wednesday. I wanted to use some of the tools I don't use a lot, do something a little different, as well as delicious.

I ended up making the ricotta for the ravioli. It's a dead simple recipe, takes no time and is delicious. One gallon of milk, one quart of buttermilk. Combine in a big non-reactive pot over high heat. Stir frequently until it hits 175-180 degrees, at which point the curds and whey will separate. Remove from heat, and ladle the curds into cheesecloth over a strainer. Pull the ends of the cheesecloth together and hang it for 5-15 minutes depending on how loose you want the ricotta to be. The recipe emphasized that the flavor really comes from the quality of the milk, and I got raw milk from some local farms, which worked out wonderfully. To make it into ravioli filling, I added two eggs, a head of roasted garlic, a bit of parmesan, some fresh basil and parsley, salt, pepper and a touch of lemon juice.

I also made the pasta dough. Jamie Oliver had a bit about making your own pasta on a show about eggs, and asked the question of why anyone would buy pasta when it was so easy to make. Tonight really drove that home. If you have a food processor and a pasta roller, it really is a trivial task. Half a cup of flour (plus a bit for adjustment) for each egg, about one egg worth per person. Process it until it changes from a whizzing noise to a thumping noise. Squeeze it, if it sticks to your fingers, add a bit of flour and process until it's incorporated. Repeat until it just sticks to your fingers. Dump it onto a floured surface, work it together, throw it through the roller. Flour it lightly, fold it in half, roll it again. Repeat this four or five times, then roll it to the desired thickness. We made ravioli, and the second setting was pretty much ideal. The ones we did on the lowest setting were too thin and came apart in the water too easily.

The sauce was basically a cross between a traditional ragu and pot roast. I got some top round roast that was on sale (I would definitely experiment with other roasts, this was a bit hard to shred). Seared the salted and peppered pieces of roast, deglazed with onions, garlic, carrots, celery and leeks. When they were soft, I added some red wine and beef stock and let it simmer for a bit. I then crushed some cans of peeled tomatoes with my hands and added them. I added too many and then couldn't fit the roast pieces back in, so I pulled out a bit of the vegetable mixture and set it aside (I added it again when I put the leftovers away). Roast pieces back in, lid on, into the oven for a couple of hours. I pulled it out, pulled out the roast pieces and shredded them with a pair of forks, returned the shredded meat to the pot, and put it back in the oven for a bit to let the smaller pieces absorb a bit of liquid.

It was pretty delicious and very filling. I plan on adapting it to cooking for one by making the sauce ahead of time and freezing single portions, and then making the pasta with the mini cuisinart I have. Probably not ravioli, but it takes less time to make a batch of pasta and rough cut it into tagliatelle than to boil a pot of water. I eat a good bit of pasta in the winter, and while I won't really have winter in CA, I imagine I'll still be eating pasta.

Braised pork roast with fennel and apples

Pork roast was on sale, buy one get one today, so I picked up two smaller ones (2.5 lbs, roughly). I knew I wanted to do something with the shiny new dutch oven that Carissa got for me. So I synthesized a couple different recipes based on what caught my eye and what was in the house. Namely, fennel and apples.

I cut slits in the roasts and put slivers of garlic in them. Roughly 15-20 slits, maybe two cloves per roast. I rubbed salt, pepper, fresh rosemary and fennel fronds into the meat, and then seared each on all sides in the dutch oven with a bit of peppery olive oil. I set them aside, and tossed some onion cut into thick slices and whole cloves of garlic. One large onion, the rest of the bulb of garlic. I tossed that around to loosen the sticky goodness leftover from the searing, then properly deglazed with about half a cup of cider. I put the biggest, outside pieces of the fennel bulbs (after trimming the top and bottom and slicing into half inch discs), on the bottom of the pan to keep the roasts up a bit. I put the roasts back in, and wedged the rest of the fennel in along with two apples sliced about like the fennel. I added another half a cup to a cup of apple cider (whatever was left in the bottle), a couple of sprigs of rosemary, covered it and put it in a 325 degree oven. I have convection, but I don't really think it matters too much, since it's cooking for so long. I left it in there about 3 hours 15 min, it probably was find after about 2 and a half, and I probably could have left it in there for another hour or so without too much going wrong. The meat was falling apart, had all of the sweetness from the cider and apples and the herbiness of the rosemary. The apples had all but disintegrated, and the fennel was on its way, but still delicious. I think if I was using a smaller roast, I'd put more fennel in, because it felt like there wasn't enough, but there really wasn't room for much more than the two bulbs I used. Less liquid and some root vegetables would be interesting as well.

I served it over whipped (sort of, the mixer went with my sister when she moved out) potatoes with a bit of parsley, and a simple salad on the side.

Hmmm, looking back at that, I wonder if I should write these up as proper recipes. I do lot of recipes out of magazines and don't want to really muck about with copyright, though. But I guess in cases like this it wouldn't be bad to make it an actual recipe.

[TND] 8.28 Fettucine with Red Sauce

It is the end of summer and thus it is time for tomatoes. At the Tolland farmer's market, I have found a stand which sells several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, all grown organically. These are beautiful tomatoes. They are large, usually about 1/2-1 pound, and have beautiful red color. One of these days I'll actually remember to write down the varieties. The variety he has most consistently is a duller red, and has a very high ratio of flesh to seeds. I've used them for many things, including simply eating them with a bit of kosher salt.

The plan is to make them into a very simple red sauce. I tried this earlier in the week with the ones from last week, and it was amazing. We'll see if it scales up and works with multiple varieties of tomatoes. The recipe is simple, it's onions and garlic (also organic and from the farmer's market) sautéd in olive oil, chop and add tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and reduce as much as possible. Add chopped basil off the heat, just before serving. Parmesan is optional.

I think if I make the garlic butter tomorrow night, I should be able to make cheesy garlic bread too, I just need to get garlic sometime tomorrow, or have someone pick it up for me.