Pasta with Lemon Ricotta and Zucchini

Hello,

I know, I’m late! It’s not Friday, and it hasn’t been for almost three days! But: it’s the Easter weekend, we had my family over, the weather is super, etc. So: here comes a recipe for a dish from the ‘light spring cooking’ category, a little late, but nonetheless delicious.

This is what you do:
1) Cook the pasta. I usually cook roughly half a pound for two eaters.
2) In the meantime, wash and grate the zucchini. I used two small zucchinis (I find the smaller, the better the taste). Heat some olive oil in a pan and add a chopped onion; stir. Add the zucchini, reduce the heat, and let them sauteé for about 5 mins. Add 2 table spoons lemon juice. Stir. Season strongly with pepper and salt.
3) In a large bowl, combine the cooked pasta, the zucchini mix, about one cup of ricotta cheese, and 1 teaspoon lemon zest. Stir well. Season to taste. Serve with parmesan cheese.
4) Enjoy!

I’ll leave it at that for today. Eat well, and drink well, and be very, very merry!
xoxo, F.

Pasta with Bell Peppers, Feta Cheese, and Balsamico Vinegar

Hello people,

this isn’t much of a recipe, but definitively the most interesting thing we had for dinner this week, and also, in order to stick to my promise to myself to blog once a week, yadda yadda yadda, I’ll just post this, here we go.

Ingredients:
serves 3-4

about a pound of the pasta of your choice

4 bell peppers, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
dried basil leaves (use fresh, if you have it)
olive oil

2 tbsps. orange juice
3 tbsps. balsamico vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

about 1/2 pound feta cheese, roughly chopped

Directions:

Cook the pasta.

Meanwhile, heat about 2 tbsps. olive oil in a large pan. Add the pepper slices and fry them slowly over medium heat until soft. Add the garlic and basil leaves to taste; stir. Add the orange juice and vinegar, stir, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat immediately. Season with salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, combine the drained pasta and the pepper mix. Sprinkle with feta cheese. Serve with wine and a green salad. Enjoy!

On a completely different note: I squeezed the most beautiful oranges this morning. They were so pretty I was almost sorry to turn them into juice!

A little bit of sunshine on this grey, grey day.
Have a good weekend! Don’t forget to eat, and drink, and be merry.
xoxo, F.

Recipe Rambling Resumed

Hello again,

let me greet you with these beauties from our kitchen table:

Aren’t they pretty? I looooooooooove sunflowers.
Anyways, a while ago I tried to write an inspirational post about great stuff I’ve cooked, but without any actual recipes, because I was tired and busy (and lazy), and then wordpress wouldn’t upload the pictures, and I got really annoyed and frustrated and I haven’t posted since. But behold! Now I will attend to this unfinished business. Please look at this picture:

This is:
whole wheat pasta, cooked
carrots, sliced and blanched
green olives, pitted and chopped
garlic, minced
cumin seeds, crushed
mint and parsley leaves, chopped
salt, pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, mix well, and eat.

This dish is major! I know that carrot and cumin are often combined in Northern African cuisine, but I had never tried it before, and I just loved it. It tasted good while still hot, and also good as a cold pasta salad the next day. We ate ours (when hot) with small dots of goat cream cheese on top, which worked well as a fresh and creamy sauce substitute.

Allright. Upcoming posts will be detailed recipes again, I promise. I made a batch of puff pastry “muffins” last night which were a hit, and a plum cake and plum preserve with red wine, pepper, and vinegar this morning, and I’ll post those later.

Eat well, y’all. xoxo,
F.

Recipe Rambling

Hello people,

allright, here’s the thing: I’ve had two glasses of wine already, I just discovered that my face is totally sunburnt, and I am tired and really only inclined to drop on the couch and watch Steel Magnolias for the xth time. However, there are two pasta recipes I really want to share and I feel like if I don’t do it now they’ll never get posted. That’s why, for once, I’ll just post some pictures, and describe a little what I did, without posting an actual recipe. With a little bit of common sense and a little bit of adventurous experimentation, you will be able to cook this, I know it. So here we go:

This is:
pasta, cooked
string beans, cooked
mascarpone cheese
roasted pine nuts
chopped parsley
salt, pepper to taste

Very easy, very fast, and certainly good with some grilled bacon or chicken, too.

OK: Just now, wordpress is messing with me. Won’t upload my pictures. Whatever. SO I guess I’ll TRY and post the “Pasta with carrots, olives, mint leaves, and crushed cumin” recipe later, or tomorrow. (Or never.)

Goodbye for now, my friends. Eat well! xoxo,
F.

Pasta Salad with Arugula and Smoked Trout

Hello there!

Where we are, it has been very warm over the weekend and today. When it is hot I tend to not really cook dinner, but rather prepare main dish salads: potato salad, bean salad, egg salad,… and last night: this pasta salad.

Easy to prepare, and makes great leftovers! Plus, the salad does not contain mayonaise (which I am not the biggest fan of); the dressing is prepared with yogurt and lemon juice. So it’s not too heavy, either, but still filling.

Ingredients:
serves 4

approx. 10 oz. pasta; I used fettucine
2 eggs

2 big handfuls arugula
2 tbsps. fresh chives, snipped

8 tbsps. plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup whipped cream
1 tsp. horseradish (from a glass)
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
salt, pepper, sugar, to taste

2 medium trout filets, smoked

Directions:

Cook and drain the pasta. Boil the eggs until hard, approx. 8 mins. Peel the eggs, and cut into slices.

Combine yogurt, milk, whipped cream, and horseradish; mix well. Add chives, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Stir; season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

In a large bowl, carefully mix pasta, eggs, arugula, chives, and dressing. Cut or pluck the fish into pieces, and add. Enjoy!

I prepared ours right before we ate it, so it was still a little warm, which I liked. But I am sure that this can be prepared ahead of time as well; simply let the salad cool and put it into the fridge until serving.

xoxo, F.

Handmade Pasta

Good morning, my dear readers!

Last night, I made fresh pasta. Without a pasta maker, simply with my good ol’ two hands and a rolling pin. It turned out so well that I thought I’d share it here! And very simple, too. I used Jamie Oliver’s recipe, which made me skeptical at first, but it worked very, very well. I have to admit that although I do love Jamie Oliver as a persona (who wouldn’t? only someone without a heart), and his approach to cooking and food, most of his recipes I have tried did not really deliver on their promise of ‘simple and fast.’ But this, my friends, really is simple, and tasted delicious. I don’t have a pasta maker, so I went with Jamie for the dough, and then used common sense and a rolling pin from there. Here we go:

Ingredients:

Use one egg and a 3/4 cup of flour per person.
pinch of salt
drop of water

Directions:

I a large bowl or on the counter top, knead the eggs, the flour, and the salt into a smooth, elastic dough. If need be, add a little water (not more than a teaspoon at a time). Form into a ball.

Wrap in plastic wrap, and put it into your fridge for 30 mins. In the meantime, you can make the sauce or the salad or whatever. I served my pasta with a tomato sauce, old school. Basically, I sauteéd some chopped onions and garlic, added tomato paste and sliced zucchini, stirred, added canned tomatoes, stirred some more, and then let the sauce simmer until it thickened. Season, and serve. Oh, I put in some sundried tomatoes, too, because they had been sitting in the fridge for quite a while and this was an opportunity to make use of them.
Aaaaaanyhoodle, when the dough is chilled, remove the wrap and cut it in half (the dough. not the wrap). Then, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough portions, as thinly as you can manage. I was amazed at how well this worked, the dough was really elastic, and didn’t fool around.

Then roll the flat dough into a roll, and cut into slices. I aimed for a linguine-type pasta, so I cut mine pretty small, maybe 1/2 inch wide.

After that, unroll the slices, and store them on a lightly floured plate or whatever (I used the plastic wrap) until cooking.

In a large pot, bring water to a boil, add some salt, and the pasta. Cook for approx. 5 mins., drain, and serve!
Here’s how ours looked:

Yes, this was really good. Writing this post made me hungry again. Thank God there’s leftovers!