Eat Our Blog

Had a delicious lunch at Printworks Bistro today! Pink snapper with a local greens frittata and snow peas. They have been so consistently good lately!

My wife just got me the pasta attachment for our kitchen aid so the first pasta I wanted to try was a great spaghetti with tomato sauce.  I wanted to get some great depth of flavor in this simple dish so I decided to roast the tomatoes for the sauce.  Lina’s cousin has a great recipe so that was the base for the sauce.

First thing was to make the pasta, I used a basic recipe of egg, flour, water, and salt to make the dough.  The great thing about the kitchen aid is that everything can be done in the mixer, from the mixing to the initial kneading (you need to to do a bit by hand), then the actual pasta making.  After running the dough through the flat pasta roller to get the desired thickness, I ran it though the spaghetti cutter, and voila, fresh pasta.  Throw a little flower on it a let it dry for an hour.

Next step was to roast the tomatoes.  Here is the recipe, I didn’t have a jalepeno so I added red pepper flakes instead.  After they are roasted and get some color on them I transferred them to a large pot and immersion blended the tomatoes to get a nice pureed sauce.

So after the sauce was pureed I cooked up the pasta.  The great thing about fresh pasta it only takes 2-3 minutes to cook.  I then added a little bit of sauce to the pasta (a little goes a long way, it’s all about a balance about the pasta and sauce) and was ready to serve.  I grated some Parmesan on top and this was it.  Delicious fresh pasta, with awesome tomato sauce.  The pasta was creamy and delicate while the sauce added a great depth of flavor from the roasting and the added pepper flakes.  If you have the option of making fresh pasta you have to do it, there is no comparison.

On Saturday I surprised Mark with something a little different. We went to a Basil Festival at the Goat Lady Dairy Farm. We have bought their goat cheese many times at the farmer’s market and had always been interested in attending one of the gourmet lunches/dinners they have. Goat Lady Dairy uses sustainable farming practices and believes in biodiversity in order to create harmonious growth in their gardens. They do not use pesticides so all of their vegetables are organic.

They started off by taking us on a tour of some of their gardens and then told us about many ways basil could be used, both medicinally and for cooking. Afterward we went inside for a delicious lunch.

The lunch consisted of a trio of cheese plate (Gray’s Chapel, Basil Chevre, and Goat Cheese), sliced tomatoes with a basil buttermilk dressing, thai basil chicken with rice, roasted vegetables, and okra. There was also a basket of homemade bread and a delicious herb butter. Our meal with a a dessert of peaches, blueberries, and a chevre sweet cream. It was a delightful lunch that incorporated basil into every component that they could. We were also given basil sugar cookies at the end of the meal.

For more information on the Goat Lady Dairy Farm, please go to http://www.goatladydairy.com/

It was so rainy and yucky on Saturday and we had no desire to go to the grocery store. We didn’t have much in the fridge, but after a little scrounging I found some ingredients and decided to make a soup. It was fun because I didn’t use a recipe this time. I had cubed butternut squash in the freezer, half a red onion, garlic, white beans, fresh rosemary, turkey kielbasa, a carrot, shallots, and vegetable broth.

I tossed the squash, garlic, and red onion (which I cut into big chunks) with olive oil, fresh chopped rosemary, salt, and pepper in the oven on 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. In a soup pot, I sauteed diced carrot and garlic in olive oil and then added the roasted veggies and white beans. Then I added some veggie broth and let it come to a quick boil. I then used the immersion blender to puree it all. Then I cubed up the turkey kielbasa and browned it in a pan. In another pan I heated a little canola oil and crisped up some shallots that I had dipped in flour.

The final result was a roasted vegetable and white bean soup with turkey kielbasa and crispy shallots. It was so good and I was so proud of myself for just winging it!

Last night I dreamt that I was good friends with Padma from Top Chef and she was dating Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin. In the dream Mark and I had lunch with them and got to enjoy many delicious treats that Ripert kept ordering. I used to dream about Brad Pitt and now I dream about food show hosts and world renowned chefs! What does it all mean?