Green Pasta, Herbed Pizza and a Pizza Pretzel

Mark finally got his pasta machine. It was a long and frustrating story, which I will make short here, in favor of pictures. He got one at a World Market store back in NC, which was a cheap piece of crap that broke even before you we used it. Then we ordered one online as a wedding gift to ourselves, thinking it was the good kind. But when we opened the box, we found it was the same cheap piece of crap and had to return it. Apparently the vendor didn't know that the wrong one was shipped. Anyway, Mark finally ordered another one online, this time making sure that what we get is the one that's made in Italy and not in China (even though the Chinese were the ones to invent pasta!). And when it got here he anxiously opened the box, afraid of being disappointed again. The machine was lighter than it should be (indicating possible cheaper materials), but it was still made in Italy. He tried it on, and it seems to be working well!

So we had homemade pasta for dinner!

We had some leftover spinach, but no ricotta, so instead of spinach ravioli, we had some green fettuccine.



One is supposed to chop the pasta in a food processor, which we don't have, so the consistency of the pasta is a bit chunky. Mark thought it tasted too eggy, so next time he will try to make it with less eggs.

The day after he made pretzels - his specialty! I decided that I wanted to have a pizza-style pretzel, so I topped it with tomato sauce, basil and cheese:



They're very good as-is, of course!

And last night we had to use some leftover yogurt pizza dough, but we didn't have any spinach, and we didn't have fresh mozzarella cheese, so I suggested a herb pizza with goat cheese:



Mmmm... the thyme and oregano scents that filled the house!

Corn Blues

We got a lot of blue cornmeal, thinking we'd have lots of piki...
Instead, Mark made some blue buttermilk cornbread which turned out just perfect! Soft on the inside - not at all dry, and a bit crusty on the outside, and the yellow corn kernels (for lack of blue ones) add sweetness and juiciness. Great accompaniment to the leftover chili!



Mmm... It looks more blue in real life...

Two Birthday Cakes

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but that didn't stop me from celebrating it today and yesterday :)
I was in Israel during my real birthday, and celebrated someone else's birthday instead (my cousin's son's Bar-Mitzva). Although another cousin of mine, Tally, baked me one of my favorite cakes (sweet bread with lots of chocolate), which was extremely nice of her, it was hardly a birthday celebration. It was a crazy day that started at 5:30 am with the Bar Mitzva party, continued with a trip to the desert and a visit to my cousin's, and ended at 11 pm, after a dinner with my uncles.
So Mark and I decided to celebrate it properly this past weekend, with a nice brunch at the Mandala Tearoom, a visit to the museum, and a cake baked especially for me by Mark.
It was hard to decide what to bake, but I finally decided he should make cinnamon rolls and peanut-butter-and-chocolate rolls. He made them using his regular cinnamon rolls recipe for the dough, but with buttermilk this time, which made the dough very soft and fluffy.



Yummilicious!

And today, we celebrated my birthday in the lab :)
Dani baked me a luscious mixed berry pie:


Can you see the ant?

It was a very nice birthday gathering, complete with singing candle that refuses to sing, a happy birthday song (which was weird for me not to join in) and presentations of travel pictures made by Kevin (a trip to France) and me.

Now I have no choice but to accept the fact that I'm a year older.
**sigh**

Tricky Piki

About 6 months ago, inspired by a visit to the Heard Museum, we decided to try and make some piki, also known as Native Indian paper bread. Last night we finally realized that decision! We didn't want to eat it just by itself, so we looked for recipes that include any of the "three sisters": Corn, Beans, and Squash (CBS). I finally found one recipe that incorporated all three of them! So we set up for cooking, not realizing how challenging it might be!

Not that the chili was so hard to make - it was actually quite easy. I did omit the garbanzo beans, for authenticity, though.

It's the piki that gave us trouble. That simple paper thin bread, of all things!

First of all, the recipes we found online call for juniper ash. Now where the heck can you find something like that? Fortunately, it can be substituted with baking soda. But what's the exchange rate? One place said 2 tbs per cup of cornmeal but that was way too much. The batter tasted like, well, baking soda, and it created gigantic bubbles in the bread after you pour it onto the hot griddle, resulting in multiple little separated islands of baking-soda-tasting mush.
So we tried again, this time with only 1 tsp per cup. That worked much better.
The amount of water to use was also a matter of trial and error, but I think Mark finally got it right, more or less. Of course, we can't say for sure, since neither of us has ever had it. But at least it resembled a thin paper, albeit a rather holey one.



By itself it doesn't taste like much, but with the chili it was nice. And most importantly, as Mark said, it made us feel "Indian", which was nicely complimentary to our visit to the North Scottsdale branch of the Heard.

Basil

Last week we got a new basil plant, of a fairly large size. Being realistic, I know it won't last very long with my methods of cultivation, so we decided to eat as much of it while it's still alive. The first thing we used it for was this yummy fresh mozzarella pizza on yogurt crust.



I didn't care much for the tomatoes - they weren't as sweet as they're supposed to be, will probably be better to use those little sweet cherry tomatoes. But it still was very good - the crust crusty as ever, and the fresh mozzarella, with its pleasant texture but bland flavor, allows for the basil to shine.

Kugelhopf

We just came back from the holy land, and all we wanted to eat was bacon! Kosher bacon, of course! We had some BESTs for lunch (stands for: bacon, egg, spinach, and tomato), and then Kugelhopf for dinner. The Kugelhopf was of the savory variety and had bits of bacon in it, along with onions and walnuts.



It was a bit too bacony for my taste, and yet it seemed like there wasn't enough. If you're gonna have bacon and onion and nuts in your bread, you really should have a lot of it, such that you'll have them all in each and every bite. Instead it was just like eating regular bread with a bit of bacon and nuts every now and then. Well, that was my impression on the night it came out of the oven. Today when I had it for lunch it was very good! The crumb is very light and melts in your mouth, and the bacon bits and nuts add crunch to it. So I don't know anymore. Should we make it again - would it be better to make it the same way or add more onion/bacon/nuts to it?
I think I'd vote for adding more nuts, because you can never really have too many of them!

Simple Delicious Dinner

If you ever want to have something quick and yummy - make some ravioli! All you need is a couple of ricotta cheese containers, some mozzarella, Parmesan or any other cheese to your liking, some spinach if you like, or mushrooms, or whatever! mix it all together and fill with it a bunch of egg roll wraps. We found that getting them instead of won ton wraps makes it much easier to fill: you cut them in half and fold them in half. (1.5 pk of ricotta left 5 big wraps unfilled, for a total of 30 ravioli.) Very quick and easy! Cook them in 2 minutes and top them with your favorite pasta sauce!


Of course, we had with freshly baked bread, spread with goat cheese and topped with marinated artichoke. Mmmm....yum!