ravioli-oli-oli

so, i made homemade ravioli. like an italian grandma. seriously. it's very easy, tasty, and you can fill up the ravioli with whatever you want! (ours had ricotta, of course, and spinach.)

ravioli-oli-oli
1. mix 2 cups flour with 2 eggs and enough water to make it stick together. (i was following a recipe from an italian cookbook from 1967 but it didn't call for enough water to make it stick together.) i would start with a couple of tablespoons and keep adding until it sticks. also, i used my hands to mix it because my pastry blender was getting so messy.
2. roll out the dough REALLY thin. mine was a bit too thick, so some of the ravioli were too doughy.
3. put a teaspoon of your ricotta mixture (one cup ricotta, 1 egg, 1/3 bunch grated spinach, dab of salt, pepper, garlic powder) onto the dough.
4. cut enough dough around the mixture with enough dough available to be able to seal the mixture inside. i used my hands to seal it but it would be nice to have a pastry crimper.
5. boil for 20 minutes in salted water. at first, they stick to the bottom of the pot so you have stir them a bit. eventually, they will float.
6. top with sauce of your choice. (ours was a tomato sauce with fresh green bell peppers, onion, and garlic.)

really, food is so much better when you make it yourself. there are weird ingredients and preservatives in packaged food. ours was the real deal. yum.

i almost forgot.

last week, i made baked eggs. blake was especially skeptical of this dish because he's picky and really only likes his eggs scrambled. but, even blake liked them. and it was so very easy.

1. turn on the oven. i was making banana bread already so my oven was at 350. (the barefoot contessa, my favorite celebrity chef, says to do this in the broiler, but, again, i was already using the oven...)
2. take a small dish that can go in the oven (i used a 2-cup pyrex with a flat bottom, like the small ones seen here.) and put in a dab of butter, maybe 1/2 tbsp and about 2 tbsp milk or cream. put it in the oven until the butter/milk is hot and bubbly.
3. crack 2 eggs in a separate bowl and then pour the eggs into the pyrex.
4. sprinkle some chopped fresh garlic over the eggs. i also used rosemary and savory spices, but you can use whatever you like.
5. put it in the oven until the whites look cooked.

it's so good. i thought about it for days afterwards.

new year.

so, happy 2008.

i am ready for this year. ready for new things.

i am not really the resolution-writer, but i am promising to eat better this year. more GOOD food. i think michael pollan hit the nail on the head as he wrote, "eat food. not too much. mostly plants." i like this so much that i am thinking of painting it on my kitchen wall. we'll see. BUT it just makes so much sense. i try to eat food that makes sense. i want to be able to pronounce what it is in my food.

so i am thinking of cooking classes in the new year. new knives. someone to teach me how to hold a knife properly. maybe cooking classes in a foreign country. i want to see more countries. more of the world. i haven't been enough places yet.

AND i am turning 30. in a month. i am looking forward to 30, but it seems like a serious number. like it means something. i hope for incredible things... like more beer like blake brought home last night. a tasty way to start the year. so good. how do those belgians do it? and they are mostly monks. i guess they have plenty of time for the beer-brewing.

so happy 2008.

speaking of

the recipes on the sides of packages...

i made the muffin recipe off the box of honey maid graham cracker crumbs. so ridiculously easy and tasty. i added blackberries 'cause i had some laying around. even better.

i am leaving town today for a couple of weeks. i will try to remember to post, but, for me, vacation typically means no technology. so we'll see. merry christmas; blake's making breakfast tacos. whoohoo!!!

slumber party.

last night, april and tracy came over for a slumber party, which is the perfect time to eat fun snacks that don't actually have to equate to a proper meal. i made salsa and hummus earlier in the week just for the occasion, but, as far as i am concerned, one does not need an "occasion" for either. in addition, i made spring rolls. they are one of my favorite things to make. (in reality, i like most things that come wrapped up in packages, like burritos and tacos and sushi.) anyhow, spring rolls are super easy and fun. they remind me of houston. lots of tasty asian food there.

how to make a spring roll, if you have no idea. sharing the love here...
1. fry some tofu. you don't actually have to use tofu, but i think it's perfect. especially pan-fried in sesame oil.
2. use the leftover oil to cook some other veggies. i prefer carrots, peppers, mushrooms, and onions in the spring rolls. i also cook them separately, but there are no real rules to this process.
3. get out some rice vermcelli. boil the water and let the noodles sit in the boiling water until they are soft. rinse them under some cold water.
4. the rice wrappers. you get these at any asian market, or fancy grocery store, though the asian place will be cheaper. i go to the pearl river on broadway. fill a plate with hot water and put the wrapper in the water. when it's soft, take it out and put it on another plate.
5. put a small amount of lettuce in the center of the wrapper. then the noodles and then the veggies. not too much; you have to roll it up too.
6. fold in two opposite sides of the wrapper, and then fold one remaining side in over the food.
7. make sure it fits tightly under the that side and then roll it up. the rice paper will stick to itself, so you don't have to seal it like sushi.
8. you are done. eat. yum!

i like my spring rolls with peanut sauce. people seem to think that it is difficult to make peanut sauce, but it's not really. my favorite recipe is actually the one on the side of the smucker's natural peanut butter. (i am a huge fan of the recipes that come on the sides of packages. they are often so easy and so tasty. remember, the companies have food scientists and full-time chefs and so their recipes are super-tested.) this peanut sauce recipe is not on the website so i am including it in this enormous post.

1/3 cup peanut butter (i like the natural and organic kinds, because they don't have the ever-illustrious high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.)
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. soy sauce or tamari
1 tsp. sugar
1/3 cup water (i use boiled water so that everything dissolves easily when you mix it.)
cayenne (this is optional; i like everything spicy.)

directions: mix it all together. eat with the spring rolls. or use as a sauce for rice noodles. mmm.

candy corn.

i have a minor obsession with corn. or at least that's all i will admit.

it's just that it makes the world go 'round. we put it in our cars as gasoline (ethanol); over-processed foods like soda are practically entirely made of it (high fructose corn syrup); other seemingly-not-so-processed foods like yogurt and whole wheat bread are sweetened with it (also high fructose corn syrup); it's fed to the cows so that they will get fat faster (corn meal and corn starches); the federal government subsidizes the corn growers, making it one of the most commonly farmed items here in america.

the students in my government know more about the corn industry than most 17-year-olds. for christmas, one of them sewed me a bag to look like a piece of candy corn. it's excellent.

if my camera wasn't angry at me, i'd take a picture. maybe i'll attempt it on blake's mac later.

p.s. there's also a new film about corn, if you care: king corn.

an addendum.

the grocery store by my house doesn't sell powdered buttermilk. it also doesn't sell regular buttermilk. i did get amish country farms organic milk. i did research on the amish and visited lancaster, pennsylvania in 4th or 5th grade. it was for history fair and my project was of the amish sitting around a table, eating shoofly pie and other amish-like things. i guess i was already into food.

on another note, my regular grocery store (the met on 139th and lenox) also does not sell shredded swiss cheese, it seems. i can buy demerara sugar for cheap but not obvious goods. it's quite a trip to the fairway, or any "better" grocery store. harlem is full of unfortunate processed foods. it's so obvious why instances of diabetes are so high here. there was something in the store called meat-o-mat or meat-a-mat. i don't even know what kind of meat it was supposed to look like, but there was no obvious animal.

i've got to make those scones. more on the politics of food later.