Home-Made Pasta with Lamb Stew (Stricchetti al Ragù d'Agnello)

This week's choice of CBC  was - surprise surprise - another Pasta-Dish. It comes from the Italian region Umbria, one of the smaller regions with lots of hills, mountains and forests. Thus, the cuisine is genuine, hearty and meaty, with a strong tendency also for venison. If you ever come to Italy in the fall, make sure to spend a few nights in an agriturismo in Umbria. You can visit beautiful cities by day (Assisi, Perugia, Gubbio, Norcia, Spoleto, Orvieto, Terni....) and by night you can indulge in fabulous pasta, meat and polenta-dishes. 

Here's just one glimpse of what you could be eating (and I'm not even a very good cook)! It's: Emilia Valli "La cucina umbra in 300 ricette tradizionali"; Newton & Compton Editori, 2003 (recipe on page 76)

Home-Made Pasta with Lamb Stew (Stricchetti al Ragù d'Agnello)

Ingredients:

300gr flour 

2 eggs 

400gr lean lamb meat

2 garlic cloves

2 rosemary twigs

40gr of fat / pancetta

olive-oil

250gr of canned tomatoes (the already diced ones)

1 glass of broth

pecorino-cheese

salt and pepper

Preparation:

Spear meat with garlic and rosemary. Heat oil in saucepan or skillet and gently fry the meat from all sides together with the diced pancetta. Salt and pepper the meat (I didn't). Add the tomatoes and, after a few minutes, the prepared broth. Cover and let simmer for about 40 min. Since I tend to burn sauces and meats, I turned the heat very low and stirred frequently. When cooked, take the piece of meat out of the sauce and work it with the chopping knife (I do not know if this is the right word, however I mean this type of knife!). Return meat to sauce, put aside. 

While the meat was cooking, you prepared the pasta dough: knead together flour and battered eggs, adding a pinch of salt and a few spoons of water. Knead for quite some time, you should obtain a smooth and workable dough. The original recipe went on like this: Roll out dough very thin, cut into small rectangles of 2,5 x 5 cm and pinch them together in the middle, obtaining a butterfly-shape. However my dough wasn't made for this kind, unfortunately it was too brittle. So I decided to go for long and kinda thick spaghetti (there's an extra componetn for this on my pasta-machine, so it was quite easy!). 

Cook pasta in lots of salt-water, drain, and mix with hot sauce. Sprinkle with pecorino-cheese and freshly ground pepper.

Here's the sauce in the making, bubbling happily on the stove

and the pasta

The Mister's (rather full) plate

Close-up of my (normal) plate

Soup with Minced-Meat, Leek, Cream Cheese and Potatoes

This is one of my favorite soups or stews!! I used to make it with one of those package-mixes until I decided that I did not need them anymore.

Ingredients:
450gr minced meat (beef)
4 leeks
about 1,2 - 1,5 l boiling water + broth/stock-cubes
400gr cream-cheese (a little less might do as well)
potatoes

Preparation:
Prepare the leek, cut into small pieces and wash. Fry minced meat in a bit of oil and add the leek, fry for another couple minutes. Add about 1,2 l boiling water and the amount of stock-cubes needed or the amount needed to satisfy your salt-taste-buds. Peel potatoes, cut into small pieces and throw in as well, let boil until the potatoes are cooked (you might need to add some more water). Add cream-cheese and stir in well.

You might want to cook the potatoes separately, the original recipe is without them. I think the soup would go great with rice or bread as well. I just added the potatoes to save on time and pots :-). Feel free to add more spices or salt.

I'm sorry that the picture does not look very inviting, but I assure you that the taste is fine!

Foodwaste 24/09/10

Not a good week. A lot of waste - not even the dog could help me out.

There were:
some spinach which I defrosted to put on the pizza and then simply didn't want to eat anymore
1 apple
3 pizza-buns, quite hard and one piece of "Schwarzbrot"
some kind of cake my sister bought and hid in my fridge
fruit-cake I defrosted and then simply couldn't finish (there were 6 pieces, I ate 4. I'm gonna be fat.)

Risotto with Salmon and Mozzarella-cheese

This was a quick and easy meal. I'm not the biggest fan of rice and especially not of Risotto, but a friend has been eating this again and again for quite some time so I thought I'd give it a try! What can I say? - IT'S AWESOME. And it was just about the first food my baby practically inhaled. Usually she's not the best eater (she likes almost everything, but after a few spoonfuls the just stops eating and instead starts throwing food everywhere...), but this risotto was a big hit. 


Here's the "original" recipe (she got the idea from watching How I met your mother, Season 2, Episode 3, where Barney and Ted's Mother talk about Salmon Risotto - Hey, so TV has some advantages after all...). I made some slight alterations, but see for yourself: 


For 2:
cubes (veggie) for stock/broth
200gr. risotto-rice
1 small onion
(white wine if you like)
150gr. smoked salmon
150gr. buffalo-mozzarella (or normal mozzarella) / Crème Fraiche
lemon juice
dill
salt/pepper


Prepare some stock [broth?] (750ml boiling water and stock-cube according to package or according to how salty you like it - I took the veggie-variety). Turn down heat but make sure the broth remains hot. Cut one small onion into small pieces and fry in butter and olive-oil (equal parts) until light golden. Add about 200gr. Risotto-rice and stir until the rice is covered with the oil/butter. De-glaze with a bit of white wine (I left this step out). Add one ladle of broth and stir gently until the rice has soaked up the liquid. Repeat until you finished the broth or until the rice is cooked (ideally, those two coincide). Add some pepper (I didn't) and about 100gr. smoked salmon (cut into small pieces; I sued more, maybe 150gr.), 1-2 tablespoons Crème Fraiche (I used about 150gr. buffalo-mozzarella, cut into small pieces), a dash of lemon juice and some dill (again, I didn't, I have no idea what it's called in Italy). Since the broth is quite salty you shouldn't need to add salt, but feel free to do so or to add other spices.


Here's the risotto and the baby:

Orecchiette Maggioline

This is the first of my Cook-Book-Choices!!! Yeah for us! It was quite fun trying something new and I was really surprised by the choice - usually that sweet man at my side runs like hell if a veggie comes near him. I myself am not the biggest fan of asparagus, but it was ok and quite nice to have something different. I doubt that this recipe will make the Top 10 of our favourite foods (or even near that), but anyway, here it comes:

The recipe was taken from this book:

Here's the original recipe:

For 4 People

300gr Orecchiette (ear-shaped Pasta from Apulia)

1 kg Asparagus

200gr canned tomato (already pureed)

70 gr fresh salsiccia

1 piece of onion

50 gr Butter

2 Tablespoons olive-oil

grated parmesan-cheese

salt

Scrape the stems of the asparagus, and cook in salted water. When done, cut the tender parts into small pieces. Lightly brown the cut onion and salsiccia in olive-oil, add the tomato-puree and salt and let simmer for 20 min. In the meantime bring to the boil salted water and cook the pasta according to package-details. In another pan melt the butter and add the asparagus-pieces, then add the tomato-sauce. Stir gently and let simmer for a few minutes. Drain pasta and mix with sauce, top with parmesan-cheese.

Her are tow pics of the result, one still in the pan and one on my plate.

Mealplan 25 september - 1 october 2010

Saturday: Agnolotti with Funghi/Salsiccia and with Spinaci/Ricotta (I have to stop preparing the same dish over and over...)
Sunday: Chicken, French Fries, Brussel Sprouts
Monday: Fusilli Salsiccia e Cime di Rapa
Tuesday: Minced-Meat, Leek and Cheese-Soup
Wednesday: CBC - Stricchetti al ragù d'agnello
Thursday: Chinese Chicken with Cashew Nuts Quick and Easy Chicken-Veggie-FridgeCleanUp-StirFry-Curry Whatever
Friday: I have no idea yet. I forgot that I bought Tortellini on Sale. So we'll have "Tortellini al forno with cream-ham-pea-Sauce".

Well, Hello Mr. Gambero

Here are a last few impressions of our super-fishy Holiday-Food:


Seafood















Seafood-Pasta















Hello Mr. Gambero, nice to meet you!

Introducing: CBC, the Cook-Book-Choice

I have an awful lot of cook-books. I adore cook-books, especially the shiny ones with intriguing titles and lots of pictures with incredibly delicious dishes. I have books on Cakes Muffins Cookies Bread Pasta Chicken Fish Vegetarian Mexican Indian Chinese Italian Traditional German Antipasti Desserts Regional National International - You name it, I got it!

Do I use those books? Do I cook regular meals from them? Do they actually show any signs of usage or even wear? No, dear reader, the answer to all those questions is: NO, simple as that (except for muffins and cakes!). Those books are mere decoration and dust-catchers, and our meals are more or less the same every week. The adorable man at my side is very very fussy and could live on steak and Pasta, so I tend to cook quick and easy dishes (having a dog a baby a job does not help a lot in terms of dedicating time and mind to elaborate cooking).

So, I told myself I had two choices: Throw them all out or use them. And I came up with the perfect answer: I will cook 1-2 new meals a week from those books. Thus, I learn new recipes, we will eat different food, and the books finally meet their rightful destination. The idea is to let him choose one weekly meal and to have another - exotic - one on Thursdays all for myself, while he is out running after a ball.

He found the idea great and choose his first meal carefully: Orechiette Maggioline, which I will feature in next weeks' meal-plan (18-24 sept.!).

So, CBC, the Cook-Book-Choice, here we come!!! I just love my own idea!

Mealplan 18 - 24 september 2010

Saturday: Homemade Pizza (Funghi-Prosciutto, Salami-Peppers [using left-over veggies to avoid food-waste], zucchini-scamorzacheese)
Sunday: Left-over pizza
Monday: Steak, Fries, Salad
Tuesday: Something with zucchini - this turned out to be fusilli with pancetta, zucchini and parmesan-cheese. Yummy!
Wednesday: CBC Orecchiette Maggioline
Thursday: Risotto with Salmon and Mozzarella-cheese
Friday: Oven-baked chicken and potatoes, some kind of veggies  I didn't feel like going shopping, so we had stupid pasta with the rest of the salmon and some tomato-sauce.

Mealplan 11 - 17 september 2010

So, here's what we've been eating sat. 11 september to Friday 17 sept. 2010 (I just copied it from the post below and changed what we ate on Tuesday)

Saturday: Chili con Carne with homemade baguette
Sunday: Wiener Schnitzel, fried potatoes and salad
Monday: Bucatini Amatriciana
Tuesday: Gnocchi with melted butter and parmesan-cheese
Wednesday: Homemade Agnolotti with salsiccia-funghi-filling
Thursday: Something Indian or Chinese - my man is not home, so I can cook with spices and veggies. And I did make veal-spinach-curry with rice!
Friday: My sister is coming to visit me in Rome and I'll take her out to Pizza :-)). Nope, it didn't happen, as she went out with some guy to dance Salsa. Hubby and I stayed home and had some pasta with salsiccia, spinach and cream.

Foodwaste 17/09/10

Note: I use day-month-year for the date and will continue to do so :-)

I am proud to announce that there has not been a lot of waste, but have to admit that part of it is thanks to the dog. I tried and did a pretty good job in cooking smaller portions, but sometimes the dog had to finish off some left-overs. Or, in one case, a whole steak which was pretty close to uneatable.

I have thrown out: 1 piece of bread which had gone very very hard. Some soft cheese I swore never to buy again and then did so nevertheless - most of the times it tastes funny the day after opening and is inedible the second day. This time I didn't even bother looking when my eyes fell upon the package 3 days after opening. Out it went, no picture taken. I cleaned out most of the freezer as well and threw out a whole bunch of plastic containers with breast-milk (the baby still doesn't take the bottle and anyway they were from January) and some fish with severe freezer burn.

I'll try making some pics next week!

Agnolotti with mushroom-pancetta-filling

First of all, I don't even know if I made real "Agnolotti". I cannot even tell the difference between the various types of filled pasta and I guess there isn't even a real difference. So, basically I made fresh pasta from scratch with a mushroom-pancetta filling and a creamy mushroom sauce and it was awesome. We had those in a restaurant while on holidays, and my dear sweet beloved man told me that I could never make something so delicious. Well, I proved him wrong. The following recipe is for 3 good eaters or 4 normal eaters. If you're saying you're a normal eater, but a salad fills you up, then maybe you can consider 6-8 servings :-)


Pasta Dough
400gr flower
4 eggs
salt
olive-oil






Make a mountain of flower and then a volcano in the middle. Put eggs into volcano. Add a bit of salt and a spoon of olive-oil.







Now, the original recipe says: "Now stir the eggs until they are well mixed, then slowly stir more and more of the flower into the egg mixture, then knead with hands until you have a smooth dough."

What I did was: Start stirring eggs. Ignore breaking of volcano. Try to keep eggs from flowing everywhere. Scratch eggs and flowers from table while trying to knead. Scream a bit. Try stopping baby from putting eggy flower-mush into mouth. Scream some more. Try stopping dog from walking through egg that has dropped to the floor. Knead. Knead. Knead.



The recipe calls for 15min. of kneading the dough, I was exhausted after 12 and decided that it was enough. Cover ball of dough with cling-film and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.






Filling
Pancetta
Mushrooms (I think that boletus / porcini would be best, but I used simple white mushrooms)
parsley
garlic
spices as you like
parmesan cheese




Cut meat into small cubes and fry in olive-oil with 2/3 of the chopped mushrooms and some garlic. If you want to, you can add some white wine and let it simmer for a bit, but a bit of water will do.











Take lots of parsley, and blend together with the pancetta-mix. Add a bit of water if too dry, and add some grated parmesan cheese. Add other spices as you like, but the pancetta should be salty enough, so I'd recommend not to add any salt. The mixture shouldn't be too dry, but neither "slimy".














Filling the Agnolotti





The dough needs to be rolled out very very thin on a flowered surface- I use a pasta machine for this, I have no strength and patience to do this manually.




Put small blobs of filling on dough, cover with a second layer, press firmly down and then cut into squares. I used one of those cookie/pasta-rollers. Make sure you're putting unflowered side on unflowered side, otherwise the two layers of dough will not stick together. The agnolotti will be cooked in lots of boiling saltwater, usually they're done when they swim on the surface of the water, but you should try one as cooking times depend on thickness of dough, size of agnolotto, ecc. Drain and serve.






Sauce



Fry the remaining mushrooms in olive-oil, add cream and milk and bring to a boil. Add salt and other spices if needed.







Put a bit of sauce on a plate, place agnolotti on sauce and top with grated parmesan cheese. Done. Enjoy!

Summer Pasta

Ingredients:
Fresh Pasta
Veggies of your choice (here: zucchini, tomatoes and mushrooms)
pancetta
some cheese - I used "Stracciatella", a special cheese from Apulia in South Italy, a kind of liquidish mozzarella mixed with cream

Fry pancetta in Olive-oil, add veggies and spices (salt, garlic, herbs) as you like. Meanwhile, cook pasta. Cut cheese in small pieces or if cream-cheese, put in ball and stir well. Add fried veggies and drained pasta. Serve either hot or cold, it's good both ways.





Veggies and pancetta in pan












Stracciatella










Finished product :-)

Introducing weekly meal-plans and Food Waste Friday!

Meal-Plans
I've finally gotten around to making a plan for the following week. I've meant to do so for a long time, but somehow I never did follow through. I just cooked whatever I felt up to that day, and thus ended up going shopping almost every day. BASTAAAAA!!

So, here's what we're eating sat. 11 september to Friday 17 sept. 2010

Saturday: Chili con Carne with homemade baguette
Sunday: Wiener Schnitzel, fried potatoes and salad
Monday: Bucatini Amatriciana
Tuesday: Pancakes Salty (cheese and ham, cheese and pancetta) and sweet (jam, apple and cinnamon)
Wednesday: Homemade Agnolotti with salsiccia-funghi-filling
Thursday: Something Indian or Chinese - my man is not home, so I can cook with spices and veggies
Friday: My sister is coming to visit me in Rome and I'll take her out to Pizza :-))



Food Waste Friday
Food Waste Friday is actually connected to the meal-plan: I have been wasting way too much food. Partly due to uncontrolled cooking and shopping or because I simply forgot what I had in my fridge. Since this is not only a waste of money, but obviously also a bad thing from a moral point of view, I always felt rather ashamed. I then stumbled across the blog of Kirsten, The Frugal Girl, and her Food Waste Fridays.
So, I'll try and do this as well. I'll try and share a picture even though it'll be embarrassing a lot of times. I'll try and get better and not waste so much food.

So today I cleaned my fridge, wiped it all with vinegar, threw out everything mouldy or unidentifiable or long-over-the-date, and now I'm ready to go.