Make the Pasta: Pumpkin Ravioli!

Our poll determined that pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and sage to be the dish we should make with our triple treat pumpkin. And so we did but not without learning a few things along the way!

First, we decided to use the Mario Batali recipe for Pumpkin Lune with sage and brown butter. It's posted on the Martha Stewart website here and it has a video of Martha and Mario making the pasta. Actually that's where we heard Mario suggest that we make maltagliati pasta with the scraps.

So, we gathered things in place and prepared to make the dough and filling.

Our favorite fresh egg pasta is a recipe from Cook's Illustrated. They don't share their recipes online so I don't have a link. We have their Italian cookbook and the recipe uses the food processor, which makes it so easy.

We used Full Belly Farm eggs in the dough and the dough was a beautiful yellow color from the rich egg yolks.

We cut the pumpkin and roasted it as Mario and Martha suggested. However, I was suspicious that it would take longer than 35 minutes. And it did. A lot longer and I think it could have gone longer. Also, we didn't get as much flesh from it once it was roasted which affected the seasoning proportions.

So, when I added the balsamic vinegar and nutmeg, I cut the amounts by half. It was still a bit too much though.We recommend adding the balsamic vinegar a little bit at the time.

My nonnie (that's how we said and spelled it although I know it isn't proper Italian grammer) had this pasta machine from Italy. I inherited it and it is in pristine condition because she never used it. She rolled everything by hand and in fact, we have her 28 ravioli rolling pin hanging on the wall. Since we don't have years of experience, we used the machine.

We forgot how a little dough goes a long way but it was pretty funny.

The amount of filling is critical. We accidentally put too much in some ravioli and they wouldn't seal properly. The seal is so important and it was harder than it looked.

We tried using two different cutters- one that has more of a sealer and cutter and makes larger ravioli (see above photo) from the Pampered Chef and one that makes smaller ravioli but doesn't have the separated sealer and cutter edges.

We realized that if the dough was too thin, the larger ravioli would tear- also too much filling weighed down the dough. We then adjusted the machine and made a slightly thicker pasta.

We boiled the pasta which was the easiest part. We didn't have any ravioli burst!

The sage and brown butter was delicious! The sage gets crispy and quite lovely. This was so easy to make that I am going to do it much more frequently. We grow sage in our yard so it was fresh and fragrant.

We finally plated our freshly made pasta with plenty of brown butter and sage and parmigiano reggiano. It was very good even at 1 AM when we finally finished it. When we make it again, we will be using less balsamic vinegar and perhaps using butternut squash instead of pumpkin.

Let's Talk Leftovers...Maltagliati Pasta

We're talking about the leftovers before we talk about the main course....We used our triple treat pumpkin and made our pumpkin ravioli a few weeks ago. That story is coming soon, but first let's talk about the leftovers! After we made our pumpkin ravioli, we saved the random scraps of pasta that were leftover in the fridge overnight.


The next day we boiled the pasta scraps...


and tossed them with melted butter, pepper, and freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese.

Delicious!!! It was like the original macaroni and cheese- only infinitely better! And the name for this traditional dish that makes the most wonderful use of leftovers is: maltagliati pasta- which means badly cut pasta.

Buon Appetito!

Salted Caramel For All

It’s official….salted caramel is now for the masses. As I was walking through the food desert of the L gates in Chicago O’Hare airport, I stumbled upon an unexpected oasis of deliciousness: the Starbucks kiosk offering salted caramel hot chocolate. Yum yum yum! My palate perked up at the thought of that salty goodness swirled in creamy chocolate and caramel- a taste that I had experienced in other niche food products: Bi-Rite Creamery salted caramel ice cream, Recchiutti fleur de sel caramels, and more recently Haagen-Daaz Reserve fleur de sel caramel ice cream- all highly recommended. So of course I eagerly plunked down my $4.24 for the opportunity to experience this complex tango of salt and sweetness.


And to my delight, as I took the lid off to get a better look, the very kind Starbucks barista added an extra sprinkle of sea salt to the top of my whipped cream dolloped hot chocolate. Thank you, kind Starbucks barista at Chicago O’Hare, for greatly enhancing my beverage experience! The first sip was such a treat as the whipped cream, salt crystals, caramel syrup and hot chocolate did a little happy dance in my mouth. I admit it went downhill from here as this concoction was a little conservative on the salt and tasted mostly like standard hot chocolate after the whipped cream, caramel and salt dissolved into homogeneity. But still, it was a welcome diversion from the alternatives in terminal L which included McDonalds, TCBY, and a suspicious hot dog stand. Now if only there was a In-N-Out and Pinkberry…

Celebrating Five Years...With A Special Cake

This October, Justin and I are celebrating our five year wedding anniversary.

Since we're again living in the Bay Area, we decided to have our wedding cake remade by our cake baker, Nora Del Chamberlin of Custom Cakes. She is a wonderful cake baker and decorator in Berkeley, CA. She makes her cakes from scratch in her home and we not only loved the way her cakes looked but also how delicious they were. She surprisingly does not have a website but we highly recommend her.

We were married in my home town in California at the church where I was baptized and grew up. We had such a lovely wedding with friends and family and it was truly a special day for us to share.


Our wedding cake was a frangipane and butter cake filled with ganache, fresh raspberries and cream. The frosting was buttercream and the design on the cake was inspired by the design of the beading on my dress. Our monogram was on the front of the cake as well. I had seen the idea for a monogram on a cake in Martha Stewart's magazines. I also liked the shape of the square-tiered cake.


During the reception, the bridesmaids put their bouquets around the cake. It was a lovely and unexpected addition!

Justin and I were a proper bridal couple and there was no smooshing of cake! We also chose not to freeze our remaining tier of cake. Instead, when we returned from our immediate honeymoon to Hawaii, we shared the cake with my parents and savored it. As food scientists, we didn't think that cake frozen for a year sounded very palatable.

This is the beautiful recreation that Nora made for us. She asked for the exact date of our wedding and looked up the recipe in her files. She added a few decorative touches with the frosting and the flowers.


The cake was just as good as we remember. The raspberries were fresh and full of flavor, the ganache was creamy and rich and even though we are not usually a huge almond fan, the almond flavor from the frangipane was delicate enough to make the cake interesting and delightful.

It was a lovely way to remember our anniversary.

Pumpkins Beyond Pie

Fall is finally here and with that comes pumpkins, squashes, apples and other delicious fall foods!

Today at the Capay Valley Growers FarmShop at my work, I bought a Triple Treat pumpkin! Not all pumpkins are created equal- some are better for carving and some are better for cooking. Triple Treat is a naked-seeded pumpkin that has seeds without hulls and is actually great for cooking, carving and pumpkin seed roasting! What will the fate of this pumpkin be??

Well, it's up to you! We'd like to take this pumpkin beyond pie so we've created three choices for you to vote on (see the poll in the corner of the page):

• handmade pumpkin sage ravioli with brown butter
• savory pumpkin ice cream with olive oil and sea salt
• pumpkin pear soup
• spiced pumpkin mousse (using our iSi chargers and some N2O)

So cast your vote today!

And as an extra bonus, just wanted to mention that Full Belly Farms, one of the Capay Valley Growers, is having the 21st Annual Hoes Down Festival this weekend, October 4th and 5th! The 21st Annual festival includes educational farm tours, a magical children's area, hands-on workshops, and delicious food! You can even camp overnight!

The "Russian Roulette" of Peppers

We came, we played, and our mouths were on fire! How can something be so delicious and yet amazingly hot??

Introducing Padron peppers, small green peppers that have been in our FarmShare box from Riverdog Farm. These aren't your ordinary peppers. Most are mild but approximately every one in ten are really spicy. Not kind of spicy, but really really spicy. Padron peppers are originally from the Padron region in Spain and called pimientos de Padron.

So, we prepared these peppers in the recommended way: in a pan with olive oil. Once the peppers were charred, we sprinkled them with coarse salt. And here's where it gets fun...I took a bite of one and WOO HOO it was hot! Justin's first few peppers were mild ones and so when I saw him almost put a large one in his mouth- I stopped him in the last moment. Good thing because it was a doozy!! My recommended method is to bite off the tip for a little pre-taste.

What causes the spiciness in chili peppers? Capsaicin is the name of the spicy component in chili peppers and the variety in spiciness is due to different levels in the peppers. Did you know that there is actually a spiciness scale for chili peppers? It's called a Scoville Scale and if you click here you can see where different peppers fall on the scale.

And what about that orange pepper? Was it the hottest of them all? No, actually it tasted quite a bit like a red bell pepper.

Cocktails Part Deux: the Platinum Caipirito

When my job was developing breakfast cereals for everywhere outside the USA I had the opportunity to travel to many exotic destinations . . . six months into the job I had Platinum Elite status on my first airline, several months later I had it on a second. When not tied to the production line in the factory I tried to soak up the food and culture of wherever I happened to be. This cocktail is an homage to the time I spent in South America, I'm calling it the Platinum Caipirito.

This recipe draws on inspiration from Brazil's caipirinha and Cuba's mojito while using Mexican agave nectar, American oranges (Trader Joe's), and fresh basil from our farmshare (Riverdog Farms).


Recipe for One Platinum Caipirito
Juice from 1 1/2 fresh squeezed oranges (4 oz)
Five basil leaves
1.5 oz agave nectar
1.5 oz cachaça
Ice cubes

Muddle basil leaves and agave nectar in high ball glass. Add cachaça and orange juice and stir until nectar and basil are well distributed. Add enough ice to fill the glass.


Brazil's national drink is the caipirinha (roughly translated "little peasant girl"). It's active ingredients are a lime muddled with copious amounts of sugar and a spirit from fermented sugar cane called cachaça--similar to rum--over ice. Near the end of every trip to Brazil my hosts would take me to the grocery store where I'd pick up a couple of bottles . . . the price couldn't be beat at $2 USD each vs. the airport price an order of magnitude higher. While the caipirinha is much too sweet for me, it is one of Lauren's favorites and is a house specialty. Today's cocktail gets its kick from cachaça, but substitutes oranges in place of the limes.

While a traditional mojito uses mint muddled in a sugar syrup with rum, today's cocktail substituted the mint with basil and sugar syrup with agave nectar from Mexico.

The resulting cocktail is a fresh, yet subtle herbal cocktail perfect for the end of summer refreshment!

Cheers!

Calling All Chocolate Adventurers to Explore Your Dark Sides

It's the second annual Scharffen Berger and Tutti Foodie Chocolate Adventure Recipe contest where a little bit of Iron Chef meets chocolate inspiration in competition for the grand prize:

$5,000, a mention in Saveur magazine, signed copies of Demolition Desserts by Elizabeth Falkner, Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg, as well as a custom selection of Scharffen Berger® chocolates and a winner’s medal.

How do you enter: create a recipe for a sweet, savory or beverage ( you can submit one in each category!) that calls for Scharffen Berger chocolate—containing anywhere from 41% to 99% cacao—and at least one adventure ingredient which are listed on the website. You can submit your entry online by January 1, 2009.

For more details on past winners, celebrity judges and the list of the adventure ingredients go to:

http://www.chocolateadventurecontest.com/

How did we hear about this? My friend, Lisa, is a judge and one of the organizers of the competition. We are definitely going to enter and encourage you to as well. Spread this word about this new contest!