My sister Sam graciously shared with me her fabulous mother-in-law’s recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese.  I love to plumb the depths of my family’s in-laws’ recipe archives in the hopes of finding hidden treasure.  I’m still hoping that I’ll get my other sister’s boyfriend’s mom’s secret [...]]]>

My sister Sam graciously shared with me her fabulous mother-in-law’s recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese.  I love to plumb the depths of my family’s in-laws’ recipe archives in the hopes of finding hidden treasure.  I’m still hoping that I’ll get my other sister’s boyfriend’s mom’s secret family recipe for bread-and-butter pickles someday.  Hee hee.

I normally don’t follow a recipe when I make spaghetti bolognese, and this recipe has me convinced that henceforth I should.  Normally, I just saute some onions, peppers, and random vegetables, throw in a jar of pasta sauce and call it a day!  After all, the joy of pasta is that it’s E-A-S-Y, right?  Well, even though Auntie Val’s bolognese recipe IS a recipe, it’s just as simple and quick to prepare as any pasta sauce, and tastes GREAT!  Putting a little extra thought into this simple dish that we often take for granted takes it to the next level.  I love how Auntie Val’s ragu is simmered with bay leaves, which lends a savoriness and meatiness to the sauce that you associate with hearty stews.  A glug of white wine gives it depth, and a few teaspoons of sugar, while unexpected, really make the flavor pop.  Interestingly, Auntie Val’s recipe doesn’t use jarred pasta sauce, just a tin of tomato paste.  I would never have thought it, but somehow it works.  Of course, if you can’t conceive of bolognese sauce without tomato sauce, feel free to add some, or add a splash of pasta water to thin out the sauce if it’s too thick.

Auntie Val’s Bolognese Sauce

1.5 lbs ground beef
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp sliced pimento-stuffed olives
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp white wine
1 tsp salt
3 tsp sugar
3 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp white pepper
dash of Tabasco sauce

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat in saucepan. Saute onion and garlic until softened.

Add olives and beef, saute until browned.

Add tomato paste, ketchup, wine and spices. Add a splash of water if sauce is too dry. Simmer over low heat, covered, for 15 minutes. Remove bay leaves and serve with pasta.

It’s as simple as that!

Strangely, the very day after I read this post about pasta with broccoli romanesco on the blog Rachel Eats, I went to the local farm stand and lo and behold, there were several heads of delightfully emerald broccoli romanesco.  I’ve never cooked this vegetable before, [...]]]>

Strangely, the very day after I read this post about pasta with broccoli romanesco on the blog Rachel Eats, I went to the local farm stand and lo and behold, there were several heads of delightfully emerald broccoli romanesco.  I’ve never cooked this vegetable before, though I have often admired its geometric spiral patterns, natural fractals, and lime-green color.

(By the way, is anyone besides me obsessed with Caprica?  Don’t you think this romanesco would be perfect served in a sci-fi series?  It’s so alien and weird and futuristic looking.)

Now, I’ve cooked it three times in the past week, all in this pasta, which I thought delicious and absolutely satisfying.  A perfect lunch for one or two, as it takes no effort, and you get to craving it.  I didn’t even try cooking my supply of broccoli romanesco any other way – this was so good.

It’s simply a take on an oil-and-garlic sauce, jazzed up with red pepper flakes and deliciously mushy broccoli.  Yes, deliciously mushy!  Because you mash up the cooked, almost overcooked, tender broccoli, and it helps to coat the pasta with its own warm, earthy flavor.  And then you toss the whole lot with parmesan, which is the best sauce.

Broccoli romanesco has a good honest broccoli flavor, but the texture of the florets is like a cauliflower.  Which is nice, because the cauliflower texture lends itself well to creaminess.

I guess I was supposed to use a large tubular pasta, but whole wheat spaghetti was all I had in the pantry, and I thought it worked fine.  I happen to like the nuttiness of whole-wheat pasta, perhaps because I’m a little nutty myself, and really, whole-grain pastas are getting better and better these days (didn’t you read that article in the New York Times?)

Aside, let me reiterate how happy I am to be exploring such a wonderful variety of fruits and vegetables.  I feel that living here on the Central Coast, people truly GLORY in their food, in the freshness of their produce.  You can go to a local restaurant and the staff are bragging about how sweet their cherry tomatoes are that day, and laughing when your eyes nearly pop out of your head when you taste them, they are THAT good.  In the same token, how nice to find fresh and unfamiliar vegetables at the local market, and to cook them in new ways!

Pasta with Broccoli Romanesco
From Rachel Eats
Serves 2

1 small-medium head of broccoli romanesco (about 2 cups of trimmed florets)
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 to 1 tsp red pepper flakes
200g dried spaghetti
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese

Boil the broccoli in a pot of salted water until tender, about 10 minutes.  Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and use the lime-green water (it looks like Italian soda) to cook the pasta.

Heat the oil gently in a pan (not a non-stick one) over low heat.  Add the red pepper flakes and smashed cloves of garlic, and heat for a few minutes until you can REALLY smell the garlic.  Then add the broccoli, stir to coat with oil, season liberally with salt and pepper, and cover.  Let the broccoli cook gently in the pepper-garlic infused oil until very tender, another 5 minutes or so.  Mash up the broccoli and the softened pieces of garlic with a fork (this is why you didn’t use a non-stick pan).

When pasta is done, drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water.  Put the pasta into the pan with the broccoli mixture, and toss to coat.  Add some extra pasta water if the sauce is too dry.

Serve with copious amounts of parmesan cheese grated over the top and then tossed into the pasta, where it well melt and become all savory and gooey and delicious.

For the longest time before we knew that garlic scapes were, in fact, garlic scapes, we just called them “those yummy green things”. In China, they are a common vegetable and are usually skewered on a stick, brushed with oil, dusted with five-spice powder [...]]]>

For the longest time before we knew that garlic scapes were, in fact, garlic scapes, we just called them “those yummy green things”. In China, they are a common vegetable and are usually skewered on a stick, brushed with oil, dusted with five-spice powder and grilled over a charcoal grill. They taste mildly of garlic, and their fresh crunch combined with the intensity of their flavor make them absolutely delicious!

Garlic scapes (I’m not sure why they’re called “scapes” – maybe because they “escape” from the garlic bulbs as they grow) are the long green shoots of the garlic plant. They have to be cut off to allow the garlic bulb to develop, so eating them is one way to use all of the garlic plant in a more sustainable way.

Now, I see garlic scapes all over the web – they are, apparently, one of the trendy new foods that people are starting to explore. Garlic scape pesto is one delicious way that many people are using garlic scapes, but when I picked a bunch up at the market the other day I wanted to enjoy their crispy garlic taste whole. I thought about using them in a stir-fry (I bet they would be delicious stir-fried with some Cantonese-style BBQ pork), but decided to toss them with some pasta instead. A squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of butter dressed the pasta wonderfully, with the garlic scapes providing a fresh punch of garlicky, grassy, flavor. I love garlic, so I added two cloves of chopped garlic, just for that extra measure.

When using garlic scapes, use only the crisp stalks, not the softer part on top of the bud.

Garlic Scape Lemon Pasta
Makes 2 servings

If you want more lemon flavor, add a bit of grated lemon zest.

About 1 ½ cups garlic scapes, chopped into 2-inch pieces
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ pound pasta
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 lemon
salt and pepper

Boil the pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente. Drain, reserving a cup of the pasta water.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic scapes and minced garlic and stir-fry until scapes are crisp-tender, about 5 minutes (try a piece to make sure the outside of the scapes are not fibrous or tough – if so, cook a minute or two longer). Add the butter and the juice of the lemon and stir together till butter is melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the drained pasta and toss with the sauce. Add a bit of the reserved pasta water if pasta is dry. Taste for seasoning and adjust if desired. Serve immediately.

Cooking in China has its limitations.  Sometimes you don’t have a can of tomato sauce in the pantry, or even a can of diced tomatoes.  And you can’t run to the grocery store to get one, because the nearest store that sells tomato sauce is [...]]]>

Cooking in China has its limitations.  Sometimes you don’t have a can of tomato sauce in the pantry, or even a can of diced tomatoes.  And you can’t run to the grocery store to get one, because the nearest store that sells tomato sauce is an hour away.  I have such a hard life.

But don’t worry!  Camilla is here to save the day with her amazing, creative, and dexterous cooking resources – tomato sauce made with fresh tomatoes!  A revelation!

Okay, excuse my hyperbole.  But honestly, until I lived in China, I didn’t discover the beauty that is a simple fresh tomato sauce, where the flavors of the garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, and fresh basil shine through in all their glory.  Such elegant simplicity.  Such fresh flavor!

Sometimes we don’t appreciate the simple things of life until life strips away our modern (in)conveniences and forces us to enjoy pasta sauce made with fresh tomatoes.

Here we go…

The above photo is one of the few photographs on the site taken by me (the rest are by Chris).  I’m inordinately proud of it.  It was a total fluke, but I think it turned out well, don’t you?

Simplest Fresh Tomato Sauce
Serves 2

½ pound spaghetti
1 ½ pounds fresh ripe round tomatoes, or about 6 or 7 Roma tomatoes, washed
3 tbsp olive oil
4 medium cloves garlic, finely minced
salt and pepper
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp tomato paste (optional)
Fresh basil leaves, to taste, chopped

Step 1: Peel the tomatoes and prepare pasta

Bring a large pot of water to the boil.  Score a shallow “X” in the bottom of each tomato.  When water is boiling, blanch the tomatoes for 20 seconds and remove from the water.

Use the boiling water to prepare the spaghetti according to package directions.  Remember to salt the water – if you don’t add enough salt, the spaghetti will taste inadequately seasoned, no matter how salty the sauce is.  How much salt you add will depend on how much water you’re using.  More water will prevent sticking.  Drain the pasta when it is done, reserving ½ cup of pasta water.

When tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel each tomato by pulling the skin off where you scored the X.  The skin should come off easily.  Chop the tomatoes roughly.

Step 2: Make the sauce

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a non-reactive skillet.  Add the minced garlic, and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring, until garlic is softened and pale golden (do not let it brown).  Add the chopped tomatoes, and stir to coat with oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cover skillet and cook, stirring often, until tomatoes disintegrate and release their juice.  Uncover, add teaspoon sugar, and cook, stirring, until sauce is thickened slightly.  Add tomato paste, if using.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  Stir in chopped fresh basil leaves.

Add drained pasta directly to skillet and toss with sauce.  If sauce is dry, add a splash of reserved pasta water to moisten.

You can serve this with grated Parmesan, but I love the fresh and simple flavors all on their own, with a glass of dry white wine.  Umm!  I could eat like this every day.

Lovebird Attack on Basil

This morning, I got up and went into the living room to put some water on to heat for coffee.  I looked over at the lovebird cage on the windowsill, and the cover was on, as usual (we put it [...]]]>

Lovebird Attack on Basil

This morning, I got up and went into the living room to put some water on to heat for coffee.  I looked over at the lovebird cage on the windowsill, and the cover was on, as usual (we put it on during the night so the birds don’t wake up too early and wake us up too).  Then, I looked next to the cage, to check on our little basil seedlings.  We had been attempting a second crop, since in Xiamen, the weather is warm all year round.  To my shock and horror, one of the basil seedlings was flopped over on its side, the stem terribly mangled and holes in its leaves.

Oh my goodness!  Something has attacked and disfigured the basil!

That’s when I saw the culprits, perched on the side of a flowerpot.  Two little, naughty, rainbow-colored, peachface lovebirds.

Honey!  The birds got out!  And they’ve mangled the basil!

Chris finally managed to get the birds back in their cage.  Mrs. Waffles, the pleasantly plump lovebird, went in easily with a little bit of gastronomic temptation.  But Mr. Waffles, the sly, adventurous one, didn’t give in so easily.

We do let them out occasionally, but not right near the plants.  Somehow, they had managed to unclip the door and slide it open, and crawled out from under the birdcage cover.  They’re smart little suckers.  And they were loving it.  They were in a heaven of windowsill herbs.  And they didn’t attack the old crop of basil, oh no…they knew where the good stuff was.  They just had to attack the tender new young basil plants.

Do you think this poor innocent basil will ever recover?

In the meantime, I’ve brought you a super fast pasta dish.  Great weeknight food.  Penne with a lemony ricotta-basil sauce.  Yes.  Basil.

Penne with Lemon, Ricotta and Basil

Use the freshest ricotta you can find, or if you want to, you can make your own!  It’s surprisingly easy.

3/4 cup fresh ricotta cheese
zest of one lemon, grated
juice of one lemon
3 tbsp butter
½ pound penne
½ cup packed fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Cook the penne in a pot of salted water until al dente, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water. Drain and set aside.

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the butter, and whisk in the ricotta, lemon juice and lemon zest.  Moisten with some of the reserved pasta water to make a sauce-like consistency.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Toss the pasta with a bit of olive oil.  Divide among plates and top with sauce and basil.  Serves 2.

How easy was that?