extrapolate over forty and who's the real chosen one?
things i cooked this weekend:
curried chicken salad
tortellini (from scratch!!1!!) with goat cheese, lemon zest and tarragon
epic adventures in pasta making
most nights, i lie awake in bed, thinking about the following three topics:
1) what is the point of shelling out for prescription sleeping pills if it still takes me two freakin' hours to fall asleep every night?
2) what sucks more, sam cassell's attempts to run the celtics' offense or the red sox bullpen? enquiring minds want to know.
3) what should i cook when i suddenly and inevitably wake up at 4:30 tomorrow morning?
last weekend i made tamales, and this weekend i was so drunk on my success that i got the notion that i would make tortellini. y'know, from scratch. have i ever made tortellini before? no. have i ever made pasta before? no! do i own a pasta machine? no, of course not! don't worry, i didn't let this stop me. i was heady on my own culinary merits, i decided i would make tortellini with white whole wheat flour, so it would be delicious and nutritious.
HAH.
so there is a white whole wheat lump of wet cement at the bottom of my trash can right now, let's just leave it at that. how quickly did i abandon my whole wheat principles? quickly enough to reach for the swan's cake flour, which is the most bleached and processed flour ever made. but it worked, and soon enough, i was attempting to roll paper-thin layers of pasta with only a rolling pin and a dream. okay, all this description is getting boring. here, have some pictures:
cutting out rounds of pasta with biscuit cutter. you can see the stack of already cut rounds in the upper left-hand corner.
tiny balls of delicious goat cheese filling.
so wee! so time consuming! i talked to my mom on the phone about how her older sister is an asshole for an HOUR while i folded and tucked all of these.
(for really helpful and detailed instructions on the entire process, including the recipe and folding method, see here.)
hahah, they didn't fall apart in the water. i am zictorious!
then, as seen above, i dressed them with a sauce of pureed grape tomatoes, red bell pepper, tarragon, lemon juice, shallot, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and some cucumbers for crunch and color. but did they taste good? well, they were okay. despite all my laborious rolling, the dough was still about twice as thick as i imagine it ought to be, and so many of the tortellini tasted like little goat cheese filled hockey pucks. i still feeling pretty good until starkeymonster came home late last night and was like, "DUH WE OWN A PASTA MAKER." yeah, i'm awesome.
curried chicken salad
tortellini (from scratch!!1!!) with goat cheese, lemon zest and tarragon
epic adventures in pasta making
most nights, i lie awake in bed, thinking about the following three topics:
1) what is the point of shelling out for prescription sleeping pills if it still takes me two freakin' hours to fall asleep every night?
2) what sucks more, sam cassell's attempts to run the celtics' offense or the red sox bullpen? enquiring minds want to know.
3) what should i cook when i suddenly and inevitably wake up at 4:30 tomorrow morning?
last weekend i made tamales, and this weekend i was so drunk on my success that i got the notion that i would make tortellini. y'know, from scratch. have i ever made tortellini before? no. have i ever made pasta before? no! do i own a pasta machine? no, of course not! don't worry, i didn't let this stop me. i was heady on my own culinary merits, i decided i would make tortellini with white whole wheat flour, so it would be delicious and nutritious.
HAH.
so there is a white whole wheat lump of wet cement at the bottom of my trash can right now, let's just leave it at that. how quickly did i abandon my whole wheat principles? quickly enough to reach for the swan's cake flour, which is the most bleached and processed flour ever made. but it worked, and soon enough, i was attempting to roll paper-thin layers of pasta with only a rolling pin and a dream. okay, all this description is getting boring. here, have some pictures:
cutting out rounds of pasta with biscuit cutter. you can see the stack of already cut rounds in the upper left-hand corner.
tiny balls of delicious goat cheese filling.
so wee! so time consuming! i talked to my mom on the phone about how her older sister is an asshole for an HOUR while i folded and tucked all of these.
(for really helpful and detailed instructions on the entire process, including the recipe and folding method, see here.)
hahah, they didn't fall apart in the water. i am zictorious!
then, as seen above, i dressed them with a sauce of pureed grape tomatoes, red bell pepper, tarragon, lemon juice, shallot, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and some cucumbers for crunch and color. but did they taste good? well, they were okay. despite all my laborious rolling, the dough was still about twice as thick as i imagine it ought to be, and so many of the tortellini tasted like little goat cheese filled hockey pucks. i still feeling pretty good until starkeymonster came home late last night and was like, "DUH WE OWN A PASTA MAKER." yeah, i'm awesome.