Sriracha Cole Slaw

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It is rare that I will make something at work all day and then come home and make it for dinner. Welcome to one of those rare days.

Today's gastronomical delight is Sriracha Cole Slaw. Really. Cole slaw with a spicy bbq sauce base. Creamy, crunchy, and mildly spicy - the bbq sauce is tempered by the mayo. It's one of those dishes that keeps me going back for more. And more.

And it's so easy to make.

I've been using the Sriracha BBQ Sauce on everything, from ribs - last night - to chicken, pork, and a tri-tip on the grill. It just works. And, knowing that it just works, I knew it would work as a salad dressing, as well.

Sometimes ya just know.

I made a hefty batch and tonight, put it on burgers. The burger was a total mess to eat. Just the way a good burger should be. There's enough left to have it a few more times, because... well... It's really good.

 

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Sriracha Cole Slaw

  • 1 bag shredded cabbage
  • 1 bag shredded carrots
  • 1 red onion, julienned
  • 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
  • 3/4 cup Sriracha BBQ sauce
  • Salt & Pepper, to taste

Slice onions into strips. In a large bowl, mix carrots, cabbage, and onions.

Add mayonnaise and Sriracha BBQ sauce and mix well.

Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.

Tonight's dinner was remarkable in another way, as well. Not the tater tots covered in cheese - I get those now and again... No... It was actually buying pre-shredded cabbage and carrots! That's almost a first, for me!

Will wonders never cease?!?

 

 

 


Stuff

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One of my more fun cooking styles is clean out the refrigerator. The dish is usually an amalgamation of pieces of this-and-that that are hanging around the 'fridge. Things that are too small for an actual meal and too big or too good to toss - things that just accumulate over time. It's the type of meal that is almost always stellar - and will never be replicated because the odds of having these same items in the 'fridge at the same time are between slim and none.

Tonight's meal started with 2 meaty country pork ribs, a single cooked Italian sausage, a bit of leftover flank steak, a green pepper, an onion, half a basket of mini heirloom tomatoes, and a single ear of corn. Oh. And three pieces of bacon.

I started with the bacon. I chopped it up and let it start to brown. Into the pan went the onion - the smell of bacon and onion cooking together is almost olfactory overload - and after browning everything nicely, I added the ribs.

After went the tomatoes, the green pepper, the corn, the sausage and the flank steak - and then a cup of white wine, salt, pepper, and a great spice blend my friend, Tyler, brought back from Florida - Old St Augustine Minorcan Spice. It's a blend of Datil peppers, Seville oranges, garlic, onion... Not too spicy and with a nice hint of orange.

Good stuff.

I covered the pot and placed it in a 300° oven for a couple of hours. It's cold and damp outside - it was nice having the oven on...

I pulled it out of the oven, shredded the pork and tossed the bones, and then added about a cup of beef broth and a half-cup of rice, mixed it all together, and put it back in the oven for another hour. Covered.

The end result was a rich, meaty rice dish with tons of flavor.

Nonna asked if she could have it for lunch, tomorrow. It was definitely a hit!

And there's more Strawberry Pie for dessert.

Life is good!


Pane al Pistacchio

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One of my go-to books for Italian breads is Carol Field's The Italian Baker. I have had her book for probably 30 years and it's still one of the best books out there for making rustic Italian breads. The recipes are all easily adaptable and if you make bread on any sort of regular basis, you can easily play with them and get outstanding results every time.

Today, I took her Walnut Bread and turned it into a Pistachio Bread.

I love baking bread on hot, humid days. The weather is perfect for proofing bread outdoors - Mother Nature's Perfect Proofing Box.  Since I've been day-dreaming about Sicily, I thought a loaf of bread with pistachios was in order. Sicily has some excellent pistachios - grown mostly in the volcanic soil around Mount Etna. They don't export many, but I can pretend my California nuts are their Sicilian cousins...

The recipe is pretty straightforward. There are no starters - biga - in this bread, so you can get it done start-to-finish in just a couple of hours.

A couple of things to note... When chopping the nuts, I used a food processor and made them fairly fine, but made sure there were still some chunks. Also, after the first rise, you take the dough out of the bowl and form it into a ring without punching it down or kneading it. The dough is also just a tad sticky. Resist the urge to add more flour.

The end result is outstanding!

This is the dough right out of the mixer, ready for the first rise. Note the chunks of pistachio.

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It's then formed into a ring on a cornmeal-sprinkled bread peel and left to rise, again, until doubled.

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And here it is right out of the oven.

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Half of this is going into the freezer.

It's actually quite a quick recipe. Most of the time is waiting for it to rise - and on nice, hot, humid days, it does it quite quickly.

Pistachio Bread

adapted from Carol Field's The Italian Baker

  • 2 cups roasted, unsalted pistachios
  • 2 1/2 tsp or 1 package active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup cane syrup or honey
  • 1 1/3 cups warm water
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt

Chop them to coarse crumb in a food processor.Stir the yeast and cane syrup or honey into water in a large mixing bowl; let stand until foamy.

Combine the flour, salt and pistachios and stir into the yeast mixture. Mix until the dough looks brownish and coarse. Knead for 8-10 minutes. The dough should be soft, moist and fairly dense, but easy to work, although not elastic.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover tightly and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. WITHOUT PUNCHING IT DOWN OR KNEADING IT, shape it gently into a log and join the end to make a ring.

Place on a cornmeal-dusted bread peel. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Pre-heat the oven with baking stone to 400° F. Slide bread onto stone and bake for 10 minutes; reduce the heat to 350° F and bake 40 minutes longer.

If you don't have a peel and baking stone, you can place the loaf on a cornmeal-dusted sheet pan, let it rise, and then place the pan in the oven to bake.

But I really do recommend getting a peel and stone. They're not that expensive and they really do make for a better loaf of bread!


Summer Salads - In Spring

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It's been stifling all day. August heat and humidity at the end of May. We really have ceased to have a measurable Spring, anymore. We go right from winter to summer with a couple of decent days interspersed along the way. It sucks.

Right now, we're having a typical summer thunderstorm. It's banging away with some pretty heavy downpours - the first rain we've seen all month. There's no denying Climate Change around here.

This is also Blanche's first storm. She's handling it pretty well, but she's not exactly thrilled. No distress or acting crazy, but she'd rather it be sunshine and quiet. So would I - except we need the rain.

So... Since it's hotter than hot outside, I thought salads were the way to go for dinner... I grilled a flank steak - added a dry rub of our various Kansas City spices - and threw it on the grill. Meanwhile, I cut up a cucumber and a zucchini, sliced up some mini tomatoes, added a couple of hard cooked eggs, olives, and blackberries. I love berries on my salads!

Victor made a really good dressing with our stash of Sicilian olive oil and thick, syrupy really-aged balsamic vinegar.

Outstanding, in fact.

The storm seems to be losing steam and the rain has slowed to a mild shower. The heat and humidity are still ridiculous, however... Oh well.

At least dinner was good.


Memorial Day 2015

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Memorial Day. The official start of summer and the day people get confused with Veterans Day and Armed Forces Day.

As an actual live veteran, it's always a bit disconcerting when people thank me for my service, today. (I don't really like being thanked for my involvement in Viet Nam on any day - but that's another story for another time.)

Today is the day that is set aside for remembering those who died in service to our country. Those who came back in flag-draped coffins - if they were lucky - and those who are buried in Gettysburg, Flanders Fields, along the road to Bataan, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Beirut, the bottom of every ocean on the planet... It's an endless list.

1,400,000 Americans have been killed in wars since our country was founded. One Million, Four Hundred Thousand. Dead.From.War.

The day to thank Veterans like myself who came home alive, is Veteran's Day - November 11th. It was originally Armistice Day - the day WWI ended. That was the war to end all wars. It is celebrated with Veterans Day Sales since it's too cold to BBQ.

That would also be the day to thank the 1,500,000 wounded veterans and the day to kick yourself for voting for that Congressman or Senator who keeps voting to cut Veteran's benefits while simultaneously pushing to go to war somewhere else. Yes, your vote counts.

The day to thank active duty military is Armed Forces Day - the third Saturday in May. Not many people know about this day because it's on a Saturday and no one gets the day off.

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It was on May 15th this year. It will be May 21st, next year. Mark your calendars.

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So, on this Memorial Day, I toasted a couple of guys I knew who didn't make it back from Viet Nam, and cooked a couple of steaks, a couple ears of corn - with chipotle butter - and potato salad, tomato salad, and watermelon. And a Coca-Cola from Mexico. You can really taste the difference.

Peach bars are gonna be cut for dessert in a while. I may be a left-leaning Liberal but I can still take part in American Traditions.

And something to ponder while you're eating that burger or hot dog, or whatever...

Think about who profits from war. Think about how much money we spend every day on bombs and guns and our own weapons of mass destruction. And then think about why we don't have any money to fix crumbling bridges or educate our children.

And think about how many more young lives we're going to extinguish between now and Monday, May 30, 2016 - Memorial Day, next year.

We, The People could put a stop to it if we all started paying attention.


Escarole and Sausage over Crispy-Cheesy Bread

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I was perusing a few of the websites I have linked to this, this morning, and came upon a recipe I immediately knew we were having for dinner, tonight on Rustico Cooking.

I actually don't remember how I came upon their website but I immediately bookmarked it because the food looked so intriguing. The recipes seemed simple but with complex flavors. And today, I decided to jump in!

I have a huge bookmark section on the computer devoted to food - what a surprise, eh?!? - and as I was saying earlier, if I just cooked the recipes I already have I'd never have to buy another cook book in my life. This has made me revisit not only my blog links, but the bookmarks, as well. I have been in a huge rut as far as cooking goes. It's time to break out and get creative, again.

This was a great start. Naturally, I switched things around a bit, used different cheeses, but the recipe is basic and pretty much calls for your own interpretation. The bread is important. Use something fairly light that will toast well and give a nice crunch without being too heavy or overwhelming.

And something Victor and I both noted is this would be outstanding with a fried egg on top.

Next time...

Escarole and Sausage over Crispy-Cheesy Bread

adapted from Rustico Cooking

Sausage and Escarole:

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/2 tsp chili flakes
  • 1/2 lb hot Italian sausage, casings removed and crumbled
  • 1 lb - a large head - escarole, chopped
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Place the olive oil, fennel seeds, garlic, and chili flakes in a wide pan with a tight-fitting lid. Warm gently over medium heat until it becomes aromatic - a minute or so.

Add the sausage and cook  stirring often and breaking it up, until the sausage is nicely browned. Add the chopped escarole, season with the salt and pepper, and cover.

Cook about 10 minutes, stirring once in a while, or until the escarole cooks down.  The liquid is essential to this dish, so keep the lid on. Set aside while making bread.

Crispy-Cheesy Bread:

  • 4 cups cubed Italian focaccia or other light-textured bread
  • 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/3 lb low moisture Mozzarella, shredded
  • 2 oz Ricotta Salada, shredded
  • 2 oz Pecorino Romano, shredded
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Spread bread cubes onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil and add a pinch of salt & pepper, if desired. Place in 400° oven for 5 minutes. Remove.

Move bread cubes to center of pan, keeping them fairly close together and in one layer.

Sprinkle cheeses on top. Return to oven and bake about 5 more minutes - until cheese is melted and bread is slightly more toasted.

To Assemble:

Reheat sausage and escarole.

Place about 1/4 of the cheesy bread on each of 2 plates. Top with 1/4 of the sausage and escarole. Add a second layer of each.

Drizzle any remaining juices from the escarole on top of the plates and enjoy!

As we were oohing and awing and deciding what else would be fun - like that fried egg - Victor's mom just looked at us as if we were crazy. She had ziti and mild Italian sausage. Her adventurous eating days are behind her.

Ours are just starting up, again, after a bit of a hiatus.

 


Tri-Tip on the Grill

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One of my mostest-favoritest things to grill are tri-tip roasts. Tri-tips are really a west coast cut of meat, although they are finally showing up on the eastern seaboard. Tender, juicy, and lots and lots of flavor.

I did a fairly standard take on a Santa Maria rub and then brushed it with a mustard and vinegar sauce while it was grilling. It came out spicy-good. At the last minute I realized Nonna wasn't going to go for either the beans or the beef, so she got a chicken cutlet.

The beans were Phoebe's famous baked beans - the only ones I've made for years, now... And french fries because I didn't feel like going to the store just for a couple of potatoes. I'm lazy like that...

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Phoebe's Baked Beans

  • 1/2  cup minced shallots
  • 1  tablespoon ground cumin
  • 1  tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1/2  cup tomato puree (I use tomato paste – I never have puree in the house!)
  • 1  tablespoon canola oil
  • 1/4  cup honey
  • 1/4  cup cider vinegar
  • 2  tablespoons molasses
  • 1  tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4  teaspoon salt
  • 2  chipotle chiles, canned in adobo sauce, seeded and chopped
  • 2  (28-ounce) cans baked beans

Preheat oven to 300°.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add shallots; sauté 4 minutes or until golden. Add cumin and garlic; sauté for 1 minute. Add tomato puree and oil, and cook for 2 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Add remaining ingredients (except beans.). Reduce heat; simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Combine beans and shallot mixture in a 2-quart baking dish. Bake at 300° for 1 hour or until thick and bubbly.

And the rub and marinade...

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Tri Tip Spice Rub

  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 tsp black pepper
  • 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp celery seed
  • 1 tsp dried rosemary
  • 1/4 tsp Guamanian boonie pepper (or cayenne)

Mix all ingredients together and rub liberally on tri tip roast. Cover and let stand in refrigerator about 4 hours.

Grilling Sauce

  • 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
  • 1/3 cup neutral oil
  • 1/2 tsp dijon mustard

Brush on roast while it is grilling, turning every 4 or 5 minutes and applying more.

It came out spicy-good. And it's going to make some great sandwiches tomorrow!

 

 


Cherry Upside-Down Polenta Cake

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Ah... what to do with 2 pounds of fresh cherries...

If you're a normal person, you just grab 'em and eat 'em. If you're me, you turn them into a dessert. I was actually a semi-good boy with this one. It's not nearly as over-the-top ooey and gooey as I could have gone. And not a drop of heavy cream!

The original recipe came from Bon Appetit about 10 years ago, I think. That was back when I actually still liked the magazine. They've pretty much lost me, nowadays. I stopped subscribing several years ago but had a subscription to La Cucina Italiana - another Conde Nast magazine I loved and always found recipes to make. Conde Nast ceased publication of the US version of La Cucina - it's still available in Italian - and I ended up with a subscription to Bon Appetit in its place. I should have taken the cash refund.

Oh well.

I have a folder full of recipes I've cut out of magazines over the years and if I actually stopped and made the recipes I already have, I wouldn't have time to make any others. I have slowed down on the cook book acquisitions, though. Well... except for the digital ones I keep downloading. But that's different. Sorta.

The cake is baked in a skillet, which makes for easy prep and clean-up. You will want to use a straight-sided pan - and one that can go into the oven for 45 minutes or so. It also calls for a couple teaspoons of balsamic vinegar in the cherries. I used a really nice, aged balsamic because we have lots and I figured if I'm going to pit 2 pounds of cherries, I'm going for the gold, so to speak.

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Cherry Upside-Down Polenta Cake

  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, divided
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 1/2 pounds pitted fresh cherries
  • 1 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup stone-ground polenta or cornmeal
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • hefty pinch salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs, separated
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix 1/4 cup butter with brown sugar and vinegar in 10" skillet. Stir over medium heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Add cherries and bring to boil. Remove from heat.

Whisk flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt together. Beat remaining 1/2 cup butter in large bowl with sugar and beat until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla.

Add flour mixture alternately with milk in 2 additions mixing until just blended. Beat egg whites in another bowl with cream of tartar and beat until whites are stiff but not dry. Fold 1/4 of whites into batter to lighten slightly. Carefully fold in remaining whites. Spoon batter over cherries in skillet, then spread evenly to cover cherries.

Bake cake until top is golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool in skillet on rack 5 minutes. Place cake plate atop skillet and carefully flip. Leave skillet atop cake 5 minutes. Remove skillet. Rearrange any cherries that may have become dislodged. Cool at least 45 minutes.

Enjoy!

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A few cherries stuck to the pan but they were easily placed back on the cake.

And it's a winner! Not too sweet and with a nice little corn crunch from the stone-ground corn. I'm thinkin' that this will be good with fresh peaches when they arrive...

I'll have to see what other fun I can have with this...


Strawberry Pie

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Strawberries have been looking good. It seems to be kinda early in the season, for me, but...  good berries are good berries. I don't know if the heat and drought in California are responsible, but here I am buying strawberries the first week in May.

I was hankerin' for a pie, so I thought I'd try my hand at a strawberry pie. I hadn't made one in years, but that never seems to stop me.

I just reworked the basic cherry pie I've made in the past - and seriously underestimated the amount of liquid the strawberries vs cherries would produce.

It was a bit of a runny pie.

I'm not posting a recipe because what I did really didn't come together all that well - although it did taste really good. Hell... How could it not with 2 pounds of sweet strawberries in it?!?

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It's not a good picture, either, but what the hell. We ate it all!

 


Baby Back Ribs with Spicy Bourbon BBQ Sauce

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Baby Back Ribs. Meaty, tender, juicy, baby back ribs. Ya gotta love 'em.

There re many reasons why I would never make it as a vegetarian, and ribs slathered in BBQ sauce is one of them. They're just too damned good for words - although that's not going to stop me from waxing poetically about them for a few more paragraphs!

Whenever I cook ribs, I almost always start them off in the oven and then finish them off on the grill. It's time and convenience for me. I no longer have the patience required to let something smoke on the BBQ for hours and hours. Besides - I no longer own a BBQ. Or a smoker.

The oven works for me.

I did something a bit different this time around... I started the ribs off in the oven with a half-cup of apricot nectar. I made a boat with the foil, put in the ribs, added the nectar, wrapped them up, and baked them at 350° for a bit more than an hour. I let them cool down while I made the sauce.

Spicy Bourbon BBQ Sauce

  • 1/2 cup bourbon
  • 1/2 cup apricot jam
  • 1/2 cup cane syrup
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp molasses
  • 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tbsp dijon mustard
  • 2 tbsp sambal oelek
  • salt and pepper

Place all ingredients in a medium pot and bring to a boil, stirring well. Continue boiling until sauce reduces and begins to thicken - 5 or more minutes, depending on your personal preference.

Remove from heat and let cool.

I liberally coated the ribs with the sauce and then placed them on a medium-hot grill. I continually turned and basted them for about 15 minutes.They were sticky-perfect when they came off!

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Baked sweet potatoes and braised artichokes finished the plate.

Yum.

 


A Tenderloin of Beef

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There's something oddly decadent about putting BBQ sauce on a filet mignon steak. I mean... a filet is the ultimate. It may get wrapped in bacon or topped with Bearnaise Sauce, but BBQ Sauce?!?Quelle horreur!!

Then, again, I was using a Sriracha BBQ Sauce. The stuff rocks the Casaba!

The filets came about because I was at the grocery store pricing meats and realizing I could buy a whole tenderloin of beef for what they were asking for a few steaks and burger. I have a knife. I can cut something into pieces.

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The first thing I did was clean up the tenderloin and rem,ove the chain. There's some good meat on that little piece, but it's not steak material.

Second thing was to cut some steaks.

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I got 15 steaks from the tenderloin, so they ended up costing me about 5 bucks a piece.

They're like anything else you buy, nowadays. The more someone touches it, the more you're going to pay for it. You seriously pay for that perceived convenience. It probably took me 20 minutes to clean, cut, and vacuum-seal the steaks. But even if it had taken an hour, I still came out ahead. The store will charge $10 to $15 a piece for those same steaks - and they won't be as nicely trimmed!

Think about it the next time you're at the store.

I bought a whole pork loin, too. I have 15 thick-cut pork chops that cost me a buck a piece. I didn't take any pictures of those, but suffice to say, we're going to be eating well. And on the cheap!

 

 


Gnocchi and a New Grill

 

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On Monday, I finally decided to get serious about fixing our gas grill. It was rusted through the bottom, burners were rusted, I needed to light it with matches... It was a mess. It had been a mess for a couple of years, but I just kept putting off fixing it. So... I went to the website and started pricing replacement parts.

As I was scanning through the list, I realized I needed way more parts than was practical. Time to get a new grill. I went on to Amazon Smile and yesterday our new grill was delivered. In a really big box. Assembly required.

Assembly doesn't bother me, but instructions without words - just pictures - are not my forte. They generally just don't make sense to me. Icons, in general, don't make sense to me. What can I say?!?

I had planned to put it together tomorrow, but I got to leave work early, today. I came home, baked a loaf of bread, and set out to conquer Mr Char-Broil.

Victor - very wisely - planned a dinner that did not require a grill. He knows me. Well.

I actually did pretty well. I only made one screw-up - misreading the two front panels for a brace I couldn't find necessitating some awkward screwing after the fact - but it was all done in 2 hours. No cursing, crying, temper-tantrums, or smashed fingers.

Meanwhile, Victor was in the kitchen making ricotta gnocchi.

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OMG! Talk about light-as-a-feather gnocchi! These may be his best one's yet - and every time he makes them they're great!

Ricotta Gnocchi

  • 2 cups ricotta cheese
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

Combine the ricotta, Parmesan, olive oil, eggs and 1 teaspoon salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the flour in 3 parts, stirring with a rubber spatula. It will be a loose dough.

Bring the dough together in a ball and cut off one-quarter of it. Dust the work surface with all-purpose flour to prevent sticking, and roll the cut-off piece of dough into a long rope about 5/8 inch in diameter. Cut the rope into 5/8-inch pieces. Dust some parchment paper with flour and place the gnocchi on it to prevent sticking. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Cook the gnocchi in boiling water for 2 minutes.

Drain and serve with your favorite sauce.

Our favorite sauce is anything Victor makes.  Fortunately, we have plenty in the house.

Fresh bread, homemade pasta, off work early on a beautiful Spring day, and a new grill.

Life definitely doesn't suck around here!

And tomorrow?!? Time to break that baby in!

Oh... and yes, that is a mosaic picture of San Francisco on our wall outside. It was made by my great Aunt Dolores in the early '60s. It's pretty cool.