Butternut Squash Soup - with a twist
Yesterday, Victor made the best soup ever. Really. Pretty much in the history of soups, this one is right on top. No hyperbole. The.Best.Soup.Ever.
It started off simply enough... A butternut squash and some broth out of the freezer... But it grew into a pot of magnificence that will have people weeping for joy for generations to come.
It was really good.
We've taken to having a bowl of homemade soup for lunch a few times a week. It's helped with the weight control - filling, lots of nourishment, and not a lot of calories.
This one was built around things we had in the house, but everything is readily available - and probably already staples in the home.
Butternut Squash, Lentil, and Andouille Soup
- 3 qts chicken broth
- 1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 lb andouille sausage, sliced into rounds
- 3/4 cup white wine
- 1 can pinto beans
- 1 1/4 cups lentils - we used brown pardina lentils, but use what you have
- cayenne
- salt & pepper
In a bit of oil, cook sausage, onion, and garlic in soup pot until nicely browned. Remove sausage and set aside.
Add wine and deglaze the pot. Cook down to just a few tablespoons.
Add broth, squash, beans, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook until squash is fall-apart tender.
Use an immersion blender to completely blend the soup. You can also use a conventional blender. Just be careful.
Add the sausage back in and add the lentils. Simmer until the lentils are tender.
Check for seasoning and add a pinch of cayenne to up the heat a bit, if desired. Or, use your favorite hot sauce.
Ladle into bowls and pay homage to the soup gods.
It really is one of those dishes that just has everything going for it - slightly spicy, perfect consistency, different textures, and oh, so satisfying.
We have enough for lunches on Tuesday and Wednesday. A tanker car wouldn't be enough.
It was really good.
Gnocchi and Eggplant
Victor was rummaging through the freezer yesterday and came upon a packet of breaded and fried eggplant he had cooked up in August. The cutlets were from eggplants in our garden - at a time when looking at eggplant was starting to get a bit rough. Even with a bad growing season, we had a lot of eggplant.
Fast-forward a few months and that eggplant is looking mighty fine - and tasting even better!
It's rather interesting how one can tire of a food after a while, and then, a short time later, relish in it! And I most definite relished in it, tonight!
The eggplant was perfection! Fork-tender mouthfuls of ricotta, oregano, and homemade sauce. And then there was the gnocchi! Light as a feather.
The basic for the gnocchi is a baked potato that has been riced, flour, an egg, a pinch of salt, and a bit of grated parmesan cheese. He doesn’t have exact measurements because every potato is slightly different. You mix the egg, potato, and a handful of flour together and then add the cheese and slowly add flour until the dough feels right. Vague, I know, but every batch is just a bit different. When you’ve made it a few times, you learn the feel - and it will be perfect for you, as well!
Because the eggplant was already fried, all Victor needed to do was make a ricotta filling - ricotta, quattro formaggio, garlic powder, parmesan, salt, and pepper. He layered it between two cutlets, topped it with sauce, and then baked, covered, for about 35 minutes.
It really was the perfect meal.
Victor made enough gnocchi for two meals - the rest went into the freezer and I'll vacuum-pack them later when they're solid. The Mucca Rigagnocchi Gnocchi Rolling Machine from Fante’s in South Philly really makes the gnocchi-making a breeze. While it was never actually difficult to use the rolling board or the times of a fork, the roller really makes every one perfect.
There's one more package of gnocchi in the freezer. We'll see how long it takes us to break into it!
Homemade Pasta
Yesterday, after dinner, Victor noted we had a goodly amount of sauce left from the cioppino, but very little seafood - definitely not enough for another meal. His solution was to make sure there were no shells left - and then he took an immersion blender to it and made a tomato seafood sauce. It looked to be the perfect sauce for a pasta dish - and a really good base for a soup.
First thing this morning, Victor said he had dinner covered, tonight - he had a pasta plan. I definitely wasn't going to argue with him - Mrs Dineen did not raise a fool!
He had a bit of homemade pasta dough in the freezer, and with a sauce that only needed tweaking, he had a stupendous dinner on the table with relatively little effort - he has pasta rolling and cutting down to a science.
Fresh Pasta
- 1 cup tipo ’00’ flour
- 1/3 cup semolina flour
- 2 eggs
- pinch salt
- 1 tbsp water – maybe
Mix flour, salt, and eggs until fully combined. Knead on a floured board until smooth, adding a drop or two of additional water, if needed.
Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, and then roll out using pasta machine. You can roll this with a rolling pin, but a pasta roller is so much easier!
Lightly dust and then fold the pasta strips.
And then cut to desired width.
Unfold and place on a floured sheet pan.
Cook in lightly boiling salted water for about 3 minutes. Then add to sauce and cook an additional 2 minutes.
He cooked up some roasted red pepper sausage and more garlic and added it to the sauce for a bit more pizzazz, and cut the pasta into a thin fettuccine.
Perfection.
I think I'm going to take the rest of the sauce and make some soup, tomorrow. We'll never replicate any of this but it doesn't matter - we're eating well and waste not, want not!
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
The fun thing about decorating at our house is even after we're all done, we still find things to decorate. We'll be adding a bit here or a bit there for another few days - and probably more if we end up buying more fun things in Niagara Falls! (You know we will!) I just added big red balls to our palm tree in the kitchen. Blanche sees me coming and starts running - she thinks she will be next!
We've been slowly purging stuff that has fallen apart or is just not usable, anymore, and I shake my head in wonder because if we barely have room for what we have, how in the hell did we fit all that other stuff in here?
Still, most everything has been done - and that means more time to cook! Victor started it off with Sweet Potato Gnocchi!
Victor’s sweet potato gnocchi is an eyeball recipe.
A baked sweet potato that has been riced, an egg, salt & pepper, and flour. The flour is the wild card. You mix the sweet potato and egg together with a bit of S&P, and then start adding small amounts of flour – just enough to hold it all together and have a smooth dough. Not a lot.
Form pieces into a rope, cut them into individual pieces, and roll them with a Mucca Rigagnocchi Gnocchi Rolling Machine from Fante’s in South Philly, form them off the tines of a fork or with a gnocchi board – $4.99, also at Fante’s. If you're going to do this more than once a year, buy a Mucca - or get someone to buy you one for Christmas! They're fun and really easy to use!
Make it. You'll be glad you did.
Pasta e Ceci
We were watching America's Test Kitchen the other night when they made a Pasta e Ceci - Pasta and Chickpeas.
We tend to watch the show and mock them because they can take the simplest recipe and overly-complicate and radically change it to the point that it doesn't even closely resemble the dish they started with. These are the people who used cottage cheese in their lasagne because ricotta had no flavor...
Really.
So, it was quite the surprise when they came up with a pasta e ceci recipe that actually sounded good! It's a dish Victor hasn't made in years - so, today, he headed to the kitchen to rectify that!
Pasta e Ceci is a really classic Roman dish - with as many variations as there are Romans - and non-Romans - to cook it. At it's heart, it's a simple dish of chick peas, pasta, and tomatoes. A lot of tomatoes, a few tomatoes. Beans and pasta cooked in the pot, beans and pasta cooked separately and added in. Some of the beans mashed, none of the beans mashed. Little pasta, big pasta. Short pasta, long pasta.
You get the idea - it's a dish that you make and however you make it - it's right.
Victor took the America's Test Kitchen concept and played with it. He used fresh garbanzo beans and cooked them in the broth. Used our home-grown oregano in place of rosemary. Added homemade tomato sauce. Lots of crushed red pepper flakes.
Pasta e Ceci (Pasta with Chickpeas)
- 2 ounces pancetta, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 small carrot, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 small celery rib, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1 medium onion, halved and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 (14-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, drained (I used 1 can of diced tomatoes - undrained - and a 16-ounce jar of our homemade tomato sauce)
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for serving
- 2 anchovy fillets, rinsed, patted dry, and minced
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes - or more – to taste (I used more)
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary – I substituted our Oregano and used approx. 1 tbs.
- 2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas (do not drain) – I used dried but canned is probably just as good and easier.
- 2 cups water
- Salt and pepper
- 8 ounces (1 1/2 cups) ditalini
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
- 1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated (1/2 cup)
Process pancetta in food processor until ground to paste, about 30 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add carrot, celery, and garlic and pulse until finely chopped, 8 to 10 pulses. Add onion and pulse until onion is cut into 1/8- to 1/4-inch pieces, 8 to 10 pulses. Transfer pancetta mixture to large Dutch oven. Pulse tomatoes in now-empty food processor until coarsely chopped, 8 to 10 pulses. Set aside.
Add oil to pancetta mixture in Dutch oven and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until fond begins to form on bottom of pot, about 5 minutes. Add anchovy, pepper flakes, and rosemary/oregano and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Stir in tomatoes, chickpeas and their liquid, water, and 1 teaspoon salt and bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add pasta and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, 10 to 12 minutes.
Stir in lemon juice and parsley and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve, passing Parmesan and extra oil separately.
And it came out great! It was rich, filling, flavorful, and satisfying.
It made a big pot so we're set for lunches for a few days, too. The dinner that keeps on giving!
That definitely helps because we're gearing up for Thanksgiving and our annual Decorate the House From Top To Bottom On The Day After Thanksgiving Celebration. We're going for Thanksgiving, this year, but we still need to make a couple of things and cook a turkey for ourselves. We're also switching things up a bit this year, so we've already been busy cleaning things that don't get cleaned very often in preparation for everything in the house to be moved. Half the house needs to get packed away so the Christmas Decorations have a place to go.
Since this is the first year I haven't had to deal with frantic customers leading up to the big day, I'm really looking forward to it!
Retirement is good.
Individual Frittatas
We have been looking at ways to switch up breakfast around here. I usually go for plain yogurt - whole milk Greek - with half a banana and sprinkled with Grape Nuts, or my other go-to, steel cut oatmeal with banana - no milk or sugar. Victor will go for the other half of the banana with chunky peanut butter and a hard-cooked egg or something similar. Not exactly exciting, but it's something to stoke the early morning fire before heading off to the gym or whatever else needs doing in the morning.
I make a batch of oatmeal in advance, and we cook off eggs in advance, as well. Having good food readily available keeps us from looking for the instant-gratification crap food.
Today, Victor caught a cooking show that was making individual frittatas! Moments after the show ended, he was in the kitchen!
We've made things like this in the past, but always to eat right away. It took seeing them on a TV show to realize they could sit in the 'fridge awaiting our morning nutritional needs!
And, like any frittata, they were easy to put together and are limited only by your imagination and items in your 'fridge or pantry.
His recipe made exactly 12.
Individual Frittatas
- 8 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 cup grated cheese
- 1/2 cup chopped fennel
- 3 green onions, chopped
- 2 oz sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped
- 2 oz chopped mushrooms
- salt and pepper
- shredded cheese to top
Preheat over to 375°F. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with food release spray.
Sauté fennel and mushrooms. When nearly done, add tomatoes and green onions. Cool.
Mix eggs with milk. Stir in cooled vegetable mix and grated cheese. Add S&P to taste.
Portion into prepared muffin tin and sprinkle with shredded cheese.
Bake for 10 minutes, cool, and remove from tin.
They puffed up beautifully, and then fell as they cooled. They're now in a lovely container awaiting breakfast tomorrow morning!
Stuffed Peppers
My stomach is smiling. We just had stuffed peppers - stuffed with lentils and shrimp. Not only is my stomach smiling, I'm practically giddy! It was that good!
I made lentils a couple of weeks ago and Victor mentioned that the concept would probably be good as the filling for stuffed peppers. Monday, I bought peppers and last night casually mentioned that stuffed peppers would make a great dinner, tonight. The boy knows how to take a hint.
He also knows how to cook!
I cooked up the lentils early - a lot of them, hoping there would be enough to stuff peppers and have as a side dish on another night. My wish was granted - perfectly stuffed peppers and enough lentils for a fun dinner, tomorrow.
Stuffed Peppers
- lentils, cooked
- Carrots, diced
- Celery, diced
- Red onion, diced
- Fennel, diced
- 2 large cloves garlic, minced
- 2 anchovies chopped and added to veggies
- 2 ladles of chicken stock
- Shrimp diced to bite size
- A splash of white wine
- Pepperoncino
- grated parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper, to taste
Sauté the carrots, celery, onion, and fennel in olive oil till soft. Add the minced garlic and anchovies. Add the crushed red pepper - pepperoncino.
Add a splash of white wine and about a cup of chicken stock. Let the liquid reduce.
Add lentils and off the heat add grated cheese (lots).
If it's too wet add some breadcrumbs.
Place in a casserole and add a bit of good red sauce. Cover and bake in a 350°F oven for about an hour. At the 30 minute mark, remove the cover and sprinkle on some cheese. Continue baking until cooked through.
They really came out good. The red sauce was tomato sauce we made back in August - he doctored it up with some garlic, oregano, red wine... a perfect accompaniment.
We made 17 pints of simple tomato sauce - I wish we had made 117. It really beats the stuff out of a can.
The recipe is meant to be played with - use what you have in the house and have fun with it!
And then get your own giddy smile!
Pasta e Fagioli
In the song That's Amore, Dean Martin sings "When the stars make you drool, just like a pasta fazool, that's amore".
Pasta Fazool. So how did fagioli become fazool? Because, while the Italian word for beans is fagioli, the Neapolitan word is fasule. To make it even more fun, the Sicilian word is fasola. In Venetian, it is fasioi.
Many people do not realize that Italy is a country of dialects that were more or less united under a common language - Tuscan - in 1861 when Italy was unified. It wasn't, however, until television in the 1950s and '60s that Italy actually started speaking the same language - more or less. In rural areas and even within families, dialects still reign supreme.
In the Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey area, it's common for the final vowel - always pronounced in Italian - to be dropped. It's also why it is often so difficult to find a recipe for a specific family dish based on what the family has called it or to find a dozen different names for the same basic recipe - the immigrants literally created a new language based upon all of their different dialects so they could communicate with one another. It is also believed that the "sauce / gravy" debate has its roots in early immigrant communication, but that's a story for another place and time.
And they say English is difficult to learn...
Regardless of what it's called, Pasta and Beans is a peasant dish served throughout Italy - sometimes with tomatoes, sometimes, not. Sometimes with meat, sometimes not. Sometimes thick, sometimes thin. A million variations on a theme - just the way I like to cook!
This is a dish I probably haven't had in 20 years. We were both trying to remember the last time either of us made it - and we're pretty sure it was in California - not Pennsylvania. That's a while ago.
And the whole thing started when an online friend of ours posted a picture and a recipe for Pasta e Fagioli that looked so good that we knew we had to make it! Michael is a great cook who delves into his Italian heritage to create some pretty spectacular dishes. We're always getting ideas. Tonight, however, we decided to follow his recipe and recreate his masterpiece - and masterpiece, it is!
Victor used fresh cannellini beans because I canned beans this morning, and we used the chicken stock I canned last week. Otherwise, this is the recipe we made!
Pasta e Fagioli
recipe by Michael Gottuso
Set up your food processor. Chop: 2 onions, 2 carrots (peeled first), 1 celery stalk, and 4 garlic cloves. Add them to the process bowl. Pulse until medium-fine chopped - DO NOT PUREE.
Add the chopped vegetables and 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil to a sauce pot. Season with a bit of salt and saute the vegetables until they turn soft - over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Do not let them turn brown.
Stir in 2 tablespoons tomato paste and peperoncino (crushed red pepper) to taste and cook for a minute or two, stirring. Then pour in a quart container of sodium-free chicken broth.
Drain two cans of cannellini beans and rinse them. Add half of the beans and 1 cup water to the processor bowl and pulse till the beans are pureed. Add the bean puree along with the remaining beans to the sauce pot. Bring it to a simmer and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
Stir in 1 cup ditalini and continue to simmer till the pasta is cooked, about 15 minutes.
Stir occasionally to ensure that the pasta doesn't stick to the bottom. Turn the heat off. Stir in 1 cup grated parmigiano cheese and a small handful of torn fresh basil leaves. Set aside for about 1/2 hour. When serving, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and serve with parmigiano and peperoncino.
Rich, thick, creamy - bursting with flavor. This is fall and winter food at its finest.
Thanks, Michael!
Chicken Stock
Last night, as I was making my shopping list, Victor said, if you get a couple of chickens I'll make chicken stock and you can can it. With an offer like that, how could I refuse?!?
We both prefer homemade stock, but lack the freezer space to make and freeze it. I honestly never thought of canning it, but it was a brilliant idea - and easy as 1-2-3!
I spent $12 for 2 chickens - 99¢/lb at 6 pounds each. Chicken stock is $1.99/qt. I got 9 quarts and all that cooked chicken. Even with using a bottle of wine and the vegetables, I'm ahead of the game, for sure!
We broke out the big pot and into it went two whole chickens, 2 onions, quartered - skins and all. 6 carrots, halved - skins and all. 6 celery stalks - leaves and all. 3 bay leaves, 6 garlic cloves, a handful of peppercorns, a bottle of pinot grigio, and some salt. And then filled it with water.
Put it on high to boil and then let it boil away for about 3 hours.
I strain it and then skimmed the fat. Into hot sterilized jars, and then into the canner.
This was seriously too easy.
I didn't filter it so it's not crystal clear, but I don't really care about that. The flavor is fantastic - and that's the important part.
I think this is our new normal!
And... because I had broth and chicken, I made soup!
Stuffed Eggplant
The eggplants are coming in fast and furious. It's amazing what less rain and more sun will do for a garden! I brought in two this morning - with a lot more out there - and Victor volunteered to make stuffed eggplant for dinner!
I will pretty much never argue when he says he'll cook dinner - I am no fool! (at least in this instance...)
He took the smaller of the two - yes, that's a small eggplant - and created a great clean-out-the-refrigerator stuffing:
- ground beef
- mushrooms
- broccoli
- shallots
- bread crumbs
- tomato sauce
- hot pepper
- zucchini
- parmesan cheese
- garlic
- salt & pepper
- the eggplant inards
He cooked everything, seasoned it to perfection, stuffed the eggplant, and popped it - covered - into a 350°F/180°C oven for about 35 minutes. He uncovered it, added more cheese to the top, and placed it under the broiler for a couple of minutes to brown and finish off.
The end result was nothing short of perfection! And to make it even better, there's leftover stuffing that will be reworked into tomorrow's dinner!
My stomach is smiling!
And to make it all even better, better, he took the larger eggplant and made Little Grandma's Eggplant Appetizer!
We're set in the food department for a while! It really does not suck to be us!
Ragu di Funghi e Finocchio
Victor mentioned a couple of days ago that he wanted to make some fresh pasta. Any time he wants to make pasta, I'm eating. End of discussion.
We were watching Lidia last night and she made a dish with mushrooms and chestnuts that really looked good - except neither of us are really all that crazy about chestnuts. It's more of a texture thing than anything else. I'll eat them in something small, but for dinner?!? There are other things we both like better. We talked about what we could do to the dish, and we both said "fennel" simultaneously. It's moments like that where we know we belong together!
And then Victor said he was cooking dinner, tonight!
He has the pasta-making down to a science. It's just perfection. And the tagliatelle he made tonight really was perfection! It was light and delicate, yet perfectly firm.
The pasta recipe is very simple.
Fresh Pasta
- 1 cup tipo '00' flour
- 1/3 cup semolina flour
- 2 eggs
- pinch salt
- 1 tbsp water - maybe
Mix flour, salt, and eggs in food processor until fully combined. Knead on a floured board until smooth, adding a drop or two of additional water, if needed.
Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, and then roll out using pasta machine. You can roll this with a rolling pin, but a pasta roller is so much easier!
Lightly dust and then fold the pasta strips.
And then cut to desired width.
Unfold and place on a floured sheet pan.
Cook in boiling salted water for about 3 minutes. Then add to sauce and cook an additional 2 minutes.
The mushroom and fennel sauce was also something easy to put together.
Ragu di Funghi e Finocchio
adapted from Lidia Bastianich
ingredients
- olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 2 shallots, finely chopped
- 1/2 medium fennel bulb, thinly sliced
- 1 lb mixed mushrooms
- 1 tsp thyme
- pinch crushed red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1/2 cup white wine
instructions
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil and throw in the the garlic, then the shallots and fennel. Cook and stir until almost tender, about 5 minutes.
Add the mushrooms, thyme, crushed red pepper, and salt and pepper. Cover, and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid, about 5 minutes.
Uncover, and increase the heat to reduce away the liquid in the pan, cooking about 2 minutes.
Make a space in the pan, and add the tomato paste. Cook and stir the paste in that spot until it toasts and darkens a shade or two, about 2 minutes, then stir into the mushrooms.
Add the wine and then about 2 cups pasta water. Simmer about 15 minutes and then uncover and increase heat to reduce the sauce, if necessary.
Add the pasta and stir and cook until the pasta is fully coated and cooked.
Serve with freshly grated pecorino.
This was one of those gastronomic heaven moments. Every single thing about this dish was right. The pasta was perfectly cooked, the mushrooms had a rich, meaty flavor, the fennel added a perfect sweetness in the background.
Victor cooked all of the pasta, thinking that half of it couldn't possibly be enough. We now have dinner for tomorrow night - and we'll put an egg on top!
Limoncello
When life hands you lemons, it's time to make Limoncello!
As we all must surely know by now, Limoncello is an Italian cordial - but what we may or may not know, is that it's a relative newcomer to the game. There is no historical documentation regarding the use of Limoncello before the beginning of the twentieth century, and outside of a handful of families and social circles, few drank it before 1988, when the entrepreneur Massimo Canale of Capri registered the trademark “Limoncello di Capri.” The rest, as they say, is history.
The lemons of Southern Italy are what makes Limoncello so extraordinary... It is assigned the denomination of Indicazione geografica tipica (IGP), using the characteristic oval lemons from Sorrento. This lemon must be produced in one of the town districts of the area that spans from Vico Equense to Massa Lubrense and the island of Capri.
Who knew there were regulations on the types of lemons?!? But, unlike the USofA, Europe takes their food seriously.
This is one of those items that is relatively easy to make at home. You're probably not going to easily find fresh Italian lemons - although they are available in the USofA - so use a good organic lemon. Organic, because you're using the peel to make this and you don't want pesticides in your beverage.
**since originally coming up with this recipe in 2006, we have cut back the sugar tremendously. This is the revised recipe.
Limoncello
- 15 organic lemons, well scrubbed
- 1 1.75 liter bottle vodka (80 or 100 proof - higher proof=stronger)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
Wash the lemons well and pat dry. Carefully zest the lemons with a zester or vegetable peeler so there is no white pith on the peel.
Step One:
In a large glass jar (1-gallon jar), add the vodka and the lemon zest. Cover the jar and let sit at room temperature for at least 10 days and up to 40 days in a cool dark place. The longer it rests, the better the taste will be. (There is no need to stir – all you have to do is wait.) As the limoncello sits, the vodka slowly take on the flavor and rich yellow color of the lemon zest.Step Two:
In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and water; cook until thick and syrupy, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Cool the syrup and then stir into the limoncello mixture. Allow to rest for another 10 to 40 days.Step Three:
After the rest period, strain and bottle: discarding the lemon zest. Keep in the freezer until ready to serve.
It's a process - and takes a couple of months to do it right - but it's well worth the wait!
It's also fun to make a lot of it and share it with family and friends!
I get my bottles and other supplies at Fillmore Container in Lancaster! Great prices and a great staff!