Pasta with Sweet Tomato Sauce and Baked Ricotta

Okay, I've got a new favorite pasta dish: Jamie Oliver's Pasta with Sweet Tomato Sauce and Baked Ricotta. YUM! The recipe is from his cookbook "Jamie's Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook". It's a breeze to make and it tastes absolutely divine!

Serves 4

450 g ricotta

olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 teasp. dried oregano

1/2 a dried chili, crumbled

1 onion, minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablesp. butter

800 g whole canned tomatoes

3 tablesp. balsamic vinegar

1/2 teasp. sugar

500 g pappardelle

Fresh basil

Freshly grated parmesan

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Cover ricotta with olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano and chili. Bake in oven for about 20 min until it is golden brown and firm.

Cook onion and garlic in butter and olive oil for about 4 min. Add tomatoes and simmer for 15 min. Squash the tomatoes gently with a spoon, add the vinegar and sugar and stir until you get a nice tomato sauce.

Cook the noodles according to the package and keep some of the noddle water. Mix noodles with the tomato sauce and, if necessary, add noodle water to prevent the noodles from sticking. Add salt and pepper, basil and parmesan to taste. Divide between plates and crumble baked ricotta on top.

Christmas Cookies

For the first time in my life I made more than one or two different kinds of Christmas cookies. It may be the last time as I'm so sick of them already. Fortunately I didn't have to eat them all myself, but was able to pile them onto my coworkers. I may, however, have a lawsuit pending for causing weight gain in the workplace.

I went through several recipes before deciding on which ones to make. I finally settled for Zimtpitten and Brunsli (both Swiss recipes) as well as Triple Chocolate and Linzer Cookies. Zimtpitten are cookies made of ground almonds, lemon rind and lots of cinnamon. Brunsli are also made with ground almonds as well as cocoa, chocolate and Kirsch. Of the four, the Triple Chocolate and the Linzer Cookies were the best, but if you're a chocolate person like I am then the Triple Chocolate Cookies definitely win. They are like a combination of a chocolate cookie, a brownie and a truffle.

Both the Triple Chocolate and the Linzer Cookie recipes are from Field Guide to Cookies by Anita Chu. This little book has turned out to be a real charm. Every recipe I have made so far has turned out to be fabulous. I also really like the introduction to each cookie at the beginning of the recipe and the photos of each cookie found in the middle of the book. The recipes are also really easy to follow.

Triple Chocolate Cookies

1 3/4 c flour

1/4 c cocoa

1 3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt (I pretty much always leave salt out of sweet recipes)

12 oz ( 340 g) semisweet chocolate

1/2 c (110 g) softened unsalted butter

1 1/4 c dark brown sugar

1/4 c sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 c (6 oz or 170 g) chocolate chips

1. Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

2. Melt chocolate in a metal bowl and set over a pot of simmering water, stirring occasionally so it will melt evenly; remove from heat when smooth.

3. In a stand mixer (or in a bowl using a hand mixer, which is what I do), cream butter and sugars on medium speed for several minutes until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

4. Pour in melted chocolate and beat until combined.

5. Add flour mixture and chocolate chips and mix on low until just incorporated.

6. Cover dough and refrigerate for about 15-20 minutes until it is firm enough to scoop. (My cookies didn't turn out flat like they were in the picture, but pretty much held the round form. I may have left the dough in the fridge too long. But the cookies tasted great, anyways.)

7. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). LIne several cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

8. Roll dough into 1 1/2-inch balls and place on sheets about 2 inches apart.

9. Bake for 8-10 minutes--cookies will still appear soft but will firm up upon cooling. Cool cookie sheets on wire racks before removing cookies with a metal spatula.

Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

Store in airtight container for up to 2 weeks (or until all gone ;))

Wild Mushroom Pierogies

Sheesh, I've really been neglecting my blog lately. It doesn't help that Christmas is around the corner, meaning free time is crammed with buying gifts and making cookies! (Not that those are bad things, especially the cookie baking...)

About two weeks ago I made a Polish dish for the first time. I had bought mushrooms and was searching for mushroom recipes on epicurious using the iPhone application. Handy tool, by the way. After browsing various recipes I finally came across Wild Mushroom Pierogies. I had only tried pierogies once or twice before and felt it was time to eat a whole dish of them.

Since I made the dough for the pierogies from scratch, I spent a loooong time in the kitchen, which is not exactly fun after a long day at work and a good run afterwards. I was starving by the time the suckers were finished. So make sure you have enough time planned in for these. If you have a pasta machine, use it to get thin dough. I had trouble getting the dough thin enough by using a rolling pin.

Despite all the hard work involved, it was worth it. The pierogies were excellent.

Click here for the recipe.

Cranberry Lemon Choc Chip Scones

For some reason I always thought scones were really hard to make and I was determined to some day make a batch of them. Last week I saw fresh US cranberries at the supermarket and grabbed a bag right away as I was worried I may not find them again. Turns out several stores do carry them.

Anyways, here I had this bag of cranberries and didn't know what to make. After going through recipes online I suddenly remembered that Ciocolat in Davis always has these delicious scones with white chocolate and cranberries. So I decided: scones it will be! I ended up finding a recipe by Ina Garten. Although I have looked at her cookbooks several times, I have never actually made any of her recipes.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, but used lemon instead of orange peel since I couldn't get an organic orange at my grocery store and do not like using the peel of citrus that has probably been sprayed with pesticides. I also used fresh instead of dried cranberries. For this it may be a good idea to add a little more sugar than the recipe says as fresh cranberries are pretty tart. If I remember correctly I only used half the amount of salt as I do not like my sweets to be salty! As I still had the image of cranberry and chocolate scones in my head I added some dark chocolate chips that I had left over.

Let me tell you, these scones were HEAVENLY! They were fluffy and buttery and just perfect!

Ingredients

4 c plus 1/4 c all-purpose flour

1/4 c sugar, plus more for sprinkling

2 tablesp. baking powder

2 teasp. kosher salt

1 tablesp. orange zest

3/4 pound (340 g) cold unsalted butter, diced

4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten

1 c cold heavy cream

1 c dried cranberries

1 egg beaten with 2 tablesp. water or milk, for egg wash

1/2 c confectioner's sugar, plus 2 tablesp.

4 teasp. freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat oven to 400°F (205°C).

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix 4 c of flour, 1/4 c sugar, the baking powder, salt and orange zest. Add the cold butter and mix at the lowest speed until the butter is the size of peas. Combine the eggs and heavy cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy. Combine the dried cranberries and 1/4 c of flour, add to the dough, and mix on low speed until blended.

Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and a rolling pin and roll the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough. Keep moving the dough on the floured board so it doesn't stick. Flour a 3-inch round plain or fluted cutter and cut circles of dough. Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Collect the scraps neatly, roll them out, and cut more circles. (I was unable to do these last couple of steps as the butter got too soft and I couldn't roll out the dough. Instead I just formed balls of dough with my hands and it worked out just fine.)

Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked. The scones will be firm to the touch. Allow the scones to cool for 15 minutes and then whisk together the confectioner's sugar and orange juice, and drizzle over the scones.

California Eats Part 2: Passionfish, Peppers, Sprouts

Wow, I can't believe how long it's taken me to start writing this post. Summer vacation was loooong ago, but I still want to share the rest of my CA food stories.

For the first time in I don't know how many years I tried a new restaurant in Pacific Grove, called Passionfish. I had read about it and wanted to try it because they serve sustainable seafood. It was quite difficult to choose from their menu as many of the dishes sounded enticing. But finally I decided on an heirloom tomato, watermelon, feta and arugula salad with mint-lime dressing as an appetizer. This is a combination of ingredients I had long been wanting to try and it was delicious!

For my main I decided on poached Monterey Bay spot prawns with linguini cauliflower-bacon custard and lemon butter although I was warned that it was going to be messy! It was indeed messy as I had to de-shell my prawns, but they were very good and the linguini custard was very comfort-food like. I didn't really care for the small orange eggs hanging off the prawns. Hope they weren't a delicacy because I couldn't get myself to finish them!

For dessert I had the raspberry peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. It was good, but not great. The dough part was a little dry and I prefer a bit juicier and sweeter.

We did also have a chance to visit my long time favorite restaurant Peppers in Pacific Grove. As always I got full on their darned tortilla chips before dinner arrived but I was still able to enjoy my portabello mushrooms with roasted red pepper sauce and the usual Mexican side dishes.

On our way from Monterey to Yosemite we stopped in Merced to finally have our share of In-n-Out burgers, my so far favorite fast food burgers. I ordered my usual animal style cheeseburger and animal style fries. Mmmhmmm! Those items aren't actually on the menu. You have to be an insider to know about them. I don't feel like an In-n-Out insider but I'm glad I know about these secret menu items. Animal style means fried versus raw onions paired with a lovely sauce.

Last but not least I have one recommendation for a place in South Lake Tahoe. It's called Sprouts. It's a charming cafe right on 50. I tried the Mexican Vulcano salad and the quesadilla. The food was nice and fresh and pretty healthy and it tasted good.