blue_dolphin

Yes, I had to try it because I couldn’t quite imagine what it would be like. Very much like a ragu made with ground meat, except it’s ground/chopped nuts! The nuts are softened from the long cook but retain some of their texture. He calls it a “delicately chunky” 🙃

Catching up with one from last week. I made the Nut Ragù on p 71 and used it to make the last recipe in the book: Pasta with Roasted Winter Squash and Nut Ragu. I liked the nutty texture of the ragu but with the roasted squash and tomatoes in the ragu, the finished pasta skews sweet for me. It was fine but could be better. Nut Ragu I’ve seen a lot of recipes for walnut and mushroom ragu but this one is just nuts - all kinds of nuts! There are almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pistachios and walnuts. They’re all chopped and get toasted with garlic in oil on the stovetop. Fresh thyme, rosemary, chile flakes, tomato paste and crushed tomatoes are added and the pot goes into the oven for a couple of hours. A portion is blended and returned to the pot. I didn’t want it to look like nuts in sauce so I may have blended too much as, in the end, I liked the nutty texture. Between the nuts and the oil, it’s pretty rich. I’ve got those six servings of the ragu to play around with. Pasta with Roasted Winter Squash and Nut Ragu This is basically pasta, finished in the ragu, with cubes of roasted butternut squash and garnished with fried sage leaves. The texture of the nutty ragu, chewy pasta and tender squash is excellent. The book recommends serving this with ricotta salata. I tried some feta as a sub but it was a bit too rich and salty as I’d already used a good amount of salted pasta water to finish cooking the pasta. It does need a jolt of something tangy, I’d just need to balance the salt better. Edited to add that I’m thinking some pickle-y, spicy thing would be the ticket.

Rusack 2017 Ballard Canyon Estate Reserve Syrah I thought this might be over the hill but it still has a delicious balance of fruit and earthiness. Rusack has been one of my favorite wineries for years and it’s the last wine club I belonged to. I even liked their Chards which weren’t overly oaky. They closed up the club and their lovely Santa Ynez Valley tasting room last year and went to an allocation system. I missed the ordering deadline for their first allocation last month but understand the prices were quite high. Not sure what they’re up to but I’ve still got a few bottles of Syrah, Pinot Noir and Cab to enjoy.

Today, I made the Green Lentil Ragu from Six Seasons of Pasta and used it to make the Pasta with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Green Lentil Ragu. I used Rancho Gordo lentils, half green, half black for the ragu as I didn’t have enough green ones. I made a half batch as the full recipe says it’s enough for 14 servings of pasta and I’m a party of one over here! By the time my lentils cooled, they’d absorbed most of the liquid and weren’t saucy like the photo in the book. Easy enough to add some water or broth but next time I might add more tomatoes to the ragu. The pasta dish was delicious and very satisfying. I’d never thought of combining lentils and pasta but I will certainly keep it mind for the future. There’s a drizzle of balsamic vinegar at the end that really highlights the flavors of the roasted cherry tomatoes against the earthy lentils. I look forward to using the ragu in other ways but will likely repeat this one, too.

@Smithy & @Maison Rustique, if you find some nice little Hakurai turnips, you should definitely give this one a try. I was initially more excited by the recipe for Pasta with Turnips, Preserved Lemon Ricotta and Hazelnuts that I posted about a week or so ago. That one was very good but this one exceeded my expectations. Maybe my expectations weren’t very high because it seemed like a standard anchovy/garlic pasta but it was so easy and the way the flavors melded together won me over!

I have enjoyed the videos that Sohla El-Waylly and her husband Ham have made together for NYT cooking. This is a turkey day version that they made on their own and I found it quite entertaining. Sohla goes the traditional route, Ham is modernist man with a sous vide, meat glued turkey breast roll and brined, braised legs and thighs. In the end, what could go wrong does but the dog clearly wins! Worth a watch!

I will be joining my cousins for what I expect will be a traditional turk-stuff-mash-gravy situation. The cousin and his wife who usually cook the bird and host are dealing with health issues so his daughter has stepped up to host. I’m bringing Vivian Howard's Brussels sprouts (yes, LGBoD), apples, pomegranate salad with blue cheese honey vinaigrette (recipe here), and have been asked to bring a butternut squash dish, TBD. Any recommendations on that? It shouldn’t be mashed or include anything green and should hold well once cooked. The littles will eat cubes of roasted squash but they look pretty wizened after a while. I believe I’m the only family member who eats vegetables, other than potatoes, on a regular basis. I’ll probably bring a cranberry curd tart which one of the little cousins is greatly enamored of.

Sorry @rotuts, what’s “IDS”? I tried Google and got the following: Intrusion Detection System Interior Design Society International Dance Supplies Please advise.

I'm another fan of that Hasselback gratin and it’s just the right time of year to make it again. I will probably use the mini scale version I posted here a few years ago. For @rotuts, I used some kind of small potatoes and I’m sure I didn’t peel them.

I didn’t actually get this yet, but I was told that I won a “Pantry Glow-up” giveaway offered on Maggie Hoffman’s Dinner Plan Substack. It includes a copy of Samin Nosrat’s book Good Things and a bunch of little food items. I don’t know if they’ll be teensy tiny samples or a little larger but it should be fun in any case. I’ll report back when I receive it.

I’m not really up on what’s “a thing” these days but I know people use it to make black cocktails like a “spooky margarita” but that’s just for looks, not any other benefit. When my cat Patrick got into some lily pollen, he and Michael both got a charcoal gavage and a charcoal enema. Poor guys! A charcoal michelada sounds much more pleasant than either of those routes!

Yes, in my area it’s not unusual for Mexican-style restaurants to have lengthy Michelada menus and shrimp versions show up often. This list from Alta Baja Market in Santa Ana, CA where I had lunch recently is more fruity than fishy, but gives an idea of what’s offered.

I’d suggest putting the chiles on some sort of screen to improve circulation. This 11-inch aluminum pizza screen (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) fits conveniently in the CSO and I use it often in lieu of an air fryer. They come in all sizes though. In my CSO, the lowest plate warmer setting is 125°F but mine fluctuates from 115-130. It will run with the door slight ajar but probably not long enough to really dehydrate them. I’ve had little Thai chilies dehydrate themselves nicely on my counter!

From Six Seasons of Pasta: Garlic Butter p 27 Garlic Bread p 47 Pasta with turnips and turnip greens with anchovies and garlic butter p 200. The pasta was the main event, so I’ll start with that. I thought this was absolutely delicious! The salty, funky anchovies melded with the sweet, tender-crisp turnip slices perfectly. Everything was bathed in the garlic butter and brightened up with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. So easy to toss together if the garlic butter is on hand. I will certainly make this again. Six Seasons sold me on compound butters so I was happy to add this little log of garlic butter to my freezer stash. I only made a half batch - one stick of butter. It’s got plenty of garlic, fresh parsley and oregano and a pinch of red chile flakes. I don’t make garlic bread often but once the garlic butter was made, I figured I’d try it out with a few slices and it was very good. Just a schmear of that garlic butter and a sprinkle of a Parm/Romano mix. Could become addictive. The oregano and chile are a nice touch.

I missed the edit window but wanted to add that I made a half recipe of the recipe above with artichokes, chicken and preserved lemon ricotta and it made 2 ample servings.

From Six Seasons of Pasta by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg: Pasta with artichokes, chicken and lemon ricotta p 152 This was not on my radar screen but I had some of that preserved lemon whipped ricotta left and everything else was on hand so I tossed it together and it was excellent. I used leftover roast chicken instead of cooking it from scratch, frozen artichoke hearts and a lemon flavored pasta. The use of chicken broth in the sauce was very effective. I will most likely repeat this as a veg version with mushrooms instead of chicken, maybe with the addition of red bell peppers. The chicken was very good, I just wouldn’t cook it specifically for this. I’d also take the time to cut the artichoke hearts into smaller slices. The book doesn’t recommend flavored pastas but I had it on hand and thought this was a good use of it. The recipe seems to add the whipped lemon ricotta and lemon agrumato oil as toppings but I’d probably just mix them in.

I went to TJ’s this morning, spoke to the guy who orders the wine, and he has not seen that Josh Cellars Zin available to order in our area. They carry a Josh Cellars bourbon barrel aged Cab @ $19.99 which he says is a very slow seller. On the upside, the TJ’s Napa Valley sparkling Blanc de Blancs and Brut Rosé have made their appearance in both Reserve ($9.99) and Platinum Reserve ($14.99) versions. I always stock up so I’m ready to celebrate all year!

Back on the egg bites that @Shelby suggested (which might be easier to bake in muffin cups whether you have an IP or not) have you considered any other “breakfast for dinner” meals? Not sure how they’d be received but something like an egg bite (maybe with ham, bacon, sausage, cheese or veg like spinach, mushroom, etc) hash brown patty and fruit would be a decent meal that I’d be happy to eat at room temp. I see a lot of online recipes for breakfast sandwiches made with whomp biscuits that might work …though I never trust them 🙃 A big pan of polenta you could cut up and fry would make a good side or dipper but the frying part would be messy. Little disks in muffin tins might be easier, but they’d still need to be fried or toasted in some way…sorry…thinking while posting!

From Six Seasons of Pasta: Basil pesto p 33 Carrots with Basil Pesto p 211 This was fine but I’m not a huge fan of cooked carrots so I’m not in love. We had a mild summer and no big cool down yet (soon to change, no doubt) so lots of “summer” produce like corn, tomatoes and basil still at the farmers market. I picked up a couple of big bunches of basil and used the book recipe for basil pesto. I don’t normally follow a recipe, just use what I have and taste as taste as I go but this worked fine and I have plenty to freeze. On to the pasta dish, we are instructed to cook the carrots until fully tender, not tender-crisp, and certainly not crunchy. This makes them basically the same texture as the al dente pasta. The breadcrumbs help out with a bit of crunch but I would prefer tender-crisp carrots. And I’d add some additional seasonal veg (broccoli, snap peas, bell peppers) for both texture and color but that’s just me! If you love carrots cooked completely tender, this might be perfect as is. In any case, don’t skip the lemon juice, it's a perfect balance to the rich pesto.

Much better to have people salt the water so it tastes like soup or broth. Plenty of people have never even tasted sea water but everyone’s had soup and knows how they like it. And yet, that “tastes like the sea” business continues to be flogged! If that “seawater” were only used for cooking the pasta, it might not be awful but most recipes use the pasta water to emulsify or finish a sauce….or salt bomb! I was pleased to see Josh McFadden recognize this in his recent book, Six Seasons of Pasta. He recommends 1 T Diamond Crystal salt/ quart of water. That’s a little more than I like but much closer than seawater!

Novice here. How exactly do you make this request? Does “Please divide this into 3 roasts?” get what you want or are further instructions needed? As mentioned above, my previous request got the meat cutter in trouble for apparently doing it wrong so I’d like to be as specific as possible, given we don’t share fluency in a common language.

Wow! I haven’t even been to my TJ’s to see if they had any!

I agree it does seem rather odd. There was a recall of pistachio cream in the US early in the summer but nothing since. It was a rather limited issue with few affected. The US is the world’s largest producer of pistachios (followed by Iran and Turkey, I believe) and the largest exporter but we also import them, presumably from the same places as Canada so you’d think there might be some of the same issues here.

It really is a hoot and I’m glad you’re enjoying it! I should get back to it as I’ve quite enjoyed the silly sandwiches I made!

Two new pasta shapes Haven’t tried the radiatore yet but the rigatoni is nice. Some rigatoni is awfully big and this is a nice bite size. The cooking time on the bag is 13-14 min. I tasted at 10 min and it was ready to go into the skillet to finish another min or two in the sauce.