“Back home, Kory turned on the TV, but I could no longer watch. For the rest of the afternoon I stood at the kitchen table mixing eggs and flour in a rhythmic circle, gathering the dough into small round balls, In the background the new was insistent. Arms dusted in flour, I kneaded and rolled and cut. I fed the smooth elastic dough through the steel machine. Over and over, through the rollers like a mantra, the pasta stretched and lengthened into cool, yellow sheets. It grew strong and supple. I covered the table with those sheets and cut capellini, linguini, pappardelle. Some I dried, some I froze, some we would eat fresh for dinner. Even as I let the work soothe the edges of my grief, I felt guilty, knowing there were many who would be too grieved to eat tonight, or tomorrow, or for many days to come.” from A Double Life, Discovering Motherhood
Basic Fresh Pasta, after Marcella Hazan
for each person
1 egg
3/4 cup flour
Dump flour on a smooth, clean, dry work surface. Make a well in the center. Break eggs into well.
With a fork, beat eggs until blended . Then, with fork, slowly incorporate flour bit by bit until the egg is no longer runny.
Using your fingers and hands, continue to incorporate flour until eggs and flour are well-combined.
Clean your hands and knead the dough until it smooth, compact, and elastic.
Using a pasta rolling machine, feed dough in pieces through rollers until desired thinness is achieved. Cut pasta into desired shapes.
Last summer, I never pulled up our tomato plants. We had 3 or 4 plants in the ground–Sweet 100s, SunGolds–delicious little bites of summer, that bore fruit until October. (It’s like that here, please don’t hate us.) And then we got busy, and it started to rain, and we spent most weekends at one soccer game or another, and I just let those plants go. And guess what?
This spring, up popped a tomato seedling. Then two, then three, then six. I didn’t think they would survive, so ignored them. But they kept growing, and I still didn’t really believe what was happening, and so I neglected to thin out the plants. And then, all of sudden, we were back from a month of vacation, the plants were nearly taking over yard, and now we have pints and pints of the best little cherry tomatoes you could ever hope for.
They are perfectly ripe and sweet, and we can barely keep up. They plants are a glorious mess, but I don’t care. They just keep producing and producing and all we can do is pick as fast as we can.
We give pints away and I am still wrist deep in tomatoes every night. We eat them whole, straight off the plant. I make fresh salsas, with a touch of red onion and cilantro. I make caprese on a stick , or bruschetta, or a modified tomato surprise. I make gazpacho several times a week, which is a dish both kids slurp like addicts. And I’ve made a couple of version of BLT pasta, because we have also been on something of a bacon kick.
The pasta works two ways, with cooked or uncooked tomatoes, but it’s fast and easy and you can use a range of simple ingredients;
3/4 lb oriechetta
1 pint Sungold or Sweet 100 tomatoes
4 slices bacon
1-2 handfuls fresh spinach or baby arugula
freshly shaved parmesan OR baby mozzarella
It works like this:
Cook the pasta in well-salted water. While the pasta is cooking:
Cook 4 slices bacon in a pan to desired crispness, remove and drain on paper towels. Chop into 1 inch pieces.
If cooking the tomatoes, pour off all but 2-3 tablespoons of bacon grease. Then toss the tomatoes into the pan and cook just until they’re wilted and beginning to burst. Alternatively, slice the tomatoes in half and toss with salt and extra virgin olive oil. Let these sit for about 10-15 minutes while you cook the bacon.
When the pasta is done add it to the pan with cooked tomatoes, two big handfuls of spinach or arugula. Toss gently until the greens just begin to wilt.
And the bacon and toss.
OR, toss the cooked pasta with spinach or arugula until greens are just wilted. Then add the fresh tomatoes and their juices, then the bacon.
Serve immediately with shavings of parmesan cheese or the fresh mozzarella.
When Tony and I were first dating, we used to eat at a wonderfully low-key Italian place, Jackson Fillmore, with the most delicious zucchini carpaccio, light and fresh with parmesan, toasted almonds and parsley. We’ve tried to replicate it a number of times but never quite gotten it right. So when this recipe appeared in my inbox this morning from Food 52, I thought it was time to try again. I thought the crunch of the raw zucchini and almonds would appeal to my son Eli, who doesn’t like cooked vegetables, and knew the zesty hit of lemon in this recipe would appeal to my lemon-loving son, Ben.
Personal preference and our pantry dictated a number of changes to the recipe; we all like almonds, so I used those, slightly toasted, in lieu of pistachios, and we didn’t have any thyme. My sea salt isn’t fine, and my grinder is full of coffee beans, so I just did a rough chop of lemon zest with coarse sea salt, which worked out fine (and the extra has now become my sons’ favorite topping for vegetables and pasta). I don’t have a mandoline, but a vegetable peeler achieves the same effect: lovely fresh ribbons of zucchini.
Click here for the original recipe; here’s how I did it:
First make the lemon zest salt by combining
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon fine sea salt
Mince or grind in a spice grinder and set aside. (Store the extra, sealed in a small jar, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. After that the lemon flavor will begin to fade.)
Next prepare the salad:
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon zest salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 small, fresh zucchini (about 4 ounces each), rinsed and trimmed at both ends
• 1 large ripe avocado
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted
1. In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice and 1/4 teaspoon lemon zest salt. Add the oil and whisk to blend.
2. With a mandoline, vegetable peeler, or very sharp chef’s knife slice the zucchini lengthwise as thin as possible. Arrange the slices on a platter and pour the dressing over them. Tilt the platter back and forth to coat the slices evenly. Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes, so the zucchini absorbs the dressing and does not dry out.
3. Halve, pit, and peel the avocado, and cut it lengthwise into very thin slices. Arrange the slices of marinated zucchini on individual salad plates, alternating with the avocado slices, slightly overlapping them. Sprinkle with the almonds. Garnish with another sprinkle of lemon zest salt, and serve.
by Caroline
The last time I saw my friend Yuka, Ben was just a few months old. He’d been crying all day when she arrived, stopped for the length of her visit, and then started back up again when she left. Frankly, it made me feel like crying, too.
After the earthquake and tsunami last spring, I checked in with all my people in Japan and quickly, happily heard back that everyone was ok — except for Yuka. As a reporter for Reuters, she travels a lot, and we’ll go ages without contact, but still, it weighed on me, and I was hugely relieved when she emailed that she’d be in town this week. I wanted to make something special for dinner, but with a day full of back-to-school activities, I didn’t have a ton of time.
Enter my daily Food52 email with this peach tart recipe from Amanda Hesser. She had me at “To make it all you need is a knife, a bowl, and some kind of pan.” A tart without finicky requirements? Yes, please. This recipe is easier than pie: it’s as easy as cake. Get a bowl, gather ingredients, stir, slice, bake. It was ready to go into the oven before the oven was hot enough to bake it. And any recipe that makes it easy for the kids to help is a winner in my book, too:
Whenever members of my family get together, we eat, and if we’re going to be visiting each other for a few days, we count up the meals in advance and start planning what we’ll cook and eat together (we have already, despite having more important things to do, begun emailing a little bit about Thanksgiving).
My Dad doesn’t do too much cooking, but when we gather at my parents’ home, he plays an important role in our food conversation by telling us what’s coming from the garden or what he’s got stocked in the freezer, also letting us know when some food is producing at oppressive levels (at the moment, ripening peaches cover every flat surface in the kitchen, the wood stove, and one spare bed) or whether we need to clear out last year’s frozen whatever-vegetable to make room for this year’s crop. It’s kind of like walking into an episode of Iron Chef, the one-ingredient cooking challenge, except I get lots of ingredients, and no stop clock. It’s great.
At my parents’ last week, one of the products to use was rhubarb, and my Mom had already emailed me a recipe from the New York Times in anticipation of my visit. I am a big fan of upside-down cakes, as you might have noticed; I’ve posted recipes for ones with cherries and pears (with a terrible picture), though I think my favorite is still this apricot upside-down cake, which I picture here. They are usually pretty easy, always moist, and have that great caramelized sugar-crust edge. I have to admit, this one is a bit fussier than what I would make just for my own family, but for my Mom — who taught me how to bake — anything. And besides, it’s completely delicious.
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature, more to grease pans
1 1/2 pounds rhubarb, rinsed and sliced into 1/2-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 cups cake flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
Zest of 1 lemon, grated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons lemon juice.
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper. Butter the paper and sides of the pan. Wrap two layers of foil under the pan, and place it on a buttered baking sheet.
2. In a medium bowl, mix rhubarb, cornstarch and 1/2 cup granulated sugar.
3. Mix the brown sugar and 1/2 stick butter in a pan over medium heat. Whisk until smooth and bubbling, about 2 minutes. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Whip 2 sticks butter in a mixer with a paddle attachment for 2 minutes. With your fingers, blend the remaining 1 cup sugar with lemon zest until the mixture is uniform in color. Cream together with the butter at medium-high speed until it is light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl halfway through. Add the vanilla and mix well. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the sour cream, then the lemon juice. (It’s O.K. if the mixture looks curdled.) With the mixer set to low speed, add the flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, until well combined. Scrape down the mixer bowl in between the additions.
5. Pour the brown-sugar mixture into the cake pan, then spoon in the rhubarb and its juices. Spoon in the batter so it covers all of the rhubarb. Smooth out the top.
6. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the top of the cake is firm to touch and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out without any large, moist crumbs.
7. Place the pan on a wire rack, and cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the cake, place a plate on top of the pan and turn it upside-down. Release the cake from the pan while still warm or else it will stick.
Yield: 8 servings.