Frog and Goat

Wednesday night we started with an appetizer:

We impulsively bought a pasta machine several months ago and decided we’d make fresh pasta for New Year’s Eve dinner. In all honesty the machine is kind of crap and so I think we’ll be getting one that sucks a little less after we’ve done some research–because we’re now experts in making basic pasta (ha). The machine is already sounding like it’s grinding gears after two sessions so it really isn’t hitting on much.

We picked the Celeriac raviolini recipe from Cook with Jamie and we could not find celery root anywhere and we even went to the fancy place in the West End. So we used celery instead. Because we were using spinach in the pasta itself, I also created creamed spinach with the leftover spinach and some cream cheese we have laying about to finish the rest of the ravioli (ours were big and “rustic” so I don’t think we can call them raviolini).

Pretty tasty with shaved black walnut truffle and grated romano cheese:

We used semolina flour to make the ravioli dough and I don’t think we’ll be using it again. It was hard to work with and we have a basic AP flour pasta dough recipe that works well.

Last night we made fettuccine with a meat sauce:

And, because yesterday was New Year’s Day we incorporated some luck and prosperity into our meal:

It’s just about 70 degrees here and there’s a lovely breeze floating through the house. I can’t say I like having Spring in Winter, but for one day it’s nice. I’d like some cold temperatures and snow but only if it’s going to stay cold. I hate this up and down stuff. Anyway, a quick rundown of food, food, food and then I have to go because The Niece is coming to spend the night and will be here shortly.

For Christmas Eve I made the black-eyed pea salad. I thought it was awesome and instead of the habanero it called for I used one of our Anaheim chilies because I knew no one at the party would want it to be that spicy. I was pretty disappointed because I don’t think anyone else tried the salad at the better-half’s family gathering. He and I ate some and enjoyed and we took the entire bowl of it home. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised because if you look up white bread in the dictionary that family will be smiling right back at you. Some of them didn’t even know what baklava was.

For Christmas we went to my sister’s for breakfast and she made her breakfast casserole which is a thing of beauty.

For Christmas supper we had the MIL over and we made pork loin with fennel, red skin potatoes and carrots. We also served green beans and rolls. She hardly ate anything and said even less. I hope the new year is better for her because it’s like having a zombie around. The holidays have never been her strong suit but her health and rapid decline is a drag for everyone involved. We’re hoping the deep brain stimulator and the change in meds will do good things next year. The pork loin was tender and tasty. We chopped some of it up last night and made pork fried rice. Also good.

For Boxing Day we had friends over for a meal of appetizers. If we were fancier we’d call it tapas. Here’s the laundry list of what we enjoyed:

Smoked trout pate (entirely homemade down to smoking the trout)
Fried oysters with chipotle mayo
Shrimp scampi
Fried manchego cheese chunks
Fried olives (stuffed with blue cheese and garlic)
Rumaki (bacon wrapped around mushrooms or water chestnuts)
Then we broke out the raclette grill and seared tuna, kielbasa and knockwurst. We also had the raclette cheese, of course, and two types of dried meats, cornichons, potatoes and marinated mushrooms.

Yesterday I spent some time making nuts, garbanzo beans and black-eye pea salad. The salad is for Christmas Eve and the others are for gift giving. The garbanzo beans have a blend of spices that could be considered Moroccan. The batch from yesterday was bland and more chewy than crunchy so I tried again today. I don’t know if they’re quite right yet but my taste tester will be home later today to let me know. Yes, I’ve tasted them but I’m still not sure. If these aren’t great I’m pitching them and deleting the recipe.

The nuts are ones I’ve mentioned here before–spicy, salty and delicious. The initial batch back in November was way too salty but yesterday’s batch was just right and today I made more with thyme instead of rosemary. I don’t need my taste tester to tell me these work.

I also made some candy and we’ll see how it turns out. The leftover bits that I swirled together in the bowl tasted pretty good to me but we’ll see. I’ve been trying to figure out how to duplicate Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Pistachio Toffee without having to actually work too hard at it. I saw Ina Garten make a batch of French bark the other day and, by Jove, a plot was hatched. I beat up some chocolate bars, poured in some chips and then whacked the nuts. I used a bag of toffee bits. I poured the melted chocolate out and swirled it about on my parchment paper and then I layered the bashed nuts and toffee bits into the top. It’s firming up on the kitchen table.

When it came time to wash the chocolate bowl, I realized that I’d also gotten chocolate on the oven mitts and the burner knob. All of that seemed so familiar to me and so I traveled down memory lane a bit to my time as a candy foreman at the local amusement park’s candy store. I remembered how we’d go after the huge blocks of chocolate with an ice pick and then melt everything in the microwave. I’m sure the chocolate quality was whatever the step above worst is but we more than made up for it in sugar.

We’d spend our days making fudge, washing dishes, getting supplies, making fudge, washing dishes, making candy apples, burning ourselves, washing dishes and sitting around in the back room making fun of the customers. I really haven’t eaten fudge since I worked there about 20 years ago (eep!). I guess after making 25lbs of it at a time all summer long you get over wanting it. Today while I was washing dishes, I made sure I didn’t smear chocolate all over my polyester, faux old-world costume.