Cooking from Scratch
Basic recipes that are used in other recipes
Just the other day, we finished up the last of our pickling spice, and, while we could pick some up at the store next time we’re out, what would be the fun in that? Besides, we had an empty pickling spice tin we could simply refill. Even better than that, this tin basically told us how to make our own pickling spice. Well, we’re all over that.
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Do you ever melt chocolate to coat something, perhaps caramel, or to use it to dip other items (say, sugar cookies), and are disappointed in how it doesn’t seem to harden? Instead of a hard shell, it stays soft and messy, melting onto your fingers as soon as your touch it. Well, if you’re like us, you’ve researched the matter, and found that your chocolate wasn’t in “temper.” And, you probably found difficult instructions on how to temper chocolate. We know we did. We’ve even tried it and told you about it. But, in that post, someone mentioned an easy way to temper chocolate. Really easy. So easy, it seemed as if it wasn’t true. However, we tried it, and found that it’s really easy to have perfectly tempered chocolate without double boilers, thermometers, or immersion blenders. Really!
Continue reading “Tempering Chocolate in the Microwave”
Week after week, we’ve been getting onions in our CSA shares. We know that’s how it works; we get an abundance when there’s an abundance at the farm. But, we still have to do something with all those onions. We thought about making up some Caramelized Onion Chutney — it surely is good, but we thought we might try something new.
Continue reading “Red Onion Jam”
We love filled pasta such as ravioli or tortellini, but, to be honest, sometimes it just takes too much time to make dozens and dozens of them. If only there were a large filled-pasta shape that we could make, oh, perhaps, 15 to 20, and be done with it. Not surprisingly, there is such a pasta shape.
Continue reading “Shaping Cappellacci”
It’s been a while since we showed you how to shape a type of pasta, so we thought that we’d cover making scarpinocc. It’s a filled pasta — the original recipe we saw called for tallagio cheese and black pepper — similar to the caramelle we’ve made in the past, but a little easier. Our filling was a simple goat cheese and pumpkin filling that we mixed up quickly in a food processor: about a cup of drained pumpkin, 6 ounces of fresh goat cheese, a couple of eggs, basil, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Feel free to use a filling that you like.
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Yesterday, we mentioned that we had our Primavera Risotto with Fennel Oil, and that the fennel oil was really an optional ingredient. Oils like this are really there for the color and show; they don’t add too much flavor, but, we do make them from time to time, mainly when we have some herb in abundance. So, this past week, when we picked up a huge fennel bulb with fronds attached, we knew fennel oil was going to be in the works.
This week, we have several posts about how to make one particular dish. Today, we’ll shape agnolotti, perhaps the easiest filled pasta shape, from our beet pasta dough, and fill them with beet-green filling, making a beet-iriffic pasta.
Continue reading “Shaping Agnolotti”