Pasta with Arugula, Tomato and Egg

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by Caroline

I am trying to get back into a regular yoga routine (a routine abandoned years ago, after two good stints of beneficial prenatal yoga, after Eli proved uninterested in mom + baby yoga) and I’m getting better at getting to class and moving through the poses. But concentrating on my breathing? Concentrating on the poses? That’s not really happening yet. Instead, I have to admit, I spend much of the 90 minutes, especially the final savasana, pondering my next meal.

So it was today. I lay there, eyes closed, bolster over my legs, thinking about the tub of leftover pasta in the fridge, the arugula going wild in the backyard, the juicy tomatoes from the CSA. On the drive home, I remembered we still had some eggs. And so, with a grating of fresh parmesan and a sprinkle of lemon zest salt, a quick lunch was born. Its origins remind me a bit of garbage salad and although its perhaps prettiest at first, like this:

It is most delicious, like that salad, when you take your knife and fork to it and slice everything up in your bowl, letting the arugula wilt and mellow a bit with the heat of the pasta and egg, the runny egg yolk and tomato juice making your sauce, like this:

It made a great lunch, though of course it would make a nice simple dinner, too, with some crusty bread on the side; your salad is already in the bowl.

Panna Cotta Ice Cream

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by Lisa

Most summers we go a little nuts for ice cream. I have two ice creams makers (traditional and soft serve) and it’s not been unheard of for me to whip up a batch of ice cream at least once a week.  Caroline makes more than her share of  ice cream in the summer, too.

But this year, we were gone most of the summer. We did come back with some great food memories and at least one amazing recipe, but we didn’t do a whole lot of summer cooking. In fact, I missed the farmers market this summer more times than I’ve missed it in the past ten years combined.   Thankfully, it’s warmer than ever here (which is usually the case every September where we live) and summer produce is still at its height. This has meant a lot of grilling, a lot of tomatoes, a lot of dinners outside, and, finally, finally, ice cream.

This recipe is my new addiction, and one of the best ice creams I’ve ever made. Come spring, we can’t get enough panna cotta, and this recipe is its high summer equivalent. I came to it because I had some leftover buttermilk and a lot of strawberries.   Technically, of course, panna cotta is not a flavor, but a method of cooking (it means “cooked cream”). But this ice cream is the cold, summer version of our our favorite buttermilk panna  cotta, and you do cook the cream, so panna cotta ice cream it will remain.  But it doesn’t matter what you call it as long as you make it.  This is a nearly perfect ice cream: not too sweet, perfectly creamy, and it won’t completely exhaust your egg supply.

Panna Cotta Ice Cream with Warm Strawberry Sauce

For the ice cream (makes 1 quart)

  • 1 cup whipping cream
  • 6 large egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup bakers sugar*
  • 1 cup cold buttermilk

For the strawberry sauce (serve 4)

  • 1/2 pint fresh strawberries
  • 1-2 tablespoons water
  • 1 heaping tablespoon bakers sugar
  1. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl until well blended.
  2. In a saucepan, gently heat the cream and sugar, whisking until the sugar is just dissolved.
  3. Transfer half of the cream to the egg yolks and whisk to lighten yolks and blend.
  4. Pour yolks and cream back into the saucepan and heat, stirring gently, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon.
  5. Strain into a large bowl. Add the butter milk and stir to blend well.
  6. Chill the buttermilk cream mixture several hours–or preferably overnight.
  7. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturers directions.
  8. Just before serving make the Strawberry Sauce:
  • Hull and quarter the strawberries.
  • In a small saucepan, combine strawberries, water, and sugar.
  • Heat gently until a thin glaze develops and strawberries are slightly soft.
  • Remove from heat, let cool slightly, and serve warm over ice cream.

*Note: I’ve taken to using bakers sugar for my ice cream, which is a very fine grain sugar. It measures the same as regular sugar, but it dissolves much more easily. For ice cream, this means you need less heat, and therefore have less chance of scrambling the eggs.

What I did

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By Lisa

“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
  1. Dump flour on a smooth, clean, dry work surface. Make a well in the center. Break eggs into  well.
  2. With a fork, beat eggs until blended . Then, with fork, slowly incorporate flour bit by bit until the egg is no longer runny.
  3. Using your fingers and hands, continue to incorporate flour until eggs and flour are well-combined.
  4. Clean your hands and knead the dough until it smooth, compact, and elastic.
  5. Using a pasta rolling machine, feed dough in pieces through rollers until desired thinness is achieved. Cut pasta into desired shapes.

BLT Pasta

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By Lisa

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.

Lemony Zucchini Carpaccio

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by Caroline

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.

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