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There are several "pasta e fagioli" recipes throughout Italy, I prepared this one the way my grandma used to. Her version is simple but amazingly tasty. So here it goes:
- Fill the bottom of the pot with the best extra-virgin olive oil you can find (I'm biased towards Sicilian) and place over medium/low heat
- Add some peperoncino to the oil base
- Chop an onion, 2 celery sticks and a carrot and soften in the hot oil
- Add a teaspoon of tomato paste
- Add the beans and their juice (if fresh make sure to drown in water overnight before using, or else cheat and buy two cans of brown beans in water)
- Cook on med/low heat until beans are soft
- Add salt to taste.
- Making sure the soup is still watery, add the pasta once it reaches a boil
A few notes that make or break a good pasta e fagioli.
- The pasta should be ditali or ditalini. I have a hard time finding either in the UK so had to settle for shells
- The perfect pasta e fagioli (in my opinion) needs to be somewhat dense. Cooking the pasta in the soup helps.
- Once served, add a table spoon of olive oil to each plate and let it all cool before diving in with your spoons.
- Left-over heaven: Nothing like a reheated pasta e fagioli. Almost a totally different dish...but still delicious!
Enjoy!
Cristian
chef2video
Dinner. Carrot soup with sweet potato, apple, lime juice and coconut milk, served with crayfish. Carrot sticks, prunes, cashew nuts and grapes.
Another twist on rice and beans, a Puerto Rican staple. I added Smoked Paprika, chilies, and crushed peppers along with onions and sweet peppers.
Pickled piquante peppers, pimentos, green chilis, garlic, diced tomatoes, a few spices, rice vinegar and chicken over white rice.
And the meat is falling off the bones. I have three dogs camping out in the kitchen.
I let it cool down and harvested all the meat and with what is left I am making turkey vegetable soup tomorrow.
Apart from starting the rice cooker - which takes about a minute - before I went off to take a shower & do other stuff, this took about 20-30 minutes to prepare, a good deal of which was debating over which dish to use for what.
I stirfried sliced pork with fresh onions and greens from my garden, diced pimentoes, garlic, crushed red pepper, black pepper, turmeric, hot paprika, olive oil, and adobo (a Latino spice mixture). I added rice and saffron. It was pretty good. (I sort of make the recipes up as I go.)
I am cooking up 10 chicken drumsticks (some for tonight, some for tomorrw). I coated them flour and spices. I just flipped them over in this photo and then I put them back in the oven for a bit longer.
These are incredible. Crispy top, light and moist on the inside, with blueberry bursting as you bite into them. Serious joy here, people.
from: Babycakes
My first attempt at making pineapple tarts from scratch. Jam turned out beautifully – sweet and spicy, but with a tangy edge to it.
Pastry - I used a standard shortcrust pastry recipe, it was not as buttery and rich as some other pineapple tarts I’ve eaten. Nonetheless, I thought it complemented the tarts well.
Brief recipe:
Jam (cooked one day in advance to let the jam cool down completely)
1. Take two pineapples, dice and blend finely in a blender. Add a little pineapple juice to facilitate the blending process – the juice adds a little zing to the jam later on. Note that traditional recipes call for the pineapple to be grated or chopped finely but this is very timeconsuming and probably the reason why I didn’t get around to making pineapple tarts for so long. It is of course possible (as someone suggested) to grate half and blend half the pineapple, for a better and more chunky texture. But for simple and fuss-free pineapple jam, I’d go for the blender.
2. Slowly cook the pineapple mixture over a low flame. Add 2 cloves, a stick of cinnamon and a piece of star anise to flavour the jam. Cook till thick (this should probably take 30-40 minutes or so), remove from flame.
For the pastry:
Ingredients: 250g flour; 125g butter; pinch of salt to taste; 2 eggs (beaten).
1. Sift flour and mix with salt. Rub butter into the flour till it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Pour in the beaten egg slowly, mix together to form the dough - use hands if nec. No need to use all the egg. Put dough in fridge for at least half an hour to cool.
3. Roll out the dough to about 0.5 cm or so. Using a pineapple tart cutter (metal ring with mould within to form depression in pastry), cut out the tarts and put them on baking tray. Fill in with jam, glaze with beaten egg (now you know why you don't need to use it all) diluted with a little milk. Top with a little pastry piece.
4. Bake at 180 degrees centigrade for about 15-18minutes, when it has reached a light golden brown colour.
Jen spent over a day in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner at home. Cornish game hens, fresh green bean casserole (with onions and mushrooms), creamed corn, rolls, and mixed greens (with mandarin oranges and walnuts). Not pictured, homemade pumpkin pie (with homemade crust).
Another classic tart that I like to make -- and cannot resist. I particularly love this one for the combination of lemon and blackberries.
I will blog about it soon on La tartine gourmande.
I got two new spices today - a bottle os White Pepper and one of Jamaican Chicken Seasoning. So for dinner I made chicken and red pepper (cooked in olive oil and seasoned with the two spices) and served over plain fried rice. (for you weight watcher's - total points in 17: 5 for chicken, 2 for olive oil, 10 for the fried rice {white rice would have been 5 points less}).
The chili came out great, made with lots of hens of the woods mushrooms, which do well when they are slow cooked, so I did them with the beans. Yum. I think the black trumpets make it especially yummy, even though my traditional Texas chili cooking relatives would roll over in their graves with my changes to their secret recipe!
Gnarly Head zinfandel held up to the chili really well, but then again, zinfandel is about all I drink, so what do I know?
06.01.07 : AS sous chef to my friend e-Dao, I get to chop up the stalks of fresh lemongrass, marinate, and season these babies with some sea salt and black pepper! Then off into a pot they go! =P
A Vegetarian Dinner: Risotto cooked with butter, balsamic vinegar, sweet onion, mushroom, vegetable soup stock and topped with mozzarella cheese.
Managed to snag a couple Dungeness crabs from a local fisherman just before Christmas last year. Here they are in the sink while the water boils. Look at this one clambering on top of his sink-mate to angle for a better chance at escaping.
Dinner from the other night - two boneless-skinlesschicken breast,dusted withcayenne pepper and hot paprika.
Threw this together for a late night supper after the pub - turned out to be fantastic! We just happened to have all the ingredients required: new potatoes, green beans (french beans), tomato, lettuce, hard-boiled eggs and tinned tuna. Of course if you want a really exquiste meal make this with fresh seared tuna. The dressing was cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, dijon mustard and garlic with s+p.
The avocado in the upper right corner is dabbed with chipotle preserve. The tomato slices have pepper, coarse salt, and oil. The lettuce and red cabbage, cilantro, and apple are topped with a salad dressing made with fresh and pickled ginger, wasabe, garlic, lemon juice and a little corn oil. The half of a deviled egg is sprinkled with cumin and paprika. The avocado and tomato were home-grown. The chef is an import.