Barefoot Bloggers: Pasta, Pesto and Peas

So this is my first official Barefoot Bloggers post. I think this will actually complement the Daring Bakers nicely because it will force me to make some real food too, rather than just insane baked goods.

I started making everything when I realized the nuts I had in the freezer were walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds but no pine nuts so I just used walnuts in the recipe and didn't add them whole to the final pasta.

I used cavatappi, also known as cellantani. That is the best shape pasta ever. I have boxes and boxes of it. I can eat them just boiled with a little butter and salt. They are so easy to pick up they are great as finger food. Well this recipe isn't really intended to be finger food probably but I like finger food. I guess with sauce on it, maybe it's a bit messy for finger food but as far as I am concerned it's good finger food.

I also used shredded parmesan because it was that, the green can stuff or spend forever grating parmesan. The shredded is an Aldi's thing that I'm pretty happy with. I pretty much always have a container of it in my fridge now and it's sooo much easier than grating it myself.

I approximately halved the pesto recipe since I don't really thing I have a use for 4 cups of pesto. This is an approximation of what I did. I don't follow recipes very well.

It came out OK. I think I under seasoned it. I never measure salt and pepper so it's hard to say. Here's a really crappy pic of it. It was too hot for me to put any sort of effort into this. I was going to leave it without a pic because it's just way too hot here for me to do anything.



Pasta Pesto and Peas
based off of this recipe by Ina Garten

1 pound cavatappi pasta
1 1/2 cups pesto, see below
1 (16-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 - 1/2 cups good mayonnaise, see below
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 1/2 cups frozen peas, defrosted
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, puree the pesto, spinach, and lemon juice.

Put some of this in a large bowl to toss the pasta in. Cook the pasta according to the box until each pasta is al dente. Drain and toss into a bowl with the pesto. Cool to room temperature.

Add the mayonnaise to the rest of the pesto and puree. Add the pesto mixture to the cooled pasta and then add the Parmesan, peas, salt, and pepper. Mix well, season to taste, and serve at room temperature.

Pesto:
Copyright, 2001, Barefoot Contessa Parties!, All rights reserved

1/4 cup walnuts
5 cloves chopped garlic
1 bunch fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups good olive oil
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Place the walnuts, pignoli, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 15 seconds. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed. Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute. Use right away or store the pesto in the refrigerator or freezer with a thin film of olive oil on top.

Notes: Air is the enemy of pesto. For freezing, pack it in containers with a film of oil or plastic wrap directly on top with the air pressed out.

To clean basil, remove the leaves, swirl them in a bowl of water, and then spin them very dry in a salad spinner. Store them in a closed plastic bag with a slightly damp paper towel. As long as the leaves are dry they will stay green for several days.

Mayonnaise
based off of Alton Brown's recipe

1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
2 pinches sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 cup oil

In a glass bowl, whisk together egg yolk and dry ingredients. Combine lemon juice and vinegar in a separate bowl then thoroughly whisk half into the yolk mixture. Start whisking briskly, then start adding the oil a few drops at a time until the liquid seems to thicken and lighten a bit, (which means you've got an emulsion on your hands). Once you reach that point you can relax your arm a little (but just a little) and increase the oil flow to a constant (albeit thin) stream. Once half of the oil is in add the rest of the lemon juice mixture.
Continue whisking until all of the oil is incorporated.

Babies

So there was a baby shower that I was invited to this weekend. I don't know much about babies and I don't do the cutsy little things that are generally associated with babies. But I figured I'd go to this baby shower.

So I went to get a gift. I opted for a gift card. It keeps things simple and they can get what they actually want rather than have some random crap that I chose because I figured I needed something.

But I figured just handing them a gift card wasn't quite the right thing. So I go to get a card. So I go to the baby section of cards. And they have cards just for baby showers so I figure one of those would be appropriate. So I pick up the first card and it was something really cheesy. So then I go to the next card, also really cheesy. I proceed through the whole section and even looked at some It's a girl cards before I gave up. This was the solution I came up with.


In case you can't read it, it says 'I couldn't find a card that didn't make me gag so I came up with this solution. -Eva'. I put the gift card inside. They laughed when they saw it.

I brought a cake and pasta dish. The pasta will be posted later. The cake was a chocolate cake mix with the same buttercream as from the opera cake post except with some strawberry jelly mixed in. I also made it pink because they are having a girl. That's as close as I get to baby stuff. I tried to decorate it with raspberries to draw a pic but it didn't work out so well. I know, I suck at decorating cakes or really anything where you are aiming for pretty. This is it packed up in a box to take over with the pasta salad underneath. It's not pretty but it tastes good.

Stupid Shoes

So I have been informed that girls are supposed to wear shoes. And flip flops, sneakers and Sketcher's style shoes are not acceptable. But not like heels and supposedly something I can walk in without falling on my face. Which is suspicious because I have enough trouble walking barefoot let along with something oddly shaped on my foot. And not wicked witch of the west either.

I was rather perplexed. I've always worn my Sketcher's type shoe as my nice shoe. So I go to Boscov's in search of these supposed shoes. Well I found something. I don't know if they count. I'm still figuring that out.

So this is the shoe I got. And my lovely foot.



It's got a slight heel but it's not one of those pointy things and it's not all wicked witch of the west and I think I can walk in them. But are these considered 'shoes' and like nice shoes? It's hard to tell from the pic but they are leather and black. So at least I didn't have to deviate from normal there.

So the shoes were a hair big in the store so the lady gave me a few insert things to put in the shoe to make them fit better. One goes down at the toe, I got that one but then there is this other one. She said you peel off the back and stick it on the back of your heel but I can't figure out how.




So this is a pic of the thing. It's tapered. So does it go on the back of the heel or under heel? If it goes under the heel it's a bit long for just under the heel. If it goes on the back then does the tapered end go on the inner side and the fat part on the outside? Or does it go vertical and maybe I cut the top since it would stick out of the shoe? Or do I move it down so part of it goes under the heel?

Ugh, I don't understand. Why can't I just wear Sketcher's again?

Barefoot Blogger: Ghetto Herbed Baked Eggs

Well I joined the Barefoot bloggers after this first one was done so I figure I can butcher it and no one will be too upset. I really Sandra Lee'd it. But the recipe looked good and I needed dinner. So here goes nothing.

I cooked it for 7 minutes based on peoples' comments that at 5 the yolks were completely uncooked. Well my yolks were cooked through completely and the whites were a bit rubbery so next time I think I'll stick with the 5. This is such a simple recipe and my method doesn't require like any special ingredients that aren't always in my fridge and it's really quick so it'll be a good go to dinner. It's supposed to served with bread and a salad or something but this is totally a I don't have any food and I'm feeling lazy and don't feel like doing major cooking right now meal so having a salad and bread that is not stale is not very likely. Maybe in the future I'll do it in my toaster oven so I can see it cooking and I can tell better how close to done it is.

I swirled the butter around the dish a bit before adding the eggs so the egg wouldn't stick to it. It makes for easier clean up later but I think other people didn't do it and it lets the egg cling to the side and gives it more height or whatever. I'd rather have easy clean up.

Flavor wise, pretty simple but good. The garlic and the cheese stood out a lot but that's just a matter of how much I sprinkled on. This could work with other combos of seasonings and cheeses too to give some variety (or clean out the spices/fridge, whatever you prefer to call it). I think I may add some seasoning in to the butter before pouring the eggs in next time to get them more incorporated into the eggs.


Ghetto Herbed Baked Eggs

Put a small pat of butter in a 1 cup pyrex ramekin. (There is supposed to be cream but I didn't have any so like I said, I Sandra Lee'd it)
Turn the broiler on and put the dish under the broiler until it bubbles.
Take it out of the broiler and do the next steps quickly so the ramekin doesn't cool.
Crack 2 eggs into the ramekin.
Crack some italian seasoning mix in your hands and sprinkle italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese on top of the eggs.
Broil for 5-6 minutes.

Maple Baklava

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning for no good reason. Well maybe because I went to bed at 7PM but I've slept for longer than that before. Anyway, so I got up at 4:30 I think because I had to pee though I can't remember now. I downed a few glasses of water because I was really thirsty, maybe that's why I woke up in the first place and then I couldn't decide what to do.

Well, I couldn't make the Parmesan chicken because I hadn't gotten the chicken and it didn't seem quite right at 5AM. I couldn't make the Pasta, Pesto and Peas because I hadn't gotten the spinach and I forget what else yet. I didn't want to make burgers because it was too early. I thought about making the cake or the frosting that I was planning on making for Wednesday but I think it's too early. I'll wait until Tuesday, at least for the frosting so I don't have to wait for it to sit out and soften up and run into the issues I ran into with the opera cake.

That's when I thought of the baklava. The phyllo dough was in the freezer and I'd gotten walnuts the day before so I was all set. I've been wanting to make baklava for a while now. It's so yummy and flaky and sweet and all sorts of good. I had saved a few recipes because I wasn't sure which I wanted to go with for it. Apparently it's incredibly simple too! So at 6AM on Sunday I started to make baklava. It's better than something that requires the mixer on high or the food processor when it's warm enough for me (and all the other people in my building) to have the windows open but no A/C yet.

I used walnuts. I think pistachios are more traditional but I had walnuts. You could use anything you want to really.

A box of phyllo dough comes with 2 packs in it, each with 24 sheets, which is perfect so you can make this twice. I think my next thing will be spanokopita, which is just like this except instead of the nuts mix and syrup, you fill it with spinach and cheese. This is so easy and cuts so cleanly I am excited.




Maple Baklava
(based off this recipe from Slashfood)

1 pack of phyllo dough (half of a box)
4 cups chopped walnuts
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 stick butter

1 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325 F.
Melt the butter in a bowl. This will be used for brushing the phyllo dough.
Mix the nuts, sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and set aside.
Brush a 9x13 pyrex baking pan with butter.
Keep the phyllo dough covered with a damp paper towel while you are working so they don't dry out. Don't put anything on top of the paper towel or else it will stick to the phyllo dough.
Lay 1 sheet of phyllo dough down and brush with butter. Repeat 7 more times for 8 sheets.
Pour half of the nut mix on and spread evenly.
Put down a sheet of phyllo dough and brush with butter. Repeat 7 more times.
Put the rest of the nuts on top.
Put down a sheet of phyllo dough and brush with butter. Repeat 7 more times.
Cut it into diamond shapes if you want, or whatever shape you want it to be when you serve it. The phyllo gets really crisp so you have to cut it now or it'll fall apart if you try to after you bake it.
Put the pan in the oven and bake for 30 mins.
Reduce heat to 300 and bake for another 20-30 mins.

Heat the maple syrup, honey, lemon juice and cinnamon in a bowl for about a minute in the microwave until everything loosens up and mix well.
Pour over the hot pan from the oven.
Allow to cool (at least a little) before eating.

Mocha Ice Cream

I made some coffee ice cream a bit ago, I forget when. It was not too long before my fridge died. For some reason I didn't feel I needed to look at a recipe to see how much coffee to use. I had my standard base, so I figured I'd just throw some coffee in. Well ... it's very... coffee. I used 5 tablespoons of coffee grinds as opposed to most recipes call for 2. And for some reason I didn't think I needed to hard core strain out the grinds. I just used a regular sieve but you could see flecks of coffee bits all through it.

Needless to say, I wasn't very happy with it. Maybe that's why I didn't blog about it. I melted it down to strain and rechurn it. I tried to put it through a paper filter but that didn't work. I guess the surface tension is just too high on the thickened cream to let it get through the filter. At first I thought it would get through, just slowly so I left it sitting in the fridge overnight. It didn't work. So I strained it with my french press. That still didn't get all the grinds out but it's much better now.

I lost quite a bit of the ice cream to the filters and to the french press. I had some chocolate ice cream that wasn't the freshest in the freezer so I decided to melt that in too, rechurn it and call it mocha. I'm pretty happy with it now. The coffee flavor is kinda smack you in the face and wake you up wow coffee but there's enough sugar and fat and chocolate in there to make it good.

So here's my recipe, sorta.

Mocha Ice Cream

4 cups half and half
5 tbsp coarse ground coffee
1 cup sugar
5 egg yolks
a few hefty scoops of chocolate ice cream

Heat the half and half, coffee and sugar in a pan on medium low, just until it reaches a simmer.
Put the egg yolks in a bowl.
When the coffee mixture reaches a simmer, slowly add to egg yolks to temper the yolks.
Pour the mixture back in the pan.
Cook on low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.
Strain through a french press and pour into a bowl.
Stir in chocolate ice cream and mix until smooth.
Let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
Churn in your ice cream maker.
Put it in a container and let it hard set overnight.

Barefoot Bloggers!

I have joined the Barefoot Bloggers! No that doesn't mean I'm walking around barefoot all the time, that's just a coincidence. They make Ina Garten's (aka the Barefoot Contessa) recipes and blog about them twice a month. My first post will be 6/12. Though I am considering doing a retroactive post about their first recipe, herbed baked eggs.... sneaky, I know....