Butternut Squash Ravioli in a Maple-Cream Sauce

I am sometimes guilty of getting a bit carried away with doing things in the most time-consuming fashion.

I'd appreciate it, family, if you would stop laughing now. Thank you.

It's just that I enjoy making things myself - whether it be a gift, artwork, a note card, or a meal - and so I often strive for the end result in equal parts for the end itself and as a means to execute its components. I find the making gratifying, which keeps it from feeling tedious. This meal is one such effort, and so I will walk you through the protracted instructions for constructing the dish, less the make-your-own-ricotta step, which was truly unnecessary as Narragansett Creamery makes a perfectly fluffy and sweet version that is readily available nearby my house. I'm sure there's a good cheesemaker making fresh ricotta near you as well, and so you, too, can forget you even heard of making your own ricotta, which requires you to stand over the stove for one hour while the lemon juice slowly works with the heat to create what seems like infinitesimal curds out of the half-gallon of whole milk. Yes, we will skip that step entirely, and when you are done reading through the instructions, you will realize that you can just as easily purchase butternut squash or pumpkin ravioli, or, if you want to go with that semi-homemade trend, you could purchase won ton wrappers and already pureed butternut squash and still experience the joy of assembling your own ravioli. I, however, did it this way:

Butternut squash ravioli in maple-cream sauce:

For the pasta:
3 to 3 1/2 cups Italian "00" flour (a specialty flour for pasta, but if you can't find it, go ahead and substitute all-purpose flour)
6-7 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the squash filling:
2 pounds squash, cubed and roasted - please see the butternut squash lasagna post if you aren't certain of the technique for cubing and roasting - and then mashed. If purchasing, you want approximately 2 cups of pureed or mashed butternut squash.
1/2 cup fresh ricotta, preferably not made in your own home
1/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 tablespoon thyme
pepper to taste

For the sauce:
4 tablespoons butter
1 large shallot, diced
2 cups light cream
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper

For garnish:
1 slice of bacon per person being served, cooked to desired crispness

In a mixing bowl, combine 3 cups of the flour, oil, salt, and five eggs. Mix to combine. If the dough is not coming together, add another egg. If it is still not coming together, add another. Then, if the dough is too sticky, add additional flour by the tablespoon until you have a cohesive dough that does not adhere to your fingers each time you touch it. Knead the dough, either by machine or by hand, until it is silken and smooth. Form it into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes, allowing its strands of glutens to relax. You will have around two pounds of pasta.

While the glutens are in a state of repose, mix the mashed roasted butternut squash, ricotta, grated cheese, and thyme in a medium mixing bowl. Pepper to taste. Salt if you so desire, but I skipped this because the overall salt can be adjusted - in my opinion - in the saucing phase.

Once the pasta dough has sufficiently rested, roll it out into long sheets. I use a pasta-roller attachment on my stand mixer for this. I roll it out twice on the first setting, twice on the second, twice on the third, and twice on the fourth. The resulting thickness is what I consider ideal for lasagna noodles and ravioli.

There are many ways to form ravioli, and I have been making a valiant attempt to try them all. There is the machine-way, which involves another attachment for the stand mixer, and this is quick, provides you with small, uniform ravioli, but wastes a lot of pasta in the process. You can also use ravioli cutters and stamp out the shapes before filling them, resulting in you creating your own won ton wrappers, but this also results in much waste of the pasta. The easiest and least-wasteful way I have found is to roll out the sheets, place them on a well-floured surface - pasta dough is always wanting to stick to itself or the counter if allowed - and create a half-way mark on the short end of the dough as your guide. Place mounds of filling - approximately 1 tablespoon each - an inch or so apart from one another all on the same side of the dividing line. So you have a row of filling mounds, and a row that is naked. Take some warm water in a small bowl, dip your finger in it, and moisten the edge of the dough all around the perimeter. Next, make a line in the same fashion down the length of your dough on your imaginary dividing line, making it real. Then draw a water line between each mound all the way across the dough, such that the line is equidistant from the mound on either side. Gently fold the naked side of the dough up over the mounds, being careful to push out all of the air prior to sealing. This may take a little bit of practice, and you may wind up with an air bubble or two, but neither lack of practice nor air bubbles will ruin the dish. If you have a pasta crimping tool, roll it across the edges to crimp them together and be sure the ravioli are sealed. If not, use the tines of a fork to crimp all around the edge of each ravioli.

If you are using won ton wrappers, the idea is the same, only the wrappers are already ravioli shaped for your ravioli-constructing convenience. Put a mound of filling in the middle of the square, moisten the edges of the wrapper, then moisten the edges of a naked wrapper, and press the moistened edges of each together to seal, also being careful to push out all of the air.

If using neither of these techniques, get thee to a nearby Italian market and purchase some butternut squash ravioli.

With this amount of pasta, which for me was slightly over two pounds, I had 30 ravioli, plus 6 ounces of fettuccine from the remainder of the dough, so using that as a guide, one and a half pounds of pasta dough should yield you enough to make 5 servings of ravioli. They're filling, remember, and the cream sauce is fairly light, but it is still cream sauce, so 6 ravioli per person is more than ample.

In a large sauce pot, bring salted water to boil. At the same time, if using bacon, cook it to your desired crispness.

Just before the pasta water is at a boil, melt the butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the shallot, and cook until translucent, approximately 2 minutes. Add the cream, and allow to simmer for one minute to meld flavors. Add the maple syrup, stirring to combine, then add thyme, salt and pepper to taste, and cook sauce over medium heat, stirring occasionally until ravioli are done. Even fresh, the ravioli will take approximately 7-10 minutes to cook through. The ravioli should be entirely pasta-colored when fully cooked. If they have butternut squash color coming through in the filling area, they aren't quite done. Add the cooked ravioli to the saute pan and allow to simmer in the sauce for a minute or two, spooning sauce over top to coat.

Transfer to serving plates, garnish with salt, pepper, and bacon, and serve them forth. As you may have noticed, this is a very quick recipe if you make it with purchased ravioli, so this could be a weeknight dinner if you go that route, or it could be a lazy winter Sunday meal if you want to make your own pasta and take on all of the making tasks yourself. The sauce comes together in 10 minutes, and would also be good with pork or roasted chicken, so don't miss the opportunity to use it elsewhere. That's part of the fun, after all.

If you have leftover ravioli, you can place them on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and place in the freezer for 2-3 hours, or until frozen through. Then, transfer them to a freezer storage bag and use them within a month or so.

Dinner tonight: Ribollita, which is a Tuscan vegetable soup and an important dish in cucina povera, which translates roughly as "the poor-person's kitchen" and which is peasant cuisine. The soup is comprised of beans, celery, carrots, onion, garlic, leeks, and tomato, and the broth is made as it cooks, so it is only water that is added to create the broth. Estimated cost for two: $3.04. The beans were purchased at the Providence Winter Farmers Market, which is in the most amazing renovated mill building, so even if you don't need bread, cheese, grass-fed beef or pork, shellfish, apples, other veggies, or locally-grown beans, you should still check it out. In any event, the beans were $1.25. The celery, onion, and two carrots were no more than a dollar. The leeks were $1.75. The garlic was 12-cents if you consider it was less than a quarter of the 50-cent head of garlic. The can of tomatoes was $1.67. I did buy bread because I was all from-scratched out after making the ravioli AND ricotta myself, so we'll use about a quarter of a loaf that cost $3.39. That's 85-cents. The bread is toasted, then rubbed with garlic and placed at the bottom of the bowl of soup to make one bad-ass garlicky crouton. The cavolo nero, or dinosaur kale, was $2.49. This results in 6 servings at a cost of $9.13 for a grand total of $1.52 per person. Poor-person's kitchen, indeed.

A Go-To Dessert

For our Christmas celebration this year, my sister came up with the idea that we should have a bake-off. The only criteria of the bake-off being that each person bring a dessert they had never before made. Now, my normal holiday dessert is Tiramisu, which I love, and which normally gets pretty good reviews, mostly nonverbal, like the double batch that was completely wiped out in twenty minutes at Easter, but given the rules, Tiramisu was out of contention. I had already planned to make a pull-apart cinnamon bread, but that was more of a breakfast pastry/roll option to go with the brunch my mother was putting on. I had eaten the most fabulous sticky toffee pudding at one of my favorite restaurants, Trattoria della Nonna in Mansfield, Massachusetts (if ever you're going to a concert at the Comcast Center, you should stop at Trattoria della Nonna for dinner first), so I did a little research, and found this recipe, which also makes good use of coffee or espresso like the Tiramisu. And I'm all for using coffee and espresso in desserts as there is often leftover from each morning's brewing.

Which leads me to the substitution I made. The recipe called for instant coffee granules, which I don't keep on hand, for I do not drink Nescafe or the like, so I made myself a pot of espresso on Christmas morning and used one cup for the pudding. Regular coffee would work just as well, and the only ingredient you might have to go out of your way to have in your larder are dates. Or possibly cream for the caramel sauce if you don't keep cream hanging about. The pudding is easily put together, and, as previously mentioned, I made it on Christmas morning without adding stress to the day. In fact, for a limited amount of effort, this produces an incredibly delicious dessert that pairs beautifully with vanilla ice cream. And that makes the I've-personally-never-made-it-before-December-25-2008 sticky toffee pudding a go-to dessert in my book.

Sticky Toffee Pudding, adapted from Bon Appetit via Epicurious (and they, in turn, requested the recipe from the Beginish Restaurant in Dingle, Ireland):

For the cake:
1/2 pound dates, pitted and chopped fine
1 cup hot coffee or espresso

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

For the Caramel Sauce:
2 cups heavy cream (a one pint container contains 2 cups)
1 cup brown sugar (dark brown sugar will result in a darker caramel which matches the color of the cake better than a light caramel, but the choice is yours)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Combine the dates and 1 cup of hot coffee in a medium bowl and set aside until cooled, approximately 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You will be using a 9" springform pan. Before greasing the pan, cut a circle out of parchment paper to line the bottom of the pan. This can be done easily by placing the parchment over the bottom of the pan and running a knife through the parchment following the groove in the bottom of the pan. Now, grease the pan well, press the parchment round down atop the bottom of the pan, and also butter it well. You could also use a square pan and line it with parchment such that the parchment overhangs the edges of the pan slightly and will allow you to remove the cake without cutting into it. Or, if presentation isn't your primary concern, to hell with it, just bake it in a well-greased 9" pan and accept some crumbling of cake. The taste certainly won't suffer for the loss of a clean edge here and there.

In a large mixing bowl, mix butter and sugar until well-blended. Add two eggs, one at a time, beating to combine each egg after its addition. Add one cup of flour, and blend well. Now, back to the eggs. Add the remaining two eggs, one at a time, beating until combined, just like before. Add 3/4 cup flour and blend well.

Add the teaspoon of baking soda to the coffee-date mixture and stir to combine. Add the coffee-date mixture to the batter, and mix well to combine. Pour into pan, place on a rimmed baking sheet, and bake in the center of the oven until cake is set and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, approximately 1 hour. Allow to cool slightly before cutting.

During the last 20 minutes of baking, combine the cream, sugar, and butter in a medium saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Once the mixture is at a boil, reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer, and stir occasionally. Simmer until mixture is reduced by half, approximately 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. Don't mentally force this caramel sauce into a sticky toffee pudding box, either. You can use this for topping ice cream and any other dessert use you desire as it comes together quickly and easily, and costs around $3.50 for 1 and 3/4 cups of goodness. So useful and budget-friendly, the caramel sauce is.

Cut the cake into wedges, drizzle caramel sauce over top, hit it with a little vanilla ice cream, and serve it forth.
Yield: 10-12 servings.

Dinner tonight: Homemade butternut squash ravioli with maple cream sauce, bacon, and caramelized butternut squash. Estimated cost for two: $6.89. I made two pounds of pasta using 7 eggs and about a half bag of "tipo 00" Italian flour, which is used for pasta-making. The eggs were from our chickens, but if you were to use store-bought, that would be $1.86 at $3.19/dozen. The flour was $2.19 for the bag, so we'll call that $1.10. I will use about 3/4 pound of pasta for the ravioli, so that's $1.11 at $1.48 per pound. I made my own ricotta. Yes. I also agree that's a bit too much, but I did it, so there we are. The milk was $2.39, and the one lemon was 50-cents, so it cost me $2.89 for two cups of ricotta. I'll use 1/4 cup at the most, and that expense is 36-cents. I'll toss in a few tablespoons of pecorino romano, which was $7.99/pound, so at 1.99 tablespoons per ounce, we'll call that 50-cents. The squash was 75-cents from my neighbor's farm stand/patio table in the front yard, and it's nearly 3 pounds. For you to buy it at a larger farm stand, it should be 79-cents per pound, so that would be $2.37, you'll need half of that, which we'll call $1.19. The bacon was $5.75 for 12 pieces, I'll use two, so that's 96-cents. I'll use one cup of cream for $1.50, a shallot, which we'll call 50-cents, and a tablespoon of maple syrup, which we'll call 25-cents. The total amount of butter used in the dish is 6 tablespoons, and that's 52-cents. And we will wrap it up with sticky toffee pudding and vanilla ice cream. And extra caramel sauce. Yay caramel sauce.

Happy Holidays

I wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season while I'm between baking tasks. I have been reading August Escoffier's autobiography the last few days. If you aren't familiar with him, he is a French chef who worked in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His legacy is frequently cited as that of having brought dignity to the profession of chef, and having brought modern French cuisine to the forefront of the culinary world. While he is responsible for inventing dishes such as Peach Melba (created for the performer Nellie Melba) and, together with Cesar Ritz helped to create the reputation of the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain, I am most struck by his philanthropy and sense of doing what is right. Throughout his career, he donated money to houses for elderly chefs, he set up chefs in jobs whenever he had the chance, and, spoke his mind to heads of state when he had the opportunity. His own experience in the Franco-Prussian War shaped his anti-war philosophy, for he saw much suffering during his deployment and his eventual imprisonment at a German war camp.

During Escoffier's time as a prisoner of war, he was held in the camp until he was assigned to cook for the officers being held in town. While at the camp, the enlisted men would be fed only once a day, and their turn to eat would be rotated, such that it was possible to be the first to eat one day and the last to eat the next. This often resulted in thirty-six hours passing between meals, and the meals themselves were pitiful. Each week, potatoes were brought in to feed the prisoners, but the peels and water to rinse the potatoes would be left on the as-yet unpeeled potatoes so that by the end of the week, the potatoes being served were all but rotten. Escoffier said that even at the end of the week, when the food was decaying, he would see men lunge at the food wagon because they were so hungry.

On Christmas Day that year, Escoffier asked the officers for whom he was cooking if he could go back to the camp to visit. They agreed, and he brought with him a feast from the officers larder for his friends. It was the first acceptable food they had had in months. They sat at a table, sharing stories and camaraderie, and enjoying the good food Escoffier had provided. He stayed all day with them, until finally he had to return to the officers residence. The other POWs begged him to stay, but he was, of course, unable. It was a small bright spot in an otherwise dismal existence, and Escoffier knew at the time that the one simple meal had done wonders to help his comrades' morale.

Happy Holidays to you all, and I hope your holidays and the year ahead are filled with many bright spots.

Nothing says Happy Holidays quite like a Pan di Toni

This holiday season, I'm giving a little more baking cheer than material cheer, though I suppose that the baking cheer could result in an extra pound or two on the midsection of those receiving apple cake, assorted cookies, and - a new addition to my baking repertoire, one which also happens to fulfill my yeast-bread-a-week requirement - panettone. And if you gain a pound or two, is that not material? Possibly not material cheer, but certainly material.

In order to help spread the weight - I mean cheer - around this holiday season, I had decided to embark upon the quest for perfect homemade panettone. However, I started on this mission prior to reading anything regarding the pitfalls of such a quest. The Gastronomy of Italy by Anna Del Conte, a very handy reference for all things, well, gastronomic as pertains to Italy, actually says something along the lines of "panettone is rarely made at home due to the difficulty, particularly with regard to the rising time." Sometimes it's best to be ignorant of obstacles and just jump right in.

I had already made one panettone before learning that panettone is too difficult and time-consuming to make at home. No one wants to be the recipient of crap baked goods at the holidays, and I certainly don't want to be accused of distributing crap baked goods, so I decided to test a few recipes first before tying a lovely bow on some cello-wrap over the bread and handing it over to my loved ones. Somehow, I had skipped the fear-phase of panettone making and had just blindly forged on to the testing of recipes.

This first loaf was quickly assembled and quick to rise, but I wasn't madly in love with it. When in love with panettone, I typically will compulsively eat the loaf. Oh how I love the candied bits of citron. But this first homemade panettone did not have that effect on me - so I continued my search, still in pursuit of the perfect panettone recipe. In my meanderings through the vast world of panettone recipes on the internet, I found a one at Epicurious, which I have yet to try, though it is on the docket. Right after Apple Pandowdy. One of the comments following the recipe made me nervous: "the rising time was about 13 hours!". Okay. Good to know. Another comment made me more nervous: "I've read that if kneading by hand, you have to knead for 50 minutes. If kneading by machine, it's 20 minutes." Egads. Really, maybe Del Conte was right. Maybe I should forgo the panettone quest. However, I've found that many culinary endeavors - such as pie crust or souffles - have mythology built around their difficulty or their ability to try the cook's patience, and this invariably ends up being just that - a myth. So I decided to continue on in pursuit of the perfect homemade panettone. Of course, the fact that I am unemployed and therefore do actually have thirteen hours available to wait for dough to rise makes it easier for me to soldier on. And the added fact that as a result of being unemployed, I'm better able to afford flour and candied citron than jewels or electronics for gift-giving made it more appealing to continue in my pursuit.

The Gastronomy of Italy informed me that panettone as we now know it was created in Milan, and was known as panettone di Milano when it was first created. In fact, there is a creation myth for the panettone di Milano (and why not?). The myth says that panettone was the result of a Milanese aristocrat falling in love with the daughter of a baker with the surname Toni. The aristocrat knew that their cross-class relationship wouldn't work, so he would have to change classes, and so he became the baker's assistant. At that time, every bakery created a large loaf of bread, known as Pan Grande, which had a cross sliced into the top. The aristocrat reworked the recipe to include more butter and more eggs, and then added candied citron and orange peel. Before long, all of the society ladies of Milan were buying up this Pan di Toni, and later the name was contracted to Panettone. This is a very romantic story, and one which I like very much, but to burst our little romance bubble, it turns out that this story cannot be verified (what?) and the creation of Panettone di Milano is attributed to a gentleman named Motta in the 1920s. Together with Alemagna, the Motta company is one of the biggest producers of Panettone. Panettone was traditionally produced only for the Christmas holiday, but is now produced year-round and exported around the world. My panettone will not be exported around the world - it probably won't make it out of Massachusetts - but my second attempt yielded results that could be characterized as "inspiring compulsive eating". In other words, success.
This recipe, which I found at the King Arthur Flour website, does require a long rise. At least in my house it did. The first rise took about two hours, and the second rise about eight hours. The temperature of your house does impact the rising time, and the warmer the space, the more quickly it the bread will rise. However, you can only rush it so much, so I would just let it take its course without increasing your heating bill in an attempt to speed up the process. This panettone requires a biga, which is Italian for starter. The biga comes together easily, and I recommend making it in the morning and letting it sit for the 8 to 12 hours required while you go about your daily business. Then, in the evening, make the dough, let it rise for 1-2 hours, then knead in the fruit, and let it have its second rise overnight. This allows you to be productively dreaming away while it rises rather than grousing over the time commitment, and there will be no cloud of perceived patience-trying hanging over your appreciation of the bread.

I did purchase candied citron and orange peel from King Arthur Flour, as well as an extract called Fiori di Sicilia (flowers of Sicily) especially to make this bread, though the recipe, which is from the King Arthur Flour website, gives a good work-around for both the candied fruit and the Fiori di Sicilia. I'm including both options here.

Panettone, adapted from King Arthur Flour:

Ingredients:
For the biga:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon yeast
1/3 cup water

For the dough:
All of the biga
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia extract or 1 teaspoon vanilla & 1/8 teaspoon orange oil/extract.
1 tablespoon yeast
1/3 cup sugar
zest of one lemon or one orange

2/3 cups raisins
2/3 cups candied citron
2/3 cups candied orange peel
(or, if candied peels aren't available, use 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup dried cranberries, 1/2 cup dried pineapple - chopped, and 1/2 cup dried apricots - chopped.)

For the biga: In a medium bowl, combine the flour, water, and yeast. Cover and set in a warm, draft-free location for 8 to 12 hours (or overnight).

For the dough: in a large mixing bowl, combine the biga, flour, milk, eggs, butter, salt, Fiori di Sicilia or Vanilla & Orange extract, yeast, sugar, and zest. Stir first with a spoon to break egg yolks and combine ingredients somewhat. Once the ingredients are somewhat combined, use a dough hook to completely combine ingredients and then knead by machine for 7 to 8 minutes, until dough comes together but is still sticky. Some of the dough will stick to the sides of the bowl, this is fine, but you will need a silicone spatula or spoon to scrape the stuck dough into the main ball of dough before you transfer the dough to your well-floured countertop for the next step.

Yes. Transfer the dough to your well-floured countertop, and knead briefly, just enough that the dough comes together and is smooth. You may need to dust your fingertips with flour to make the transfer happen more easily, and you may need to dust the top of the dough to make the brief kneading happen more easily as well. Once the dough is smooth, transfer to a greased bowl, cover, and set aside in a warm, draft-free area until dough is fluffy though not necessarily double its original size, approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Return dough to lightly floured countertop and knead in the fruit. I start by flattening the dough out slightly on the countertop and scattering fruit over the surface, save for an inch or so around the edge. Then, I fold a "corner" (yes, I realize it's round dough - work with me here) over a portion of the scattered fruit, and scatter fruit on that empty space. I then fold another corner over, and top that off with fruit, and then fold the top over - it's as though I'm making a doughy fruit envelope - and scatter more fruit on that. I then fold the whole thing over itself and add more fruit if necessary. You may need to gently press the fruit into the dough to keep it from falling inward as you fold the dough over itself. Then, knead the dough gently to be sure the fruit is distributed throughout. Place in a greased panettone pan or paper baking pan (no need to grease the paper pan), cover, and set aside in a warm spot without what? Without a draft, and allow to rise until the dough has crested one inch over the top of the pan. Approximately 8 hours. So go to bed and get up, let's pretend it's Christmas morning now, and everyone is very excited about Santa having shown up in spite of it all (fill in your own, personal "it all" here). And you are very excited about homemade panettone, so preheat the oven to 400 degrees to get that underway.

Bake the bread at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 375, and bake the bread for an additional 10 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 350 and bake a further 25 minutes. I had to tent foil over the bread at the end of the 400-degree cooking period to avoid the crust browning too much, and the end result was perfect. Use your best judgment, though, and keep an eye on the browning - your oven may not cook the crust as quickly as mine did. In any case, you do not want an over-browned crust.

Not for the sake of art - for these photos are not artful - but for the sake of additional information, here are some photos from my poorly lit kitchen of the panettone in progress:

the dough is sticky & sticks to the sides of the mixing bowl - not to worry, just scrape the side-dwelling dough down to incorporate it into the rest of the dough when you turn it out onto the counter to do a quick hand-kneading.the dough prior to its first risethe first phase of adding fruit to the doughfold the "corner" of the dough over the fruittop the fold with fruitfold the other "corner" over - top it with fruitand again!place the dough in a panettone pan or paper panettone pan & let rise again. It has a way to go before it crests over the top of the pan, as you can see.

Dinner tonight: leftover Bolognese, probably as a lasagna, though as I am baking peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, Panettone, and apple cakes tonight, it could wind up being Bolognese with pasta. I'll pretend I'm ambitious, though, and we'll estimate the cost for the lasagna. Estimated cost for two: $3.77. The sauce cost $8.29 as made in the Untraditional Bolognese post, we had 2 servings of it over pasta on the night I made it, so 6 servings are going into the lasagna, and that's $6.22. The lasagna noodles are one-half of a box that cost $1.59, so that's 80-cents. The Bechamel sauce consists of 4 cups of milk which was $1.39, the butter was 43-cents, the flour was 6-cents at $3.99 for 76 quarter-cups per 5 pound bag, and we used the less-expensive, already grated, but still real - no green jars of faux cheese for us - parmigiano-reggiano from Venda Ravioli, 3 ounces of that cost us $2.43. The total cost for the lasagna is $11.33, and that works out to $1.88 per serving. Happily, this will keep us covered for dinner options through Christmas Eve as all of my cooking and baking energy is now focused on treats for gift-giving, and Christmas dinner fare. Speaking of which, Happy Holidays to you!

Extra-Gingery Gingerchews

I'd like to call these cookies gingersnaps, but that would be a misnomer. These ginger cookies don't snap at all. They chew. And they chew good, if you don't mind my saying so. I've been making them around the holidays for the past eight or so years, and every time I pawn them off on my friends, they get rave reviews. I'm not much of a traditional Christmas cookie baker, so I tend to gift out chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal cookies, and these little bits of ginger heaven, in addition to baked breads and, this year, apple cakes. This recipe is quick and easy, and is originally from the back of a Ginger People crystallized ginger canister so I have to say, I'm happy to document it here in order that I can finally throw away the eight-year old canister that is one of many items cluttering my already too small kitchen space.

Gingery Gingerchews, adapted from Ginger People:
3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark molasses
1 egg

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/3 cup crystallized ginger, cut into a fine dice

approximately 1/3 cup turbinado sugar for coating cookies in prior to baking. If you don't have turbinado sugar, which is frequently sold as Sugar in the Raw, granulated sugar is a fine substitute. I like the texture of the turbinado better, however, and it doesn't hurt that it's a larger grain, and therefore more sparkle-y than granulated, but sugar coating is sugar coating when you get right down to it.
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, molasses, and egg.

In another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground cloves. Stir well to combine.

Add the flour mixture to the sugar-molasses mixture and stir well to combine. Mix in the crystallized ginger bits and refrigerate for one hour.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Grease a large, rimmed baking sheet and set aside.

Roll dough into one-inch balls, and then roll in sugar to coat completely. Set on baking sheet, two inches apart from one another. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges are browned. The middle of the cookie may be somewhat puffy when you remove them, but they will flatten out and reward you with fantastic gingery chewiness.

Yield: approximately 36 cookies. Even with eating a little bit of the dough. I'm making a lot of cookies, so I'm not nearly as compelled to waste 2 or 3 cookies worth in dough-eating. In fact, it's kind of like a smorgasbord of dough that I'm able to graze through for the next few days. Ahhhh. The holidays. Such great joy they bring.

Dinner tonight: As it is Sunday, we are having our big, fancy meal of the week. Tonight, we will have a roasted chicken with mushroom risotto and sauteed mushrooms. I'm feeling the funghi this weekend, as you can see. Estimated cost for two: $10.26. Not bad for the fancy meal of the week, wouldn't you agree? The chicken is $4.38, and we'll eat about half of that. The other half will make up JR's lunch for the short holiday week in the form of chicken salad. The risotto consists of Carnaroli rice for about 80-cents for the two of us. The butter used will be about 44-cents. The shallot we'll call 50-cents. The mushroom broth, which I purchased and which is not the Whole Foods store brand was $2.79 for 4 cups. We'll use 5 or 6 cups, so that's $4.19, rounding up. I'm going to use grated pecorino romano in place of Parmigiano-Reggiano as it's about five dollars less per pound, and I'll use about two dollar's worth. The wine will be spilled in from the bottle I'm drinking tonight, so at $10.99 for 3 cups (there are roughly 3 cups of wine in a 750ml bottle) that's about 1.83 for a half cup. I'll be sad to see it go, but I'm sure I'll make do. Plus, the risotto will be more delicious for the sacrifice. Both the mushrooms being sauteed and those being added into the risotto were $1.95 for a package. I'll use about 1 and a half packages, with the half-package going into the risotto, so we'll call that $2.93 for all mushrooms, 98-cents of which has been tallied into the risotto tab. The total for four servings of risotto is $10.74, so $2.68 for 1 serving, and $5.37 for two servings. I will use a little bit of cream in the sauteed mushrooms, so at $2.99 for 2 cups, a half-cup (which I think is generous for this use), is 75-cents. I've been in an apple cake baking frenzy, and I didn't neglect our apple cake addiction in my baking, so I currently have three to give away for Christmas, and 1 for us to keep us in desserts until Christmas. We'll be having that tonight in front of the fire, keeping warm as the next 4 inches of snow falls. I hope you'll be warm and toasty, too.

P is for Party and Prosecco: Cavit Lunetta Prosecco

And P is also for Pizza, which, if you're trying to figure out a low-cost party concept for the holidays, happens to pair well with Prosecco. I've long been a fan of Prosecco, Italy's sparkling white wine, and would always serve a cocktail of limoncello and Prosecco to dinner guests as they'd arrive at my house. However, it's an easy-drinking festive tipple on its own, and would work well as the drink of choice for any party, but also for an inexpensive to pull-off Prosecco and make-your-own pizza party this holiday season. I hosted a Champagne and pizza party a few years ago, and it's surprising how well bubbly goes with pizza. It has the added allure of bringing sparkling wines into a more "ordinary" realm. I, for one, think the world would be a better place if we didn't always reserve the bubbly for special occasions. So, though I'm recommending Prosecco and Pizza for the holidays, I think it's a fitting party theme throughout the year.

Prosecco is produced in the Veneto region of Italy, which is the region in the northeast that borders the Adriatic Sea, with Venice, its capital, as it's sparkly jewel on the coast. Austria borders its very northern tip, and Verona is its largest city at the western edge of the province. Friuli-Venezia Giulia is its neighbor to the west, just beyond Verona, and, while the grape's lineage is somewhat dubious, it is thought by some that the Prosecco grape originated in Friuli-Venezia Giulia in the town of Prosecco. However, this has not been proven, but I'm fairly certain you won't be worrying about this as you're raising your glass in the air, full of lovely, sparkling Prosecco.

The Veneto is the third most productive wine region in Italy, following behind Sicily and Puglia, with over two-hundred and fifty million bottles of wine produced in the Prosecco DOC (Denominazione Origine Controllata) zone alone. You may recall from last week's post on Sassotondo that DOC and DOCG (Denominazione Origine Controllata e Garantita) are terms of the classification system employed by the Italian government throughout Italy to guarantee what types of grapes are in which wines as well as what percentages of which grapes are used in blends. The Prosecco zone of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene is north of Venice, and is situated on rolling hills between the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene. Prosecco has been grown there for at least two hundred years, though its modern era began in 1868 when Antonio Carpene, founder of the Prosecco house Carpene-Malvotti, began to employ a new method to add the characteristic fizz. This technique was invented by a Frenchman of the name Charmat, and is now known as Metodo Italiano, or Methode Charmat.

There are two fermentations in the creation of sparkling wines. The first one occurs after the harvest. In early, or farm-style, Prosecco production, the grapes were harvested late, so they were laden with sugar, and they would ferment in open vats until winter, when the cold stopped the fermentation process. Then, in the springtime, the warmth would spark a second fermentation which resulted in carbon dioxide bubbles in the wine. This resulted in a very sweet sparkling wine. In the modern era of Prosecco, and of all sparkling wines, the second fermentation is controlled rather than left to the spring thaw. Champagne, which refers only to the sparkling wines produced in the Champagne region of France, employs a method of introducing that second, bubble-producing, fermentation into wines already in the bottle, rather than prior to bottling. This is known as methode Champenoise. Wines outside of the Champagne region may employ methode Champenoise, and many sparkling wines do, but in Prosecco, they employ Metodo Italiano, which introduces the second fermentation in the tank, so prior to bottling. Metodo Italiano is a less expensive process than methode Champenoise. As you can imagine, introducing the second fermentation into individual bottles is a very time-consuming process, whereas introducing it to a vat holding a large quantity of wine prior to bottling involves far less labor, hence, the savings are passed on to the consumer. And we consumers are then able to have sparkling wine with pizza any time we like. Thank you Monsieur Charmat for your Metodo Italiano.

As a result of the difference in second fermentation process, Prosecco is a less-expensive wine than Champagne. There is one type of Prosecco, from the vineyards of Cartizze within the DOC zone, that does command up to three times the price of other Prosecco bottlings, but most Prosecco you will find in the United States will be a bargain as compared with Champagne. It does lack the complexity of a fine Champagne, but it is no less festive.

The Cavit Lunetta Prosecco which I sampled on Wednesday night is, of course, easy on the pocketbook or wallet at $11.99 per bottle. It's a light and easy-drinking wine, not terribly complex - as mentioned above, but happily bubbling away and pleasant to drink just the same. It has a pretty, floral nose with some peach and honeysuckle scents. It isn't a wine that's going to challenge you, but you have enough going on right now, so just enjoy it. It's good. And refreshing.

Cavit is a wine making cooperative based in Trentino, which is the region to the north of the Veneto, and just north of the Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene DOC. While truthfully, I wouldn't rush right out and purchase Cavit still table wines, I did find the Lunetta to be very pleasant and would buy it again. So give it a go, or try another producer's Prosecco and have yourself a very merry whatever you choose to celebrate. I'm going to celebrate dough, sauce, and cheese, myself. And then Christmas.

Dinner tonight: meatballs and spaghetti with red sauce. Estimated cost for two: $5.30. The meatballs consist of 20 ounces of ground meat; cost per pound was $3.79, so the total for the meat is $4.73. The milk is 25-cents (one cup at $1.99 for 8 cups), the bread was $2.29 for 18 or so slices, and I am going to use 6 slices, so 76-cents. The eggs are 50-cents, and the cheese is less expensive than parmigiano-reggiano as I bought pecorino romano instead. It costs $7.99 per pound, and I'll use a maximum of 4 ounces, so we'll call that $2.00 for our accounting purposes. The sauce is going to be $2.00 for a 24 ounce can of fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, plus around a dollar-fifty for carrot, onion, celery, and garlic, and we'll throw in 50-cents for anchovy paste and tomato paste. So the meatballs cost $8.24, and I'll get fifteen two-ouncers out of this batch, so 55-cents per meatball. JR and I will have 3 between the two of us, I'm sure, so $1.65 for those. The tomato sauce costs $4.00, and I'll get four servings out of that. The pasta is a splurge - we're going with our favorite fancy Italian pasta, Rustichella d'Abruzzo, and are using their spaghetti, which was $3.29 for a bag, and we'll use about half of that for a total of $1.65 in pasta. I think I should play 1-6-5 in the lotto tonight, no? When I made this last, the battle I had chosen to fight was the battle for fancy parmigiano-reggiano in the meatballs. Today's battle is for the Rustichella d'Abruzzo pasta, and, you know what? The last time I made this, it was $5.27 for two with the parmigiano. Today, it's $5.30. All's fair in love and food budgeting, I'd say.

Cracking the Baking Code

I'm taking a little break from sharing the holiday meal of lamb shanks, goat cheese risotto, and caramelized onions with you - meaning the recipe for caramelized onions is being shoved to the proverbial back burner - to share with you a new recipe for banana nut muffins. I must warn you, I've developed a slight cockiness that comes with the first realization that one is finally beginning to understand baking ratios, and that without having gone to culinary school or working in a bakery. Though making an apple cake every five days, cookies every six, and a yeast bread every seven for two months might qualify as some type of baking education.

For nearly a week, I've had three very forlorn looking bananas sitting about my house - and I do mean about the house, not the kitchen. My kitchen is quite small, only 9-feet by 9-feet, and it is chock-o-block with cooking implements, ingredients, cookbooks, notes on recipes, and other assorted clutter, leaving very little room for three sad bananas to find a perch. There is only one uncluttered space in my kitchen, and that is my only workspace, a counter that is 38 inches by 21 1/2 inches. And that space is only uncluttered after the dishes and the drying rack have been put away post-drying, and prior to the stand mixer or cutting board coming out of hiding to make the next creation. So the bananas have overstayed their welcome in a large bowl of fruit that sits by the back door, approximately ten feet or so from the edge of the kitchen. And eight feet or so from the refrigerator. Yes, you read that correctly. My refrigerator does not fit into the actual kitchen, and so it is tucked into a nook under the stairs just beyond the kitchen proper. It's not nearly as horrendous as you might think, but a gourmet kitchen I have not.

In fact, in spite of my sad kitchen circumstances, I am feeling a bit smug as my brain seems to have finally cracked the baking-ratio code, and I think - and am most likely delusional, might I add - that I am now able to improvise at will. So last night, I just threw together some banana nut muffins, and, it turns out, JR and I like them better than the banana nut muffins I posted the recipe for before Thanksgiving. I think an actual baker, one with training, might be a bit taken aback with the way I ignored the traditional way of incorporating the butter, and perhaps these will never turn out so good again, but until that day comes, the proud baker I am today feels compelled to share the recipe with you.

Banana-Cinnamon Muffins (with walnuts if you like and not if you don't):

Ingredients:
3 overripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar - I used dark brown sugar, but light brown will do

1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 stick softened butter - very soft softened butter, as in almost melting but still in the wrapper

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

cinnamon-sugar for sprinkling atop muffins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line a muffin sheet with muffin liners, or grease muffin tins well.

In a large bowl, mash the bananas to bits. Then add the sugars and mix well to combine. This entire process - meaning the entire recipe - can be done by hand - no need to get out the stand mixer and further crowd the kitchen.

Add the vanilla and eggs, and stir to combine. A whisk works well at this point. Add the milk and the butter, and, whisking furiously, break the butter apart until your batter looks like mashed bananas with egg-drop soup. This is the part where true bakers may very well be groaning and saying loudly "what is she doing?!" Typically, you would cream the sugar and butter together and then mash the bananas into that, and you are welcome to go that route, but I decided to try something different, and so the butter is in bits in the batter. And you might remember from the savory pie crust post that the little bits of butter give pie crust its flakiness because the butter releases moisture in cooking and puffs up the dough. Well, in the case of these banana muffins, the butter releases moisture, and produces nooks and crannies in the muffins. Check out the photo at the top of the post. See? Nooks and crannies. What could be bad about that? They sold us nooks and crannies as a good thing for years during Saturday morning cartoons, and now I'm buying. Looks like they finally got me, thirty years on.

Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl and stir well to evenly distribute these dry items.

Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture, stir to combine, and then add in the walnuts if you've chosen to use them. Pecans would also be good. If you like nuts in your muffins. Not if you don't.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups and then sprinkle a bit of cinnamon sugar atop each muffin. Bake in the middle rack of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until muffins are a light golden brown. Remove to a rack and allow to cool, but sample just one before you really should so that you have to toss the muffin back and forth between your hands as you tear off the muffin liner to avoid burning your hands.

Yield: 12 three-ounce muffins with nooks and crannies.

Dinner tonight: Farfalle with Sweet Italian Sausage and Artichoke Hearts. Estimated cost for two: $7.92. The Farfalle is the Whole Foods store brand that is made in the traditional Italian fashion. The box was $1.99, and we will use 1/2 of the box, so that's $1.00. The sausage is the other half of the sausage I bought on sale at Whole Foods, so that's $2.28. The artichokes are canned Whole Foods 365 brand, and they cost $2.79 (I think. These have been in the larder for a while now.). We'll grate some parmigiano over it all, so that's another $1.85 for that. This dish is pretty white overall - I mean, the sausage isn't white, but the artichokes and pasta blend together, so in the future, I may add some peas or fava beans to it to gussy it up. However, it's a pretty scrumptious dish without the extra color, so there we have that.

Risotto Formaggio di Capra

If ever I have a cookbook of my own, I'm going to name it "The Brand New Book That No One Really Can Afford to Buy Right Now, But That Will Teach You How to Make Many Scrumptious, Low-Cost Meals, Depending Upon What's Available That Season, Including Lesser-cuts of Meat, an Occasional Seafood Item, and Definitely Wine". My inspiration for this title is the work of one Cristoforo di Messisbugo, a Renaissance chef and cookbook author who I learned about in reading up on risotto. His cookbook, published around 1549, was entitled "The New Book Which Teaches How to Make All Kinds of Food, According to the Season, Whether Meat or Fish". A succinct, and no doubt accurate, title. Signore Messisbugo was cited as being one of the first Italian chefs to mention risotto in a menu, in this case, a Risotto alla Siciliana, served in 1543, and finished with saffron, as Risotto Milanese is finished today. Risotto is a preparation of a particular type of rice, fino or superfino. These are longer grained rices which are able to absorb the cooking liquid used in the preparation without disintegrating or becoming mushy. Rice is an important dish in the north of Italy, particularly in the regions surrounding the Po Valley where the majority of Italian rice is grown. Though rice is often thought to have made its way to Italy either with the Saracens (a medieval European term that encompasses all Muslim peoples) or through Venice as a result of trade with the Far East, the Romans had learned of rice from the Greeks, and traded in it, though they didn't grow it themselves. It is possible that the first people to grow rice in Italy were the Aragonese, who arrived in Campania - the region just south of Lazio where Rome is situated - in the 15th century. Rice has never gained as much popularity in the south of Italy - pasta is the starchy dish of choice there, and who doesn't love pasta? But when superfino rice is prepared as risotto, it can be difficult to declare pasta better than rice. I think the southern Italians are just too warm year-round and therefore can't stand the idea of stirring a pot of rice for twenty five minutes. But that is not the case where I live, and so winter brings with it much stirring of the pot.

Many of the things that other people find tedious in terms of kitchen work, I rather enjoy. There's the kneading of dough. I like the feel of the dough in my hands. I like the fact that when it is finally silken and elastic, my hands have brought it to that point, and I instinctively recognize that it is there at that point (instinctively after many sessions of kneading, I have to add). I like to make fresh pasta whenever I have the chance in spite of the fact that there are perfectly good options for purchasing both fresh and dried pasta within just a few miles of my house. I don't mind having to roast vegetables and allow them to cool before making a dish. Multi-step preparations are a welcome endeavor. Perhaps I am too task-oriented, but completing each step makes me feel pretty damned good about the accomplishment. And then there is the meditative allure of cooking intricate or time-consuming dishes. Risotto is a perfect example of a meditative dish. Yes, you do need to stand by the stove and stir constantly, but as you do, you get to watch the rice plump up as it absorbs the stock, there's the rhythmic and hypnotic motion of the spoon moving through the rice in circles, the occasional clanking of the ladle against the pot that's keeping the stock warm, and the glass of wine for sipping while you stir. Never without the glass of wine, people. Never. Which is why I'm a home cook and not a professional chef. What a disaster that would be.

There is a huge variety of ways in which risotto may be prepared - with seafood, with saffron (alla Milanese), with peas, with artichoke hearts, with asparagus, with mushrooms (that's a good one - we'll do that later this winter, ok?), simply with parmigiano and butter (Risotto Bianco), or you can improvise and take it whatever way you like once you've got the basic steps down. JR and I had leek risotto a couple of weeks ago, butternut squash risotto (no, I won't stop with the butternut squash. Not yet. I have so much butternut squash stashed at my house.) is a great holiday side dish, lemony risotto is good with chicken or seafood, on and on it goes. And so, in working on the menu for the lamb shanks we had on Sunday night, I thought goat cheese risotto would be a fitting accompaniment. If you don't like goat cheese, perhaps you should try some more to be sure. Not all of it comes in a shelf-stable-for-ten-years plastic tube, you know (though don't discount locally made goat cheese in a plastic tube. That's a whole different animal than the grocery-store goat-cheese-in-a-tube). If that fails, feel free to make the risotto with Parmigiano-Reggiano instead, and you'll have mastered a staple of northern Italian cuisine, Risotto Bianco.

Risotto Formaggio di Capra (goat cheese risotto):

Ingredients:
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 large shallots, chopped fine

6 cups vegetable or chicken stock. If using store-bought, use low-sodium, otherwise, the salt may be overpowering.

1 1/2 cups Arborio or Carnaroli rice. Both of these are superfino. Fino rice is also acceptable, but do not use regular rice for this dish, it will be a mushy disaster and you'll wonder what all the fuss is about with this risotto junk.

1/2 cup dry white wine - I have to be honest, I didn't have any white wine hanging around, so I omitted this in my risotto on Sunday. You can, too, if you also don't have white wine available, but do know that you should use wine for some acidity in the dish if you're being a purist. Also, meatier risottos use red wine. We'll get into that through January, February, March, and April, I'm sure. And I always have red wine hanging around.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 - 2 ounces fresh goat cheese - I used just over one ounce. That was plenty of goat cheese flavor for the dish. A local option for New Englanders comes from Consider Bardwell Farm in Vermont, they make a good fresh goat cheese called Mettowee. If you'd prefer to use Parmigiano-Reggiano, use around 1/4 cup freshly grated in place of the goat cheese.

In a medium sauce pan, heat the stock over medium heat until warmed through. Keep a ladle at the ready for transferring the stock to the risotto-cooking pot.

In a large sauce pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Once butter is completely melted, but before it starts to brown, add the shallot. Cook the shallot until it is translucent, but not browned, approximately 2-3 minutes. Maintaining the medium heat - you don't want to use too hot a flame (or coil, as the case may be) because overheating the rice will cause it to harden. Don't be nervous, it's really quite easy, but you should know that you must be patient. Now, pick up that glass of wine, have a sip, put it back down, take a deep breath, and add the rice to the pan. Stir the rice to coat it in butter, and cook for a couple of minutes at medium heat to warm the rice through before adding liquid.

If using wine, add the wine now, stirring constantly until it has been completely absorbed into the rice. If not using wine, add the first ladle-full of stock and stir, yes, constantly, until it has been completely absorbed into the rice. By completely absorbed, I do not mean that the rice is dried out and sticking the bottom of the pot - you should still see a little bit of moisture still in your rice - but you do need to let the liquid be absorbed before adding the next ladle-full. It's a balancing act, but one that you are perfectly able to handle.

To be clear, a ladle holds about one cup of liquid. At the start, this is a perfect amount, say for the first 3 or 4 additions of stock. After that, you may want to add a little less liquid - say two-thirds of a ladle-full. So here you are, stirring and admiring the rice as it plumps up, and enjoying a sip or two of wine from time to time - I tend to have a sip after every stock addition - it seems like the safest time to take my eyes off the pot as not much bad can happen to risotto while it has a fair amount of liquid yet to be absorbed. You will do this for twenty to twenty-five minutes or so, but the true test is in the tasting.

As you get toward the bottom of your supply of warm stock, which is very likely around twenty minutes into the cooking process, you should take a little bit of the rice out and cool it so that you can test it without burning your mouth. The rice should be firm, but not chewy. Once I get to that twenty minute mark, I test before each new addition of stock to see how it's going. If this is your first time preparing risotto at home, not to worry. If you've had it in a restaurant, you have a pretty good idea of what the texture should be, and if you've never had it anywhere before because you live in a secluded mountainous and wooded area with not one road out of the wilderness, yet somehow you've managed to get yourself some superfino rice, just use your best judgment. Is it pleasantly firm to the bite or does it stick to the inside of your molars when you test it? If it sticks to your teeth, you probably want to add more stock. But, hey, if you like rice stuck in your teeth, you just move on to the next step at that point.

The next step is to remove the pot from the heat and add the butter. Stir the butter into the rice until it has melted. Now, stir in the goat cheese. If you are not using goat cheese, stir in the Parmigiano-Reggiano. Let the rice sit for a few minutes, then stir, and serve it out. As mentioned yesterday, this complemented the lamb shanks quite well, but any cut of lamb would be welcome with it, as would roasted vegetables in place of meat.

Serves 4.

Dinner tonight: Broiled Sweet Italian Sausage with sauteed cabbage and cannellini beans. Estimated cost for two: $6.95. The sausage was on sale for $2.99 per pound. The amount we're having tonight cost $2.28 - JR will have two links, I will have one. The cabbage was $1.10, we'll use most of that, so let's stick with $1.10 for our math. The beans are Whole Foods store brand, and cost 99-cents. The olive oil I'll use will be around 60-cents, and I will add a couple cloves of garlic to the cabbage as it sautes, so we'll call that 10-cents from a 50-cent head of garlic. We will shave some Parmigiano-Reggiano over our dishes, so at $29.99/pound for the Red Cow, that's about $1.85 for the amount we'll use tonight. You can always find a less expensive Parmigiano-Reggiano, but don't use the green can o'cheese, whatever you do. You have standards, you know.

Lamb Shanks Worthy of a Holiday Celebration

Apologies to those who are put off by the sight of cooked bones. I should have made three lamb shanks last night, but we really are on a budget, so, though I'm certain JR would have been thrilled with an extra shank, I have only picked over bones with which to illustrate today's post.

The Sunday meal is a big event in our house each week, particularly during the winter. It is the big fancy meal of the week and requires the most effort. Even in the summer, it's the day that we splurge and buy steaks - well, last summer anyway. We'll see what happens to those steaks during summer '09. Cue the violin player. I'm sure we'll find a way to afford steak during the summer even in this god forsaken recession.
Once the days grow shorter and the weather pushes us indoors earlier, JR and I both crave slow cooked meals. In the past, that could mean anything from Osso Buco (braised veal shanks) to standing rib roast to homemade pasta and Bolognese sauce. The Bolgonese sauce received an invitation to stick around during the recession, but, for better or worse, the Osso Buco and standing rib roast don't get to grace our dining table any longer. For the time being, at least. However, there are plenty of so-called lesser cuts of meat that are just as flavorful, allow you to enjoy the smell of slow-cooked provisions lilting through the house, and won't cause you to eat pasta with butter all week long because you decimated your food budget on Sunday. I had been eyeballing the lamb shanks at Whole Foods for a couple of weeks now, even having a conversation with my favorite butcher there about them last week ("How will you cook them?," he asked me. "I'm going to cook them in red wine and stew 'em," I responded, a little skeptical myself having never cooked lamb shank before.). This Sunday, I finally pulled the trigger and purchased two very healthy-sized shanks. They cost $5.99 per pound at Whole Foods for bone-in New Zealand lamb shanks. My favorite butcher informs me that American lamb is priced the same as New Zealand lamb at Whole Foods, so if you have a preference for American lamb, you're still at the same price point. I checked Peapod.com (Stop&Shop's delivery service), and they have boneless American lamb shank for $6.99 per pound. I'd wager that in-store, they're probably a bit less, and if you have a good butcher nearby, you should suss them up for they might have an even better price on the shanks.

I had long been thinking that it would be good to riff off of traditional Mediterranean lamb accompaniments in making my shanks, so I decided that I would use dried figs and raisins in the sauce, and then contrast the sweetness with goat cheese and toasted pine nuts. At the last minute, I decided that some orange flavor would be a welcome addition, and I have about 100 clementines in my house (they're on sale), so I added two to the mix. I read a little bit about lamb shanks before embarking upon my stewing of the jaspers, and then jumped right in. This being the day after I made them, my final analysis of the dish is that I would eat this every night if I could. With Bolognese and apple cake on the side. You know, if I were committing to eating just one or two or three things every night for the rest of my life. Also, could I get some cheese with that? Cheese should definitely come along to the island of favorite things.

Oh, right. The shanks.

The sauce is a little bit sweet, so if you don't share my unabashed love for sweet and savory combinations you can counter that with additional goat cheese crumbled over the top of the dish, or you could spoon less sauce on your plate, or you could use toasted walnuts in place of the toasted pine nuts, or you could omit the honey. You could also use different fruits in the sauce. I think dried apricots would be pretty amazing, as would my darling prunes (and yes, I know I still owe you the pasta with ricotta and prunes recipe - I haven't forgotten). I served this with goat cheese risotto - I'll post that recipe tomorrow - and balsamic caramelized cippolini onions. This dish is holiday- or guest-worthy, or just Sunday-is-a-good-day-for-cooking-worthy.

this is a bit neater a presentation than the dish actually appears with more sauce served in your home. I took some liberties here in reducing the dish down to just a few components so it would make a prettier picture. Please forgive me. Make the lamb, and all will be good.

Lamb Shanks in a Clementine and Fig Red Wine Reduction:

Ingredients:
2-4 lamb shanks - the sauce is enough for four servings, you just need to be sure you have enough room in your pan to accommodate four shanks. I would try to get shanks that are around 3/4 pound each.
salt and pepper
3-4 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic or roasted garlic. If using fresh garlic, peel skin off and leave whole. If using roasted, slide the garlic from its skin and leave whole, it will disintegrate in the sauce.

1 tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon honey

2 cups red wine
2 cups chicken stock

6 dried figs cut into quarters
2 seedless clementines, cut into 1/4-inch circles. Wheels of clementine, as it were. As you are cutting these into 1/4-inch pieces, you will see if there are seeds. If so, just remove them. You don't want to be crunching on seeds at dinner.
a handful of raisins. In all honesty, I'm not much of a measurer (made-up word, fyi). Keeping this blog has forced me to measure more, but in cooking (not baking), I'm a big fan of, "yeah, that looks right." However, I think we can estimate that a handful of raisins is roughly equivalent to 1/4 cup.
1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Remove shanks from the refrigerator approximately an hour before you intend to start cooking to allow them to come up to room temperature. This allows the meat to cook more evenly as there isn't a cold interior that requires more time to come up to the proper cooking temperature. This whole recipe process takes about 3 hours from prep through reducing the sauce, so plan your day accordingly. Generously salt and pepper the shanks.

Over medium-high heat, heat oil in a large, deep pan with a large bottom surface area. I used a braiser pan, but a large dutch oven would work equally as well. In either case, you must have a lid for the pan. Add the lamb shanks to the oil and brown well on both sides. Depending upon the heat, this will take 3-5 minutes per side. Once the shanks are browned, remove them from the pan and place on a plate where they will stay until you have prepared the cooking liquid - which later becomes the sauce - and can return them to the pan.

for the sake of practical education, this is what the shanks look like in the braiser pan in my poorly-lit 9-foot-by-9-foot kitchen just before the lid goes on & they cook for 2 hours.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add the chopped onion and garlic. Saute until onion is translucent, approximately 2-3 minutes. Add thyme, mustard, and honey, and stir to combine, cooking for 1 minute to meld flavors. Add the red wine and cook at a simmer for 1 minute. Add the broth, cook at a simmer for 1 minute. Add the shanks to the pan, and scatter the clementine pieces, fig pieces, and raisins around the shanks. Toss the bay leaf in as well. The cooking liquid should come approximately 1/2 way up the side of the shanks. Bring to a low simmer, cover, and cook until the meat falls off the bone - test with a fork to see if it does - approximately 2 hours, and flip the shanks over a few times during the cooking process to insure they are evenly stewed/braised/cooked.

Remove lamb shanks from the pan, and tent with foil to keep warm. Bring liquid in the pan to a boil and boil until reduced by half, approximately 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until it is completely melted and combined with the sauce. Remove the bay leaf. Serve shanks and sauce with goat cheese risotto (recipe is coming tomorrow, don't fret.). Not to be a total control freak because you must do what works for you, but it looks pretty darned attractive - not to mention scrumptious - if you mound the risotto in one "corner" of your round plate, then place the shank so that the meaty end is perched along the side of the risotto and the end that is exposed bone rests in the air over the risotto. Then there's probably a little space for some caramelized onions on the side of the shank next to the risotto - yes, the caramelized onion recipe is coming as well - and then you should spoon the sauce over the shank. Sprinkle some toasted pine nuts or walnuts over the dish, maybe a bit of crumbled goat cheese if you like, and serve it forth. As a purely informational tidbit, and because I know some of you will be wondering, the rinds of the clementines are completely edible, even the bit where the flower meets the fruit is softened enough to eat. I know this, for I tried. All in the name of science. Or love of food. Whichever.

Dinner tonight: We have leftover sauce from the lamb shanks and left over risotto, so I bought a cheap-ass chicken at my local poultry farm today, and I am going to roast some Brussels sprouts to go with the dish. Estimated cost for two: $10.32, but this includes what will be leftover chicken that will either go into a pasta dish later this week or will be chicken salad for JR's lunches. Maybe we should call it $8.04 for two. The chicken was actually pretty large for the poultry farm - this one cost $4.57 and was 3.28 pounds. We'll use half of that. You might have read me mentioning chicken salad or pasta later this week. That's what we'll do with the other half of the bird. The Brussels sprouts were $1.81. The oil I'll use to roast the sprouts is 20-cents. The leftover risotto is a bit expensive, but it was part of the special Sunday dinner, and was a test-drive for the holidays, so there we are. We have to have these small luxuries, don't we? The carnaroli rice was $5.49 for what is the rough equivalent of 16 servings at my house. So the rice for the risotto is 68-cents for two. I used 6 cups of stock in total for the risotto, so at $2.19 for 4 cups of Whole Foods store brand stock, that's $1.40 for tonight's portion of risotto. I actually used turkey stock I made from the turkey-in-a-hole-in-the-ground carcass, so if you're making turkey for the holidays, keep the carcass, break it up into manageable pieces, and follow the stock recipe for the chicken soup, but with enough water to cover the turkey carcass (32 ounces in my case) then just freeze it up for when you need it next. The shallot for the risotto was about 30-cents, and the goat cheese was about $1.35 for the amount we used.

Pea puree. It isn't just for wee people.

pea puree lasagnette without bacon

Part of eating for less involves eating meat less frequently or in smaller quantities. I realize that this may be an unpopular approach for carnivores, but one way to eat nearly vegetarian meals is to use a small amount of cured meat, such as bacon or pancetta to garnish dishes. At Easter, I make homemade ravioli for the vegetarians in the family, and this past Easter, I made ricotta-parmigiano, pea puree, and beet ravioli. The pea puree was, surprisingly, the hit of the trio, and it spawned this recipe, which is much more simple than rolling out your own pasta and filling ravioli all afternoon. In fact, this recipe is more of an assemblage than a real recipe, in my opinion - and as such, it comes together quickly. It's only in the oven for about 30 minutes as well, so it's a pretty convenient, nearly meat-free meal for a weeknight. And if you are vegetarian, you know what to do. Skip the bacon. It's still scrumptious without it.

Pea Puree Lasagnette (little lasagnas):
Ingredients:
1 cup frozen peas
1/3 cup water

2 or more across-the-grain slices of shallot. For the Easter ravioli, I used around a tablespoon of chopped shallot and it had a decent kick to it. For this, you may want to start out on the more conservative end of the aromatic/shallot scale, unless you know you like a kick. If that's the case, load 'em up.
1/2 teaspoon thyme

6 lasagna noodles

8 ounces fresh ricotta - please try to find fresh ricotta as it really is a much better quality item than those shelf-stable-for-eight-months ricottas. If you're feeling the make-it-from-scratch love, Bon Appetit has a recipe for homemade ricotta in this month's issue. I intend to try that bad boy out this weekend, in fact.

salt and pepper, additional thyme if you like - you're only sprinkling this about, so it's up to you to determine if you'd like to include it.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2-3 tablespoons grated parmigiano-reggiano

For the "garnish":
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
4 pieces bacon
1 medium shallot, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
2 tablespoons creme fraiche or sour cream (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, cook frozen peas in 1/3 cup water until heated through. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

Bring water to boil in medium sauce pan, salt well and cook lasagna noodles until al dente - firm, yet cooked through. Rinse well with cold water to prevent noodles from sticking to one another or themselves. Set aside.

In a food processor or mini-food processor, combine the peas, their cooking water, and the 2 or more slices of shallot, and the 1/2 teaspoon of thyme and blend to a puree. It should look like baby food. Don't be afraid.

Grease a lasagna pan with enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Lay two sheets of pasta on the bottom of the pan the long way. Place 1/4 of the pea puree on each, then 2 ounces of ricotta on each, then salt and pepper (and thyme if you like). Cover this layer with another sheet of lasagna and repeat. Top with a third layer of pasta and place 1 tablespoon of butter, cut into pieces and evenly spaced around the noodle on top of each lasagna stack. Sprinkle parmigiano-reggiano over, and place in the oven on the middle rack. Bake for 30 minutes or until the lasagna is lightly browned and bubbling - indicating hotness as it does. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes so that it doesn't fall apart while you cut it. Cut each stack in half and serve with the pea-bacon garnish described below.

While the lasagna cooks, cook the bacon to desired doneness in a saute pan over medium heat. Remove bacon from pan, drain on paper towels, allow to cool slightly, and then crumble into bits of your desired size. I like a larger bit o'bacon myself. Add oil to pan so that the pan is evenly coated (this may not be the full 2-3 tablespoons, use your best judgment). Cook the shallots until they are opaque, approximately 3 minutes. Add the peas to the pan and cook until heated through. Keep warm until lasagna is ready to serve.

Top each lasagnette with 1/4 of the pea mixture and sprinkle bacon over top of each plate. Top with a dollop - by dollop, I mean somewhere around a tablespoon - of creme fraiche or sour cream if you so desire.

Serves 4.

Dinner tonight: Ziti with roasted butternut squash, bacon, and creme fraiche. See, I'm making use of the remaining bacon from the pea lasagnette. So crafty with my meat conservation, I am. Estimated cost for two: $4.35. The ziti is that Whole Foods store brand that's made in the traditional Italian bronze-die, air-dried fashion, and yes, I really do think it makes a difference. The box was $1.99, and we'll use half of that. The butternut squash was 2 pounds and cost me 50-cents, but you don't live near the Sousa's farm, so you will likely pay 79-cents per pound, and we'll do the math that way to be fair to you. You only need a pound, so save the hollowed-out bowls for stuffing with Israeli cous cous or rice, apples, raisins, and cheddar and serving with roasted chicken or some such other use. But back to the cost of the squash. We'll call that 80-cents for the pound. I'm going to use leeks from the last day of my garden - can you stand that I still have these suckers? How long has it been? Those are free to me, but if you used even 1/2 of the mammoth leek I purchased at Whole Foods earlier this week - which would be more than enough - it would be 50-cents. The bacon was $2.15 for what turned out to be 6 pieces, and we're using the three leftover pieces, so that goes into the tally at $1.08. The olive oil is around 20-cents per tablespoon, so that's around 60-cents, and Vermont Butter and Cheese creme fraiche is on sale at Whole Foods this week. It was $2.99 for 8 ounces. According to Wikianswers, 1 ounce is equivalent to 1.99 tablespoons, so that's 37-cents for both of us.