Homemade Pasta: Fun for the Entire Family!

Making pasta at home is not only delicious but can be a fun family activity. We teach our children not to play with their food, but this is one time you can make an exception. Even young children can be involved from beginning to end!* By letting children get involved in the cooking process, they are more likely to actually eat the meal.

2 eggs
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon water

Make a mound of the flour with a well in the middle. Crack the egg in the middle and break the egg yolk with your fingers. Slowly combine the flour into the egg until all flour is incorporated into the dough. If the dough seems to dry add up to 1 teaspoon of water to achieve the right consistency. Use the palms of your hands to knead the dough. Remind kids not to eat the dough since it contains raw eggs. When you think the dough feels right, wash and dry your hands and then press your thumb into the dough and if it does not stick to your thumb, then no more flour is needed. Now it's time to decide what type of pasta you want to make!

Orecchiette (mouse ears) and cavatelli shapes (rolled shell) are both good shapes for thick, chunky sauces. For orecchiette, roll small 1/2" balls and then press them flat with your thumb to form a little dome. For cavetelli style, make thm the same way as the orecchiette, but use your thumb to roll or "smear" the dough in to a tiny hot dog bun shape.
For long noodles, start by dusting your counter with more flour and divide the dough into 2 balls. If you have a pasta machine, you can roll the dough into sheets. If not, then use a rolling pin to roll the dough as thinly as possible. You can let the dough rest between rolling to get the dough extra thin. Again this task that can be done with a child’s help!

Let the pasta sheets rest for about 10 minutes before cutting. The plain sheets can be used to make lasagna. With children in mind, a pizza cutter can be used to cut the pasta sheets in lengths for fettuccine or spaghetti. The sheets can also be cut into small squares and pinched into farfalle or “bowtie” pasta.

Once cut or shaped allow the pasta to dry for at least 1 hour before cooking. To cook the pasta, boil a large pot of salted water to a boil. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly, so be careful not to overcook. Add pasta to the boiling water and wait for the water to come back to a boil. After about three minutes remove a noodle and test its tenderness. Test a noodle each minute until the pasta is just the way you like it. Now add the sauce of your choice, but you might just find that a little butter and Parmesan are all you need for a delicious homemade dinner!

Friends Caroline and Chris making noodles!

For more kid-friendly recipes and techniques, please visit the new Kids' Cooking Academy sponsored by Frigidaire at www.maketimeforchange.com. Each day that you visit the Cooking Academy, Frigidaire will donate $1 to Save the Children to help provide nutritious snacks and promote healthier lifestyles for children living in poverty in the U.S.

*If you try this recipe with your children, please send along pictures for us to post.

Ridiculously Delicious Challenge is On!

Justin Marx, CEO of Marx Foods, today announced the challengers for his new foodie contest "The Ridiculously Delicious Challenge." We are honored to again be on Justin's list of contestants! For the first task, we must choose three items from the "Goodie List" below and determine what ridiculously delicious thing would you do with them if we won. Any ideas?

The Goodie List

Kobe Beef Sliders OR Kobe Beef Burgers	Whole Quail OR Semi-Boneless Quail
Wild Boar St. Louis Spare Ribs	Pink Salmon Fillets
Kangaroo Burgers OR Ground Kangaroo Meat	Wild Mushroom Sampler (contents may change)
Live Oyster Sampler	Ultimate Chile Head Sampler
10lb Specialty Burger Sampler	Mega Pantry Sampler
Pekin Duck Breasts	Fresh Blood Oranges
5lbs Frozen Wild Huckleberries	20lb Heirloom Potato Sampler
1lb Fresh Daruma Wasabi	Specialty Sausage Sampler
14lb Dried Bean Sampler	1lb Bourbon Vanilla Beans
Superior Spanish Saffron Threads	2 Live Geoducks
Edible Flower Assortment & Microflower Blend

Spicy Sweet Grilled Quail

Our friends Chris and Will went bird hunting during their winter break. It must have been a very successful trip, because we were gifted with a cooler full of quail and pheasants. What better way to enjoy Southern game birds than with another Southern favorite - hot pepper jelly. Of course, the bacon didn't hurt either! This recipe appealed to all our tastes.

• 8 quail, dressed
• 8 strips thick-cut bacon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ½ cup jalapeño pepper jelly (we use Braswell's)
• ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tablespoons Bourbon

Prepare your fire or grill. While the grill is heating, rinse quail and season with salt and pepper, then wrap each one with a slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick. In a bowl whisk the pepper jelly, bourbon, and Worcestershire sauce until smooth.

When the coals of the fire are hot with no flame, place the bacon-wrapped quail over the fire and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, turning frequently until the bacon is beginning to caramelize and the quail have grill marks on all sides.

Brush the quail with the pepper glaze and continue turning, basting, and cooking for about 10 minutes longer. When the quail are nicely glazed and grilled on all sides and the flesh is just cooked through, remove them from the fire. Let the quail rest for a few minutes before serving. The glaze can be ladled over the quail before serving, but only if it is brought to a boil beforehand to kill any bacteria transferred from the quail. We served the quail with brown rice and sauteed zucchini for a wonderful wintertime dinner.

Back To Basics

This week in the Southeast, our typical fast-paced lifestyle came to a screeching halt. “Snowmageddon,” as it is being called provided us with 7 days of forced family time. With little else to do, planning our meals became the focus of our days. The first step was defrosting the freezer and taking a detailed inventory of the options at hand. Then, reading through old recipes with the fire blazing in the fireplace which was like visiting with old friends. With plenty of the basic staples on hand (flour, water, milk, and eggs,) we had ample time to start from scratch. We played gin rummy while letting the homemade pasta dough rest between the stages of rolling and cutting.

We sat and chatted as we hand-rolled gnocchi taking our time making the tasty little dumplings. Wonderful smells filled the house as we made fresh bread and pizza. Once the roads were clear enough for a trip to Costco, we embarked on our third sausage making “festa,” making 51 pounds of spicy Italian sausage for the freezer. While cooking from scratch can be time consuming, the benefits are numerous. I know exactly what we are eating; no chemicals or preservatives. And, the food really did taste better - maybe because we worked harder to create the perfect meal or because we made it together as a family.

St. George Island Roasted Oysters

In 2001, we rented a house on St. George Island which is near the thirty-mile, shallow oyster paradise known as Apalachicola on the Florida panhandle. Dom bought a bail of oysters which we stored in one of the bath tubs with 25 pounds of ice. When we had eaten as many raw oysters as we could, Dom roasted more using bread crumbs made from stale bread, parsley from a sparse herb garden out in front of the rental house and the sorry excuse for garlic that we found at the local grocery store. Even given the field respite ingredients, I still think these were the best oysters I have ever eaten.

• 1 ½ dozen raw (Apalachicola) oysters, shucked on the half shell
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs (or freshly grated bread)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
• Favorite hot sauce

Preheat convection oven to 400o F. Make mollica by melting butter in a small pan and add garlic. Cook for a minute then add bread crumbs and parsley and stir to mix.

Place oysters on a cookie sheet and add approximately 1 tablespoon of bread crumbs per oyster. Place oysters in the oven and cook until bread crumbs are well browned. Serve with your favorite hot sauce and enjoy!

The Pastoral Pleasure of Bagna Càuda

The name comes from bagno caldo which is Italian for "hot bath."  It originated as a seasonal dish of the harvest season; a snack for vineyard workers during the harvesting of grapes and pruning of vines. Bagna càuda is designed to be eaten in large company.

A dish for a community celebration just before the off-season for farm laborers began that was rustic and hearty, in contrast to the meals of the estate owners. The cold and even the frost, was a necessary requirement to have perfect tenderness of the vegetables for the dip.

We had bagna càuda with friends on New Year’s Eve. Our favorite was dipping romaine lettuce leaves in the warm sauce. We tossed the leftover sauce with boiled potatoes for a decadent complement to flat iron steaks!

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup half & half (or light cream)
• 1 2-oz. can of anchovies packed in olive oil
• Dash of Hot pepper sauce (optional)
• Variety of crudité (especially scallions, cardoons, celery, romaine lettuce)

Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan over low heat. Once heated, add the minced garlic and salt to the pan and cook slowly until the garlic is translucent. Do not allow the garlic to brown as it will turn bitter. In a separate bowl, mash the anchovy with a fork. You can add a little of the half and half to help dissolve the anchovies. When the garlic is ready, add the anchovy mixture and half & half to the pan and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes until the mixture thickens and mellows. Add hot sauce if desired. When the bagna càuda coats the back of a wooden spoon, move the sauce to a ceramic butter warmer and serve with crisp fresh vegetables. Enjoy the fragrant aroma of the sauce and enjoy the warm depth of the sauce. It is a true taste sensation that evokes indulgence and comfort.

Sautéed Greens (Verdi Saltati) for Luck

Sautéed greens are healthy, easy and wonderfully adaptable. They are an addition to our dinner table at least once a week. They can be mixed with pasta or white beans for a hearty vegetarian meal, served as a side dish or Dom’s favorite served in chicken broth with veal meatballs as Italian wedding soup. Served cold, they make a delicious summer salad, too.

Cooking greens, also known as “potherbs,” are leafy green vegetables which are among the most widely grown vegetables worldwide. The term “leafy greens” refers to vegetables like cabbage, endive, escarole, spinach, broccoli, rapini, collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, kale, Swiss chard and even dandelions. They are grown specifically for their leaves and stems, (though sometimes the stems are not edible.) Collards, which are considered to bring a year of good fortune if eaten on New Year’s Day, were cultivated and eaten by the ancient Greeks and Romans. They are the oldest leafy green within the cabbage family.

• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 bunch leafy greens, blanched (see below)
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• Kosher salt, to taste

Blanching is a technique used to soften vegetables before their final preparation. All leafy greens (except spinach) benefit from being blanched prior to sautéing.  For greens with thick stems or ribs, separate these from the leaves, and place them in boiling water and cook them for about 5 minutes. Add the leafy pieces and stir with a wooden spoon until the water returns to a boil. As soon as the greens are a bit limp, (but not soggy looking) which should take another 3-5 minutes, remove the greens to a dry towel and drain briefly.


Heat olive oil in a heavy pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Add parboiled greens (or spinach) and cook, turning occasionally for about 5 minutes until just starting to brown. Add minced garlic and crushed red pepper and took another 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle water (up to 2 tablespoons as needed to keep the greens from burning or sticking to the bottom of the pan. When the garlic looks golden and the greens are slightly browned, remove to serving plate and salt to taste. Sprinkle with mollica for added texture.

 P. S. Best of luck and good fortune in 2011!!