Whadda day

Yesterday, the kids and I tromped down to the raised bed to check on our little box of crops inside the hoop house cold frame. We lifted up the plastic and peeked inside to see our carrots, their stalks grown tall and gorgeous; our spinach, green leaves bunched and beautiful; our chives, looking delicious as always. I lowered the structure back over our plants, commented on how great they'll taste at Thanksgiving, and headed back inside.

Then the wind started up. We get a lot of wind up here, so it was no surprise, but I hadn't prepared the hoop house--which is pretty much just a big box kite--for the gusty gales. I checked on it throughout the evening and, despite whipping around, it stayed put for a long time...until it didn't. I handed the baby to my wife, slipped on some sandals, and ran outside in my pajamas to discover a tangle of plastic sheeting and lumber laying in the grass. I sighed, gathered them up, and deposited the mess in the garage. 

It didn't frost last night, though, and I'm in no way ready to give up on that garden bed so, after work, I headed to the hardware store and bought five dollars worth of screws, brackets, and clamps and, upon arriving home, immediately set myself to repairing the thing. It didn't take long, the kids were being okay, and there was still light in the sky, so I went ahead and made a few improvements to boot, most notably adding a beam across the top to firm up the structure and securing it with some stakes and rope to keep it grounded the next time the winds start a-whippin'. Just in time, too, because the evil weather people are tossing around the "snow" word in tonight's forecast.
  
We'd decided to finish off the pasta dough from the other night and, oh boy, it went so much better tonight. Rolled out the dough, fed it into the pasta machine, and cut myself some perfect fettuccine noodles. And, just for the heck of it, I made them crazy long--a few easily measured over two feet long.

Wee!

Our new discovery that homemade noodles make the box stuff pale in comparison held firm tonight--fettuccine alfredo with homemade pasta? Gah, so good.

We grew that broccoli.

 I love this thing.

After dinner, the kids asked me what was for dessert and Carla mentioned that she could go for some cookies. What was I gonna do? Not make those brownies again? We were out of margarine so, with permission, I used the homemade butter, and I added some cinnamon extract to the whipped cream. These little changes created a dessert that was...transcendent? sublime? I can't settle on an appropriate term, but I can tell you it was too good. Too, too good.

This is where the picture of the brownies would be if we 

hadn't eaten them all up before I could reach for the camera.

Pasta & Cheese

We eat pasta and cheese a lot. Probably more than we should, but it's easy. The kids eat it up with butter, the grown ups get a little bit of olive oil, some garlic and tomatoes. We throw a salad on the side, and dinner is ready.

In an effort to simplify, we have complicated things temporarily. We made our own mozzarella and our own pasta and learned a lot during the experiments.  We traded the crying baby back and forth, managed the behavior of two very unruly little girls all while mixing, boiling, hovering over thermometers...but we did it.

For the mozzarella I used the recipe in the book Home Dairy. I am a little, um...unruly in the kitchen and I tend to ignore most directions and just kind of wing it and see what happens. This isn't a great idea when making cheese, apparently.

-My first attempt: I tried organic milk which, it turns out, is a bad idea because it's ultra-pasteurized. No curds, no cheese.
-My second attempt: I used the microwave to heat up the curds. I had no idea our microwave even had a high setting, so this took me forever because my curds didn't reach that shiny, melty texture until I doubled the time.  It worked, but the flavor suffered.
-My third attempt: I used the heated whey method and a mesh strainer instead of a slotted spoon, and my yield was about half of what it should have been. My curds were all mashed together because of the strainer and super liquidy when I ladled in the heated whey.

So don't be a fool. Follow the directions...unlike me.

I guess making pasta is a pretty common thing, but we had never ever attempted it.There was a thing or two for us to learn along the way.

-Our first attempt was to roll out the dough and cut it with a knife. We ended up with big, fat noodles that the kids called 'snakes'. Whatever, it was good and we ate it.
 
-Our second attempt involved buying a magazine for a coupon, then going next door to buy a pasta maker with the coupon, followed by about an hour of cleaning the machine out. We learned that your dough cannot be sticky at all to use the pasta maker. Our original recipe was very sticky, and we ended up adding about twice as much flour, which yielded way too much pasta. But it worked and it was so great. I mean, greater than any pasta I've ever had ever.

Fresh pasta with homemade mozzarella, tossed with homemade butter, olive oil, a clove of crushed garlic, sliced tomato, dried basil, salt and pepper. And you know we ate more of those brownies immediately after scraping the bottom of this bowl, right? Yeah, we totally did.

Making Ahead

Our herb garden is in serious abundance these days. Time to make pasta sauce!

Simple Sauce:
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
2- 3 T olive oil
about 1 lb of ground beef
7 roma tomatoes
handful of shredded carrots
1 celery stalk
handful of chopped fresh spinach
handfuls of basil, oregano, thyme and parsley
salt & pepper
1 tspn half & half
1 tspn sugar
water (or broth)
parmesan and mozzarella cheese

In a large pot saute onions and garlic in olive oil. Add ground beef and cook until done. Chop 3 roma tomatoes and toss them in pot. Chop the remaining 4 romas and toss them in the food processor or blender and blend to an almost but not quite smooth consistency. Add the pureed tomatoes and other veggies to the pot. Chop herbs, taking out stems (unless you don't mind them). Throw in pot with remaining ingredients. I add about 1/3 Cup of water or broth to thin out the sauce a bit. Cover and bring to boil.Then lower heat and let simmer for about 20-25 minutes.
Cook your rotini... I used about 3 Cups, give or take.  When the pasta is near done, drain and toss in the pot with the tomato sauce, mixing the noodles and sauce together well. This is a good time to give it a taste and add any additional spices you might think it needs. In my case, it was salt and some fresh basil. Remove pot from heat and place in casserole dish.

I layer my noodles and sauce mixture with parmesan and mozzarella cheese. Bake 30 to 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

This makes about 12 servings, which will feed our family of four 3 times. You can divide it up and freeze it or just have a pasta-eating marathon for the next few days.