Well, a new topic for blogging! And an opportunity to record some meals :-) Tonite, I had an urge for some pasta and we have an abundance of tomatoes as well, so pasta it was!
These tomatoes are an Italian variety called Principe. They are smaller, golf ball size fruits that are typically used fresh for sauces and, as you can see, I have a few :-) Fortunately, they keep well. In fact, they can often be found strung up like chili ristras on front porches in the Italian countryside. Mine will probably end up cooked down some and then frozen (this was just the first "small" picking).
I cut up a few of these and cooked them down with some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. This tomato type melts down quickly and has an almost buttery, rich taste. After they had cooked down a bit, I added some red wine. I would have preferred a white here, but I didn't want to open a bottle for this and I, "ahem", had some red open.
Earlier, I had made up some pasta dough and now I rolled it out. The thin sheets were then loosely rolled up and cut cross-wise to make some tagliatelle. My pasta rolling technique and equipment are pretty rudimentary, but we are working on that! If you want to see the real deal, look around on YouTube under "Pasta Rolling" (Here for "Extreme Professional Italian Momma Rolling!) . There's also a cute book on a New Jersey woman's (Laura Schenone) quest for her pasta rolling roots, "The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family"
While the pasta was boiling up, I threw some meat balls into the sauce. We made these sausage gems a while back using a grill tool Lynn kindly gave us last year and I had several dozen frozen, ready to go. Yeah, I know, a bit of cheating here, but they taste good and the grill avoids the mess.
The pasta was added to the pan with a bit of the pasta water along with some fresh rosemary. After a bit of stirring, allowing everything to thicken a bit, we served up a great meal!
Mission accomplished: urge satisfied! Now we'll have to spend a few extra minutes at the gym ;-)
The pasta was added to the pan with a bit of the pasta water along with some fresh rosemary. After a bit of stirring, allowing everything to thicken a bit, we served up a great meal!
Mission accomplished: urge satisfied! Now we'll have to spend a few extra minutes at the gym ;-)
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