Italy: Firenze

As you may have guessed by the picture...I'm in Italy! Above is a picture at one of the numerous wineries we've toured and tasted in the week I've already been here.

Here's the background on the trip: As part of the bachelor's degree program at school, I get to take a three week food, wine, and agriculture trip and so here I am in Italy, literally eating my heart out and washing it all down with copious amounts of local wine and olive oil. I've quickly decided this trip would more aptly be named "Italy: A Lesson in Gluttony."

Our first night was in Firenze (aka Florence) and we ate at Ristorance Da Omero which was conveniently located in an itty bitty town right across from Galileo's house. The meal started with prosecco, as every meal should and then we had assorted bruschetta, penne with ragout, and malfatti (pasta) with mushroom and sausage.  After that we had the most amazing Florentine steak, perfectly rare and nicely grilled. We devoured it with several bottles of Chianti. The lovely man above fixed our desserts up for us, I went for the chocolate cake but the ricotta cheesecake with orange marmalade, I stole several bites off my friend Rachel.

The next day we went to Avignonese and toured the vineyard and property before sitting down for a lunch/wine tasting.  The property was stunning, and their circular vineyard (above) was really something special.  When they first started growing the grapes they tested out different areas, different lengths of sun exposure, and spacing before finding out which worked best and applied it to their other vineyards.

We also got to tour the huge room where they dry out the grapes for their famous Vin Santo (above).

The location for lunch was nothing short of breath taking.  The meal was delicious and they were constantly refilling our wine glasses, I think around the middle of this meal we realized just how much wine we would be consuming on our trip.

The meal: Goat cheese flan served over cream of spinach (Wine: Vignola Sauvignon Cortona 2011)
Paccheri pasta with lamb and eggplant ragout (Wine: Rosso di Montepulciano DOC 2011)
Baked Chianina veal with roasted potatoes and Gradoli’s beans with olive oil (Wine: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG 2008 and Desiderio Corona Merlot DOC 2008)
and for dessert Mascarpone cheese and wild berries on a crispy crepe (Wine: Endidae Gewurztraminer Passito Castelfeder)

The meal was clearly outstanding. And actually the mascarpone has been one of my favorite desserts so far. But picture this: three to four course meals every day, and sometimes twice...one word: Gluttony. The trip has been absolutely wonderful so far, I'll update on Perugia soon!

p.s. After the meal we wandered around and found these beautiful quince growing next to the sweetest little garden, with a pretty handsome farmer too might I add. Oh and that's me snapping pictures of some gorgeous kale in the middle.

Ciao!

Emporio

Good morning! It's a lovely day over here in Hyde Park and spring just might be on it's way. 

Spoil me Earth, with your mood swing weather, and alarmingly warm winter days. (you're kinda freakin me out big time with this global warming, wonky weather phase but that's totally our fault)

If I could, I would feed you this meal, Earth. Pizza, and pasta and a nice cold beer and just like that global warming would be done. You'd be chillin like no other. 

Gluten is everybody's favorite bad guy lately. When did everyone become so allergic!?

I think it's a bummer. 

Do you know gluten's greatest accomplishments are two foods I really frickin enjoy?

Yep, I'm talking about pizza and pasta. In the Italian influence, American bastardized style or even the true to the original, straight-out-of-italy-variety...both are so very delicious. 

Do you know what gluten is? It's a protein of sorts that makes doughs (made with wheat) chewy and elastic. It's that irresistibly thin, chewy pizza dough and that pasta that bites back. 

FOR THE RECORD: I am not bashing gluten allergies or celiac disease, or even grain-free diets. I'm no expert! I just know that culinarily speaking gluten is quite enjoyable and it blows that a lot of people can't eat it anymore.  

Looking for a spot to indulge in your gluten-ous ways? (ha! get it? gluttonous, gluten. bada bing. bada boom.) If you're in the city (the city of New York that is) you might consider checking out the brick walled, wooden tabled Emporio.

I love a nice crunchy/chewy crust. OK, whatever...yes! I love all bread, any day, any which way, especially when it's neighboring a nice dish of peppery olive oil.

Mom and I split everything. And we over did it...typical. 

First up:

Sicilian Tuna Salad roasted string beans and tomatoes, arugula, caramelized onions & bread crumbs

 The tuna was clearly having some sort of relationship with olive oil, dig it.

Roasted veg completed this salad. I could roll with this for lunch any/every day. Are roasted vegetables ever a bad idea? NEVER, nope.

This is when the over ordering comes in to play:

A classic dilemma: I wanted pizza and mum wanted pasta. There was no way to avoid getting both dishes, I suppose we embraced the idea rather quickly.

Broccoli Rabe & Sausage Pizza mozzarella, pecorino, hot pepper

My one complaint: I like my pizza a little more "well done" 

I just gotta have a solid bottom crust. Floppity (that's a high end culinary term by the way) pizza just will not do.

We got a (not so little) side of red sauce to add to the pizza. Sometimes you really shouldn't leave well enough alone. This was one of those times. 

    Before                                                                      After

Intermission

They had one of my new brewed favorites! I had to order it. Lunch, pizza, pasta, awesome beer...sounds good to me.

Ready for the next carb? 

The answer to that is "always" 

Always be ready for carbs, they are out there and you want them. 

Garganelli (one of my most loved pasta shapes) hand rolled, with spicy Calabrian peppers & heritage pork "sugo"

This pasta was so nice and chewy. Each bite was sublime, comforting, filling.

Oh lord, was I so very stuffed after this meal.

And there you have it, a feast far too large for the two of us, but we gave it an honest shot.

Now I'm hankering to cook up an Italian dinner, I have so many meals planned for my summer break and some great things for this upcoming weekend! 

Control your excitement, please!

Wait, no. Never do that. I want to see inappropriate levels of excitement always.

Hand Rolled Pasta

I really wanted to make pasta the other night but alas we do not have a pasta roller.

Unwilling to give up on the mission, I opted for hand rolled pasta. I'm not going to say it was a glamorous method but it worked. 

I quickly threw together a pasta dough, grabbed the rolling pin and started the not-so-quick process of hand rolling garganelli. 

Pasta Ratio

1 1/2 cups durum flour
2 eggs
pinch of salt

I normally do a much larger batch, and I would usually recommend using weights because it's significantly more accurate but hell, I just sort of made it up and added flour until the texture was right. It was about 1 1/2 cups of flour with some coating the board while I kneaded it.

How To
Make a well with the flour
Crack the Eggs in the middle
Sprinkle the salt on top
Mix the eggs up and slowly work in the flour
As the egg gets soaked up, you can start working in more flour and begin kneading the dough

When a cohesive ball has formed, work the dough for a bit to develop gluten and get that nice pasta "bite"

I kneaded this little dough for 5-10 minutes.

Then wrap it up and let it sit in a warm area for about 20 minutes. When it's done, test it by poking the dough. It should bounce back and not leave an indent.

I really like garganelli because they hold chunky sauces really well. 

I also just think they are pretty little pasta tubes.

While the pasta dough rested I roasted up these lovely oyster mushrooms

I cut off the stems, tossed them in olive oil, sprinkled on some kosher salt and put them on a sheet pan. Then into a 425 degree oven until they were nice and brown.

Around that time I also had some lentils simmering on the stove.

When the dough had rested for a bit of time I took it out and cut off a small chunk, about 1/4 of the dough and rolled it out as thin as I could. It took some time time and bit of muscle but it got fairly thin. 

Then I took each sheet of pasta as it was rolled out and cut them into little rectangles.

To get the garganelli shape you just gotta roll them over a gnocchi board on an angle around a dowel or pencil or whatever. Make sure to wet one of the corners so it stays wrapped in a tube shape later.

While they are hangin out you've got to make sure they are sprinkled with flour so they don't stick to each other. 

So, there you have it. A day of pasta, or rather a few hours of pasta.

I tossed the pasta with some of the lentils, the roasted mushrooms & a brown butter sauce and topped it off with crispy fried sage leaves. I also had some hard boiled quail eggs lying around (for sure not a normal sentence/event) so I crumbled a few on top for a little somethin extra.

Sauce

brown butter, 1/2 stick

olive oil, 2 tbl

zest of one lemon

juice of one lemon

mustard, one teaspoon

salt & pepper

Another Pasta Dinner

Presenting another peak at my dad’s dinners. He’s a pasta guy among other things, so I threw together yet another quick pasta dish for him for dinner tonight.

More Seattle Eats

let’s look at pictures of food! okay

Some leftover pasta I doctored up for my dad to have for dinner: fettucini with ricotta & olive oil…I added some pancetta, spinach & garlic scapes



and that’s just the beginning…

Carbonara Appreciation

oh yah, that’s right: carbonara…pasta alla carbonara I suppose.

My roommate is at home right now and she’s cooking up a storm, she sent me this picture of a big ol’ batch of pasta carbonara

man, I love carbonara! It’s one of those dishes that’s so rich and delicious, a small bowl is perfect every once in a while.

Heres what you need:

pasta, I prefer bucatini or fettucini

pecorino 

eggs

cured pork goodness: guanciale is the best but pancetta or bacon works just swell

black pepper

peas or ramps are a great addition as well

yikes, I will definitely be making some carbonara while I’m home…updates to follow hopefully.