Meal: Orecchiette with red sauce, apple crisp
Preparation time: about an hour, with about 15 minutes hands off, plus thirty minutes for the crisp to bake
Cost per person: $1.80
Local ingredients: butter, egg, Italian sausage, cheese
Organic ingredients: apples, oats, flour, tomato puree
Leftovers: half a serving of apple crisp, a lunch serving of pasta

Friday night we had out of town guests again, and I went with pasta. The sauce was a standard sauce - half a 28 ounce can of tomato puree, a little water, some garlic powder, dried thyme, dried parsley, salt, and pepper went into the crock pot while I was getting everything else going. I cooked half a pound of Italian sausage in a separate pan, and we shredded a little cheese for an another topping.

I had decided to try my hand at making orecchiette Friday night. I made up my normal pasta dough from Betty Crocker in the morning (I didn’t get it together to make it up Thursday, so that they could dry overnight, so I just went with early in the morning.) Here’s where I made my first mistake - the recipe calls for chilling the dough for half an hour. I skipped that step. I’m not even sure why, as letting it chill in the refrigerator for half an hour would have been no more trouble than letting it rest for half an hour on my counter.

So I came back after half an hour to slice up the coins, and predictably, the dough was a bit soft. I ended up with fairly large coins - I didn’t know it at the time, but too large. I always forget that fresh pasta poofs up when it’s cooked. However, slicing them up was easy enough, and I had all the coins sliced in under 15 minutes. It was definitely easier than having to roll out thing sheets and then slice them up for spaghetti. I covered up the coins and let them dry for the day.

And that was pretty much it. The coins were too thick, so they turned out more like dumplings than noodles. They still tasted great, but they were heavy. Next time, I’ll chill the dough, and I’ll slice it as thin as I can manage. I tossed together the apple crisp while the noodles were boiling (about 14 minutes). For fresh pasta, this was totally easy, and everyone liked it.

lasagne two ways and biscuits

Meal: lasagne, salad, herby biscuits, snickerdoodles
Cooking time: about an hour and a half prep time, plus some baking time
Cost per person: about $2.50 each
Local ingredients: lettuce, milk, eggs
Organic ingredients: flour, spinach, tomatoes
Leftovers: about half the red sauce lasagne, three biscuits, and salad (the biscuits got eaten by me for lunch Monday, and the salad provided most of Sunday night’s dinner, along with some leftover lasagne, which lasted several days)

Saturday night we had my two sisters and my cousin over for board games and dinner. All the recipes were from my big red Betty Crocker cookbook.

We made two lasagnes: one with TVP and red sauce, and one with white sauce and spinach. (Small confession: I have been fiending for spinach lately. I finally broke down and got some for the lasagne on Saturday night. Yes, it was from California, thus eatting into my gratuitious food miles for awhile. Yes, it was organic. Yes, it was utterly delicious.) The pasta recipe was our standard recipe, and two 8×8 pans of lasagne took the entire recipe. The red sauce lasagne took about a cup of dry TVP, which made about 2 cups of hydrated TVP (cover TVP with boiling water; wait.) You can do a lot with TVP, and it would be better if I started learning how to do things with it instead of using it plain, but in the highly spiced tomato sauce, plain TVP was fine. Thanks to the advice of multiple people, I did not boil my noodles this time, and they turned out great.

The white sauce was dead easy. Melt two tablespoons butter (or heat two tablespoons olive oil, which will make a lovely rich sauce) in a small saucepan. Add 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and combine well. Reduce heat and slowly add in a cup of milk, stirring weel after each addition to prevent lumps. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add a touch of garlic powder and nutmeg.

The biscuit recipe was my stock biscuit recipe; I added some parsley, garlic powder, and pepper to make them more dinner like.

The snickerdoodles were a treat:

- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup stick margarine or butter, softened
- 1/2 cup shortening (I used vegetable oil. They tasted great.)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- sugar
- cinammon

Heat oven to 400. Cream together sugar, butter, shortening/oil, and eggs. Add in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. You will not have your standard creamy, almost liquidy cookie dough. You will have a bowl full of lumps. Do not despair. Mix up some sugar and cinammon in a bowl. Take some dough, roll it into a ball, and roll it around in the cinammon sugar. Place cookies on an ungreased sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes (I like mine on the shorter end of that range). I made a half batch and got 2 dozen cookies, most of which vanished Saturday night.

I made up the lasagnes in the afternoon before people got here; I made up the biscuits right before everything was due to go in the oven (and discovered that saying “Well, I’ll just put in the biscuits at 350 and cook them with the lasagne” doesn’t work. They really do need to be cooked at 400.) The salad got thrown together while the lasagne had come out and the biscuits were browning. I made up the cookies during a break between games.

This coming week is spring break. This means catching up on blog posting, and trying new recipes. :)

so very tasty

Meal: homemade pasta, tomato sauce, white sauce, baguettes, apple crisp
Cooking time: about an hour, plus lead time for the bread
Cost per person: about $3.00
Local ingredients: egg, cheese, milk
Organic ingredients: apple, oats, sugar, flour, tomatos

Tuesday night we had our normal space geek movie night. I did homemade pasta, side salads, baguettes, and apple crisp for four.

For the pasta, I used a slightly different recipe than normal; my copy of How to Cook Everything was hiding from me, so I fell back on Betty Crocker.

• 2 cups flour
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 1/4 cup water
  
• 1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
  

Mix flour and salt together and form into a mound. Make a well in the middle of the mound, add everything else, and mix well. Adjust the dryness of the dough as necessary with a little extra water. Form a ball with the dough and kneed for five minutes, or until the dough is smooth and workable. Roll out by hand or use your pasta machine.

I was very pleased with this pasta; it was easy to work with, and had a great taste. It met with universal approval.

The apple crisp came from Betty Crocker, as well:

• apples, diced (Betty Crocker recommends 4 medium, but really, your apple to topping ratio is up to you)
  
• 2/3 to 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (you want to err on the high side with this, believe me)
  
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1/2 cup oats (use the normal kind, not the instant, please? :) )
  
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
  
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinammon
  
• 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (a little ground ginger never hurt, either)
  

The apples go into an 8×8 pan. Everything else gets mixed and dumped on top of the apples, and the whole thing goes in the oven for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. This makes ahead well; make it early in the day, then put it in the oven whenever you’re ready to eat it.

If you’re feeling decadent and have cream on hand (which we often do, since we make our own butter), pour just a touch of cream in a bowl - a quarter to a half a cup will do it - add sugar to taste (and really, this will take some trial and error), and beat it with electric beaters until you have whipped cream. Add a bit of suger to taste during whipping if you want it sweetened.

The baguette recipe came from here. They were delicious - the four of us killed both loaves.