Our first Friday night pizza delivery in months. A simple salad made my someone other than yourself and smothered in blue cheese dressing is an occasional necessity.
I made a pre-run donut run to Mojo Monkey on Saturday morning to surprise Matt with his favorite breakfast treat. His top pick was the maple bacon bar, which I though was good, but a slice of bacon on a donut isn’t really my thing. Maybe if it were crumbled I’d be more into it, and I know this is nit-picky, but why not just put a solid strip of bacon on the donut instead of slapping on two odd pieces? The raspberry brie was my favorite of the lot, although I would still choose a bagel with cream cheese over it any day. The german chocolate cake donut was pretty good despite tasting a bit overcooked. The classic raised was the unanimous least favorite. I’d go back to buy donuts for Matt and maybe sample more flavors, but I don’t envision myself craving more anytime soon. The donuts from Hanisch Bakery that someone brought into work a couple weeks ago? Worth a trip to Red Wing.
After sampling each donut, I made a real breakfast for myself: an omelet with arugula and Marieke gouda, extra arugula on the side, grapefruit and earl grey. I lightly dressed the arugula with white balsamic and lemon juice before adding it to the omelet, a trick I learned last weekend that makes a world of difference. This breakfast was awesome. Even Matt, high on donuts, was a little jealous.
After the overnight rain and thunder moved out, Saturday was beautiful. I sat on the sunny deck doing crosswords and listening to drunken revelers leaving Firkin Fest for a good hour. If the ground wasn’t still covered in snow and the temperatures didn’t drop back into the thirties overnight, I might believe it’s actually spring.
Warm weather calls for a big ginger to sip on while making pasta.
Pasta dough. A little dry but workable nonetheless.
I somewhat unknowingly splurged on the most amazing ricotta I’ve ever tasted while picking up dinner supplies at Whole Foods. They sell it bundled up in tins with a domed top. I learned long ago that the plastic tubs of Sargento ricotta at the grocery store taste horrible and hardly qualify as cheese, but this stuff blows any ricotta that I’ve had, homemade or otherwise, out of the water.
It almost tasted like a savory version of the sweet cream ice cream from Grand Ole Creamery, but I might be saying that only because I want to eat a bowl (or cone – I’m not picky) of this with a spoon.
I resisted the urge to eat obscene amounts of ricotta, although I did use a piece of bread to wipe every last bit of it from the wrapper. We had ravioli to make! The vegetable and cheese ravioli recipe from The Silver Spoon Pasta was my guide. I feel like most of their recipes are open to interpretation, and I interpreted their four pounds of spinach to mean three boxes of frozen spinach. Two probably would have been plenty. Also in the mix: an egg, parmesan, salt and pepper.
Ravioli is both easy to make and hard to get right. I think we improved upon our first ravioli-making experience, but we haven’t quite perfected the art.
The motley crew of ravioli, patched, crimped and sealed. We must have done something right because not a single bundle came apart in the boiling water.
Cooked, mixed with pesto, topped with parmesan
A salad inspired the Valencian salad in Ad Hoc At Home. Greens + Valencia oranges + roasted red peppers + oil-cured olives + slivered almonds + red wine vinaigrette
Last week’s bread is this week’s garlic bread toast
I found these plates a couple of weeks ago and had to have them because they make me think of this.
My plate
Sunday breakfast was a repeat of Saturday except I used Milton Creamery chili pepper cheddar (the best spicy cheese!) instead of gouda, and I added a slice of toasted brioche with avocado. Saturday’s cheese pick was a better omelet filling, but brioche toast tilts the scale in favor of Sunday.
Nuts, seeds, oats, bran, and flour for baking…
Big Sur Bakery Hide Bread from 101 Cookbooks
Extra ravioli filling transformed into spinach-artichoke dip
A leek nearly as big as my forearm! This was one of the smaller ones to choose from at the store.
Leek, lentils, mustard-herb butter – a fantastic dish in its own right…
But even better when topped with seared salmon and more butter. I highly recommend this recipe (one of the top-ranked of all time on Epicurious and with good reason). The liberal use of butter in every step makes it a bit of an indulgence, but once you taste the mixture of butter, grainy mixture, tarragon, chives and lemon juice, you’ll see that it’s worth it.
