Squash and hazelnuts

My boyfriend made a really yummy spaghetti squash recipe for dinner tonight.

Roast a halved spaghetti squash (cut side down) until tender.

Remove the "spaghetties" (use a fork) and mix in a bowl with:

• olive oil
• a lot of chopped flat-leaf parsley and cilantro
• parmigiano regianno (a lot)
• chopped, toasted hazelnuts (again, a lot)

Fucking yum.

Penuche: icing/fudge/yumminess on a spoon

Tonight I made penuche ("puh-NU-chee"). The recipe is my favourite, it's from Edna Staeblers's "Cooking with Schmecks Appeal" cookbook. Tons of old fashioned Mennonite recipes, it's freaking amazing.

Anyway. The penuche.

It is a bitch to make if you don't have electric beaters. I don't have them, so I beat the shit out of it by hand. Both of my arms hurt.

Okay, back to the recipe. It is an icing and can also be poured into a baking dish and cut up and served as fudge.

Melt 2/3 cup of butter. Add 2 and 2/3 cup brown sugar, 2/3 cup milk, and some salt (like a teaspoon). Heat gently while stirring for a couple of minutes, then bring to a full boil for exactly one minute. Stir like crazy - don't let the sugar burn! Remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Don't burn yourself, okay? Boiling sugar is fucking hot.

Now comes the terrible part, for those of us without electric mixers. Beat until thick, slightly opaque, and no longer glossy. Ice your cake (banana, spice, chocolate, whatever you feel like) OR pour into a glass dish to make fudge. For fudge, let it set and then slice it and gobble it up. or eat it with a spoon.

I keep thinking about getting a KitchenAid mixer. Then I tell myself that it is a waste, I'll never use it, and that I only want one because the colours are so frickin' pretty. Then I make something like penuche and curse myself for having two whisks and no electric mixer.

Anyway, try the recipe, it's deelish.

The best smoked salmon pasta

I like this with fettuccine.

Make a nice tomato sauce. I usually heat a couple of glugs of olive oil over medium heat and add some minced shallots and garlic.

(If you love onions and want them to be a bit more prominent, you can quarter your shallots and caramelize them slowly in butter, then add your olive oil and continue.)

If you have some wine on hand, use it to deglaze you pan before adding the tomatoes.


Now add a can of tomatoes - canned tomatoes are one of my favourite things to cook with. Home canned, garden-fresh tomatoes are the yummiest, but canned diced tomatoes from the store are great too. The flavour is richer than fresh tomatoes, especially in the winter. Winter tomatoes at the supermarket make me want to cry.

If you're using fresh tomatoes, blanch them quickly in boiling water, then plunge into cold water to remove the skins.

When the sauce seems lovely and thick, add a bunch of 35% cream and simmer a bit more. I usually add a whole bunch of pepper here and a bunch of salt. Add some capers if you like them (if you haven't tried capers before, this is a good time. They are tiny, pretty, and yummy, and remind me of the taste of nasturtiums.)


Right before serving, throw in some good smoked salmon. I don't cook the salmon, I just toss it in at the very end which keeps it nice and tender.


Serve over pasta.

Lazy pasta

Tonight I made a lazy, easy supper.

Linguine with fresh basil pesto, parmigiano regianno, black pepper, and toasted hazelnuts.

A drizzle of oil of and a squeeze of lemon juice.

I have got a thing for hazelnuts right now... I just toasted a bunch of them and my whole house smells so fucking good. They make the pasta extra deelish.

Pasties

We made pasties tonight and they were really good!

Sautée some veggies briefly in olive oil (shallots, celery, carrots, green beans, peas, corn, and potato) then throw in some stock (just a little) and simmer for a little bit to let the veggies release their juice.

Don't overcook! Keep them a bit crisp! (I chopped my veggies into medium sized cubes.)

Stir in a bit of roux to thicken the liquid into a sauce. Salt and pepper. Oregano is nice too, fresh if you have it.

Put some (cooled!) veggies into the centre of a circle of pastry. I added cubed cheddar to some, Roche Noir (a blue cheese), and parmesan to others, and chopped hard boiled egg. More black pepper and salt.

Fold your pastry circles into half-moons and seal the edges. Make some slits or holes to let out the steam.

Bake at 400 degrees until golden and perfect. Enjoy how good your house smells. Makes some extras to take to work for lunch :)

You can put whatever you like in these. A lot of cheese. More than you think you need. I really like them with caerphilly, I ate a ton of cheese pasties when I was in Wales! I also had some good curried pasties in the UK.