Category: Main Dishes

John bought me an Atlas Pasta Machine for the holidays and we took it out for a first spin the other day. We made a basic dough recipe: 1.5 cups flour, 2 eggs, and a few drops of water in the food processor for about 30 seconds. (I’m not sure it can get any easier than that!)

Then, we followed the instruction manual’s advice and ran a few chunks of toss-away dough through the rollers first to clear out any residual ‘grit’ in the machine – this turned out to be a good idea because there were a few metal flecks in there from the manufacturing process.

Then, deciding on fettucine, we had a great time cranking out thinner and thinner sheets of pasta, and then running them through the cutter attachment. We placed them in boiling, salted water for about 3 minutes and WAH-LA – pasta! In fact, I think we might have made the noodles a bit TOO thin, they were somewhat papery, but they were really fresh and tasty with the (store-bought) five cheese red sauce. This pasta machine has already earned a prize spot in our appliance line-up – LOL.

Coming soon, our quest for the ultimate ravioli – stay tuned!

First of all, we really need a hamburger icon.

Last week we went to a local diner that features a “colossal burger” on the menu. It usually measures up to it’s name, but this time the burger seemed to be just a little bigger than a quarter pounder. I left the restaurant feeling disgruntled, disappointed and craving my colossal burger.

Tonight I decided to balance my culinary karma. I bought a pound of Coleman Ground Beef and made two whopping burgers, plus Kristen cut up a whole mess of potatoes for some natural fries.

Coleman beef has a very “clean” taste. I don’t know how else to describe it. Its also free of those nasty, chewy globules that come in cheaper meat. (Please don’t write to tell me what they are, I’m sure that I don’t want to know.) The meat is expensive, but well worth the money.

My secret to great burgers is to put some onion powder into the raw meat. The oniony flavor gets evenly distributed through the beef and gives the burger an extra dimension of flavor that you don’t get from adding raw onions.

Mmmmm, colossal burger….

I call it ‘leftover casserole’ or ‘goulash’. Other people might call it ‘cleaning out the fridge’ – LOL. I took the bowl of John’s remaining homemade tomato sauce, chopped up the three large meatballs, added what was left of a jar of four cheese pasta sauce, plus what was left of a jar of ground beef pasta sauce, plus a nice flavoring of parmesan cheese, and mixed it all up together in a casserole dish. Then I added some cooked penne pasta (had this been a real goulash, such as from my childhood, it would have been wide egg noodles, but what are you gonna do), mixed, sprinkled more parmesan cheese on top for decoration, and popped it in the oven.

I can smell it now – mmmmmmm. There’s NOTHING like a house filled with the smell of cooking. If all of those companies that make air fresheners could duplicate that smell, they’d be five times as successful. (Of course, I also think that if they could make a cologne that smelled like freshly baked bread, interpersonal relations would probably reach an all time high. *grin*)

I’m a big fan of white sauce garlic chicken pizza, but if you’re going to put onions on it, they should be chopped green onions, or really carmelized, translucent, diced white or yellow onions, but not strips of raw, sliced onion that are only cooked with the baking of the pizza itself. It’s all about texture. Okay, texture and expectation, but mainly texture. I just think the large, crunchy onion strips are a bit too much contrast when you bite into a slice and get that instead of a well-blended melange. On the plus side, this same pizza really did TASTE fantastic and had one of THE BEST crusts I’ve had in YEARS – the perfect crispness and thickness. And you can’t put a price on good company either.

$100 Philly Cheesesteak? “Served with a small bottle of champagne, Barclay Prime’s cheesesteak is made of sliced Kobe beef, melted Taleggio cheese, shaved truffles, sauteed foie gras, caramelized onions and heirloom shaved tomatoes on a homemade brioche roll brushed with truffle butter and squirted with homemade mustard.” Sure, it’s an interesting advertising gimmick, but… “You shouldn’t mess with the Philadelphia cheesesteak,” groused Samuel Lehrer, who was eating takeout Chinese several blocks from Barclay Prime. “Let it alone.” *grin*

I don’t have an official recipe up for this yet, but we just had a delicious meal of Stuffed Pork Chops, homemade Mashed Potatoes, and Applesauce.

The pork chops were boneless and thick cut (at least 1/2 in thick) and I began by marinating them in a mixture of Italian dressing, White wine (chablis) and some garlic powder for about 2 hours.

The stuffing consisted of croutons, lightly sauteed onion and garlic (we were out of celery) Rosemary, Thyme, Salt and Pepper, a little beef broth, and a dash of Berry flavored Juicy Juice to add a little sweetness.

Once the chops were fully marinated, I cut a pocket down the center of the chop, and crammed stuffing into it until it looked like some sort of clam. The chops and the remainder of the stuffing went into a baking pan and cooked for about 45 minutes.

The marinade made the pork tender and flavorful and blended perfectly with the flavor of the stuffing. This is definitely a recipe I will be doing again, along with an “official” write up for the recipes section.

Whoops, I almost forgot to mention the mashed potatoes. They came out extremely creamy (hmm, there’s a recipe name) possibly due to the addition of a bit of cream cheese along with the milk and butter. Kristen called them a potato mousse, which is pretty fitting. I need to refine this recipe a bit though, as the potatoes weren’t holding their shape, and you know we all like to build little models of Devil’s tower (or circus tents).

“Please Don’t Eat Smelly Foods!” Salami, sausages, hams…. smelly? Maybe they should have gone with a ‘cheese’ theme instead, but then you’d risk offending the French instead of the Italian. Better luck next time!

That’s not a sausage! THIS is a sausage! Bratwurst, to be specific. A 40-foot bratwurst for the Guinness Book of World Records. (I also never consciously realized before that the short form of bratwurst, ‘brat’, is spelled the same as the snotty-little-kid variety.)