EdgeOfCenter

We’re into the final weeks before the library opening, and my workdays are getting longer, and my weekends shorter. My only two shoots this week were a publicity shoot around the new building, and a single serendipitous shot out the window of a parked car, waiting for someone to run an errand. And yet, it was a good week - the documentary shots of the building are, well, documentary, and rather bland, but I adore this handful of arty shots, with a storm rolling in over the mountains.

I’m resigned to this low-creativity, high-stress period in part because I know it’s temporary. What I want for my birthday (which is exactly one week after the opening): a three-day-long nap.

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

My very first thought when I saw this challenge was, “Oh, why couldn’t it have been June’s?” Where I live, there’s very little fresh fruit coming into season in mid-May, but the fruit scene just explodes in June. Berries and melons and stone fruit, oh my!

However, June is also TEH CRAZY. June 26th is the grand opening of our new library facility, and guess who is planning the party? So I’m glad that I had some breathing room to play with this recipe. And play I did. Like last month, I decided to do both savoury and sweet variations on this challenge.

Preparation time
Total: 2 hours 15 minutes – 3 hours 30 minutes

15-20 min to make dough
30-90 min to let dough rest/to prepare the filling
20-30 min to roll out and stretch dough
10 min to fill and roll dough
30 min to bake
30 min to cool

Apple strudel
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

2 tablespoons (30 ml) golden rum
3 tablespoons (45 ml) raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 g) sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick / 115 g) unsalted butter, melted, divided
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) fresh bread crumbs
strudel dough (recipe below)
1/2 cup (120 ml, about 60 g) coarsely chopped walnuts
2 pounds (900 g) tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices (use apples that hold their shape during baking)

1. Mix the rum and raisins in a bowl. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in another bowl.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.

3. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the apples with the raisins (including the rum), and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.

4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.

5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

Strudel dough
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.
Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it’s about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

Tips
- Ingredients are cheap so we would recommend making a double batch of the dough, that way you can practice the pulling and stretching of the dough with the first batch and if it doesn’t come out like it should you can use the second batch to give it another try;
- The tablecloth can be cotton or polyster;
- Before pulling and stretching the dough, remove your jewelry from hands and wrists, and wear short-sleeves;
- To make it easier to pull the dough, you can use your hip to secure the dough against the edge of the table;
- Few small holes in the dough is not a problem as the dough will be rolled, making (most of) the holes invisible.

Both Courtney and I [Linda] did a trial run on making the strudel. Below are our notes:

Courtney’s notes
- She could’t get it to stretch to 2 feet by 3 feet, it turned out more like 2 feet by 2 feet. But the dough was tissue thin nevertheless;
- She got some serious holes, but after rolling it wasn’t noticeable;
- She used a large cheese cloth which helped manipulate and stretch the dough more than a heavier cloth would have.

My [Linda’s] notes
- I made the dough by hand, just mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Kneaded it for about 5 min like you would bread dough. This worked as well. Haven’t tried using a standmixer so I don’t know how it compares.
- Instead of cider vinegar I used red wine vinegar;
- I used bread flour;
- Picking up the dough to let it stretch didn’t work well for me, holes appeared pretty much instantly. Instead I stretched the dough while it was lying on the tablecloth by putting my hands underneath and stretching it out further and further;

Here’s a link to a strudelmaking video that might help you a bit.

I was a little intimidated by this recipe, as I work exclusively with whole wheat flour, and I wasn’t thrilled with the fineness of the lasagna I made a couple of months ago. But this dough is much easier to work with than that one, and it rolled beautifully.

I’ve been sooo craving spring fruit that when California blackberries went on sale at the supermarket, I just crumpled. In order to make it a little more local, I paired the blackberries with ricotta from the goat farm up the road about forty miles, along with nutmeg and a splash of almond extract.

Everything went perfectly. The strudel rolled up like a dream (my long sushi-rolling experience served me well here!) and I was feeling pretty good when it went into the oven. And then… it just… I don’t even know. It just shattered. It was a shattered mess.

Yummy, yummy mess.

The dough was divinely flaky, crisp, magnificent perfection. It was just not pretty! So I resolved to try again, and the next weekend I shot for a savoury version - this time with more ricotta, olives from the awesome little Italian deli, organic California tomatoes from the indie market, and dried garden basil and rosemary. I made a double batch of dough this time, thinking to make more layers, but the dough didn’t roll out quite as thin as the first time and so I made two smaller rolls and served them with pork chops.

My daughter, who is vegetarian, adored this strudel. ADORED. Which, all by itself, makes it a total keeper. But it’s pastry! It’s difficult! … not so much! Being a huge Artisan Bread in Five Minutes fan, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make streamlining adjustments to challenging, fussy baked goods, and I absolutely think this dough and filling could be made separately the night before (15 minutes of work) and prepared the day of serving (another 15 to 20 minutes), making it quite an achievable lazy weekend breakfast or workweek dinner option. It’s a base that works with an astonishing array of flavors, so it’s completely seasonally adaptable. I’d love to try this with green hash, or winter squash and green chiles, or just herbs and cheese (thyme and dill?). Stone fruit or sweet pumpkin or pears and pomegranate for a festive holiday table. Just an endless array of possibility.

It’s been a long, hard, dark winter, a late winter, April snowstorms and dreary May rains after a long dry dark spell that has left the landscape brown weeks after it should have started greening. I’ve been trying to shake myself loose of it, but the bleakness is spider silk, clinging to everything and tangling with every movement.

I took a walk up the hill this afternoon. For a long time, I’ve had this compelling conviction that there is, somewhere northeast of town, a secret place - undeveloped, open to the sky, high up on the ridgeline. I’ve searched and searched.

I found it. Up behind the little apartment complex out near the highway there is a tangle of 4×4 trails, and if you follow the right trail, curving down among the rocks and then straight up and over the ridge, you find yourself in a tiny valley, a shallow bowl perhaps three hundred feet in diameter, lush and green from recent rains, exploding with wildflowers and soft grasses. You can see New Mexico from here, or Kansas. The mountains to the northwest and and an unbroken deep bowl of sky. An easy fifteen minute walk from my house, a secret piece of wild heaven.

As I crawled among the weeds and wildflowers, immersed myself in paintbrush orange and black-eyed Susan gold and lupine blue, something clicked over in my head. I felt it, a really physical sensation, like ears popping after a long slow climb. Like a sudden settling of tension after a hard cleansing cry. The light, the color, the storm-heavy air, the solitude, it moved in me, set something free.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done one of these; I hope to get back in the swing of it.

It’s been a busy week. First, Visiting Artists’ Day at my daughter’s school; then, the big annual recital of my son’s Mexican folkloric dance troupe, the Cinco de Mayo performance. An explosion of incredible youthful talent, and it’s got me thinking a lot about outreach and teaching, and what I want to do with my art, outside my own studio. This summer is hopeless, but with the new school year maybe I can think about looking for some teaching opportunities.

Spring is spreading across the valley, green and blue and the many hues of flowers. My yard is all purple in lilacs and irises and sage and wild violets. I have been desperate to go do my annual flower wander through town, but too sick with spring flu to do it - next weekend, maybe, things will have settled down and I’ll feel better. I’m reminded that, once again, I haven’t gotten with the state park to organize the urban wildflower tour. Start researching this year, this spring, immediately, and make it happen next year. So many things I wanted to happen this year; and not even halfway in, it already seems wasted, gone to seed. This is part of why I journal - to keep perspective, to keep continuity. To have a record, not just of successes, but of where I went off the path; to remember what I would otherwise, despite all best intentions, forget.

A long, exhilarant, difficult, colorful, exhausting, glorious, dispiriting week. Tomorrow, I start fresh.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

I have been making cheesecake for a long time. A loooong time. But in the last few years, not so much; so when I saw this challenge, I immediately had all sorts of crazy ideas. I really wanted to make a different cheesecake every weekend. I even, very seriously if briefly, flirted with the idea of making the cream cheese from scratch. (The best cheesecake I ever made? Used unpasteurized cream that had been allowed to wild-culture into sour cream before being made into cream cheese. Oh, my.)

Of course, as has been known to happen, life got in the way. But not before I went into my little indie grocer and scored the very last lovely chunk of bleu cheese on sale, and thought of this recipe.

My family wasn’t too excited about the idea of the savoury cheesecake. So, yeah. I let them pick the alternate recipe, and they suggested banana split. And I already had sauced strawberries in the freezer, and this hot fudge recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I’d been looking for an excuse to try (all together now: Deb is a goddess!), and the plan started coming together.

Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker’s choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil “casserole” shaped pans from the grocery store. They’re 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

She’s not fooling; this is, I think, the simplest DB recipe seen yet. It is a gem of a recipe, an elegant simplicity of cream-cheese goodness, a perfect base for, well, just about anything. But like anything deceptively simple, there’s plenty of room for creativity but not a lot of room for error.

(I watched the new L&O: CI episode last night, which was fun, but Jeff Goldblum will always be Ian Malcolm for me. Watching him work, I was brought to mind of the line from Lost World (the book!!! Not the movie!!!):

-God is in the details!

-Not my God. My God is in the process.

An appropriate commentary on this recipe. Yes, people, God is in the process.)

It took some experimenting to find the perfect shape for layering banana pieces.

Everything’s better with Captian Morgan’s!

Blue. Yummmm.

Sautee’d leeks and marinated artichoke hearts over a savoury bread-crumb and parmesan crust.

I substituted sour cream for the heavy cream in the savoury recipe, left out the sugar altogether, used 8 oz. of bleu cheese in addition to the cream cheese, and seasoned the mixture with 1 Tbsp. dried dill, 1 tsp. granulated garlic, and ½ tsp. home-ground chipotle powder. Even after the cake was chilled, it was very soft and fluffy; it took four tries and a hot-water-dipped knife to get a nice presentation slice. I would definitely add one or two additional eggs in the next revision of this recipe. It’s also phenomenally rich. Everybody liked it alongside a green salad and baked ziti, but we also talked about serving it with eggs, with asparagus and grilled meat, or using the cheese mixture to stuff mushrooms, squash blossoms or nasturtiums, or other bite-sized hors d’ouvres.

I cut a ten-inch cheesecake into 24 slices. It’s wonderful but just a little overwhelming; it’s going to take some creative thinking to get it used up.

The banana split cheesecake turned out absolutely beautiful, one of my especially fine pieces of work. And then the children carved it up and turned loose the toppings.

Gooey awesomeness!

So, the local/sustainable angle:

The eggs and dairy in both cakes are supermarket, with the exception of the bleu cheese, which was organically produced in Michigan and purchased from an independent local grocer. The bread crumbs for the savoury crust are from home-baked bread with local flour and other locally sourced ingredients. The leeks are supermarket, and the artichokes are from the excellent Italian deli in Pueblo; I’m not sure where they’re from originally, but the preparation was local.

If I’d planned ahead more, I would have made chocolate wafers from another Smitten Kitchen recipe for the banana split crust, but as I just bought supermarket graham crackers.

The bananas, of course, are not local. The strawberries are from New Mexico, and were cold-sauced with locally sourced Mexican cane sugar a few weeks ago and frozen. The chocolate sauce is made from agave syrup manufactured in Denver, organic Fair Trade Chocolove brand dark chocolate from Boulder, and supermarket butter. The chocolate chips are supermarket organics.

(Serves 8 to 10 as a first course, 6 to 8 as a main dish)

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

larger lasagna before trimming off

All recipes below from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (published by William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992).

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna (Lasagne Verdi al Forno)
(Serves 8 to 10 as a first course, 6 to 8 as a main dish)

Preparation Time: 15 minutes to assemble and 40 minutes cooking time

10 quarts (9 litres) salted water
1 recipe Spinach Pasta cut for lasagna (recipe follows)#1
1 recipe Bechamel Sauce (recipe follows)#2
1 recipe Country Style Ragu (recipe follows)#3
1 cup (4 ounces/125g) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Method
Working Ahead:
The ragu and the béchamel sauce can be made up to three days ahead. The ragu can also be frozen for up to one month. The pasta can be rolled out, cut and dried up to 24 hours before cooking. The assembled lasagne can wait at room temperature (20 degrees Celsius/68 degrees Fahrenheit) about 1 hour before baking. Do not refrigerate it before baking, as the topping of béchamel and cheese will overcook by the time the center is hot.

Assembling the Ingredients:
Have all the sauces, rewarmed gently over a medium heat, and the pasta at hand. Have a large perforated skimmer and a large bowl of cold water next to the stove. Spread a double thickness of paper towels over a large counter space. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). Oil or butter a 3 quart (approx 3 litre) shallow baking dish.

Cooking the Pasta:
Bring the salted water to a boil. Drop about four pieces of pasta in the water at a time. Cook about 2 minutes. If you are using dried pasta, cook about 4 minutes, taste, and cook longer if necessary. The pasta will continue cooking during baking, so make sure it is only barely tender. Lift the lasagne from the water with a skimmer, drain, and then slip into the bowl of cold water to stop cooking. When cool, lift out and dry on the paper towels. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked.

Assembling the Lasagne:
Spread a thin layer of béchamel over the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange a layer of about four overlapping sheets of pasta over the béchamel. Spread a thin layer of béchamel (about 3 or 4 spoonfuls) over the pasta, and then an equally thin layer of the ragu. Sprinkle with about 1&1/2 tablespoons of the béchamel and about 1/3 cup of the cheese. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with béchamel sauce and topping with a generous dusting of cheese.

Baking and Serving the Lasagne:
Cover the baking dish lightly with foil, taking care not to let it touch the top of the lasagne. Bake 40 minutes, or until almost heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, or until hot in the center (test by inserting a knife – if it comes out very warm, the dish is ready). Take care not to brown the cheese topping. It should be melted, creamy looking and barely tinged with a little gold. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and let the lasagne rest for about 10 minutes. Then serve. This is not a solid lasagne, but a moist one that slips a bit when it is cut and served.

starting the pasta

#1 Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde)

Preparation: 45 minutes

Makes enough for 6 to 8 first course servings or 4 to 6 main course servings, equivalent to 1 pound (450g) dried boxed pasta.

2 jumbo eggs (2 ounces/60g or more)
10 ounces (300g) fresh spinach, rinsed dry, and finely chopped; or 6 ounces (170g) frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
3&1/2 cups (14 ounces/400g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour (organic stone ground preferred)

Working by Hand:

Equipment

A roomy work surface, 24 to 30 inches deep by 30 to 36 inches (60cm to 77cm deep by 60cm to 92cm). Any smooth surface will do, but marble cools dough slightly, making it less flexible than desired.

A pastry scraper and a small wooden spoon for blending the dough.

A wooden dowel-style rolling pin. In Italy, pasta makers use one about 35 inches long and 2 inches thick (89cm long and 5cm thick). The shorter American-style pin with handles at either end can be used, but the longer it is, the easier it is to roll the pasta.
Note: although it is not traditional, Enza has successfully made pasta with a marble rolling pin, and this can be substituted for the wooden pin, if you have one.

Plastic wrap to wrap the resting dough and to cover rolled-out pasta waiting to be filled. It protects the pasta from drying out too quickly.

A sharp chef’s knife for cutting pasta sheets.

Cloth-covered chair backs, broom handles, or specially designed pasta racks found in cookware shops for draping the pasta.

Mixing the dough:
Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and spinach. Use a wooden spoon to beat together the eggs and spinach. Then gradually start incorporating shallow scrapings of flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, the well’s sides may collapse. Use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.

Kneading:
With the aid of the scraper to scoop up unruly pieces, start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. Its consistency should be elastic and a little sticky. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in a few more tablespoons of flour. Continue kneading about 10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. It will feel alive under your hands. Do not shortcut this step. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it relax at room temperature 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Stretching and Thinning:
If using an extra-long rolling pin work with half the dough at a time. With a regular-length rolling pin, roll out a quarter of the dough at a time and keep the rest of the dough wrapped. Lightly sprinkle a large work surface with flour. The idea is to stretch the dough rather than press down and push it. Shape it into a ball and begin rolling out to form a circle, frequently turning the disc of dough a quarter turn. As it thins outs, start rolling the disc back on the pin a quarter of the way toward the center and stretching it gently sideways by running the palms of your hands over the rolled-up dough from the center of the pin outward. Unroll, turn the disc a quarter turn, and repeat. Do twice more.

Stretch and even out the center of the disc by rolling the dough a quarter of the way back on the pin. Then gently push the rolling pin away from you with one hand while holding the sheet in place on the work surface with the other hand. Repeat three more times, turning the dough a quarter turn each time.

Repeat the two processes as the disc becomes larger and thinner. The goal is a sheet of even thickness. For lasagne, the sheet should be so thin that you can clearly see your hand through it and see colours. Cut into rectangles about 4 by 8 inches (10 x 20 cm). Note: Enza says that transparency is a crucial element of lasagne pasta and the dough should be rolled as thinly as possible. She says this is why her housekeeper has such strong arms!

Dry the pasta at room temperature and store in a sealed container or bag.

spreading the bechamel in the smaller lasagna pan

#2 Bechamel

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour, organic stone ground preferred
2&2/3 cups (approx 570ml) milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Sift over the flour, whisk until smooth, and then stir (without stopping) for about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time and keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer, and stir 3 to 4 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt, pepper, and a hint of nutmeg.

#3 Country Style Ragu’ (Ragu alla Contadina)

Preparation Time: Ingredient Preparation Time 30 minutes and Cooking time 2 hours

Makes enough sauce for 1 recipe fresh pasta or 1 pound/450g dried pasta)

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (45 mL)
2 ounces/60g pancetta, finely chopped
1 medium onion, minced
1 medium stalk celery with leaves, minced
1 small carrot, minced
4 ounces/125g boneless veal shoulder or round
4 ounces/125g pork loin, trimmed of fat, or 4 ounces/125g mild Italian sausage (made without fennel)
8 ounces/250g beef skirt steak, hanging tender, or boneless chuck blade or chuck center cut (in order of preference)
1 ounce/30g thinly sliced Prosciutto di Parma
2/3 cup (5 ounces/160ml) dry red wine
1 &1/2 cups (12 ounces/375ml) chicken or beef stock (homemade if possible)
2 cups (16 ounces/500ml) milk
3 canned plum tomatoes, drained
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Working Ahead:
The ragu can be made 3 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate. It also freezes well for up to 1 month. Skim the fat from the ragu’ before using it.

Browning the Ragu Base:
Heat the olive oil in a 12 inch (30cm) skillet (frying pan) over medium-high heat. Have a large saucepan handy to use once browning is complete. Add the pancetta and minced vegetables and sauté, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, 10 minutes, or until the onions barely begin to color. Coarsely grind all the meats together, including the prosciutto, in a food processor or meat grinder. Stir into the pan and slowly brown over medium heat. First the meats will give off a liquid and turn dull grey but, as the liquid evaporates, browning will begin. Stir often, scooping under the meats with the wooden spatula. Protect the brown glaze forming on the bottom of the pan by turning the heat down. Cook 15 minutes, or until the meats are a deep brown. Turn the contents of the skillet into a strainer and shake out the fat. Turn them into the saucepan and set over medium heat.

Reducing and Simmering: Add the wine to the skillet, lowering the heat so the sauce bubbles quietly. Stir occasionally until the wine has reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Scrape up the brown glaze as the wine bubbles. Then pour the reduced wine into the saucepan and set the skillet aside.

Stir ½ cup stock into the saucepan and let it bubble slowly, 10 minutes, or until totally evaporated. Repeat with another ½ cup stock. Stir in the last 1/2 cup stock along with the milk. Adjust heat so the liquid bubbles very slowly. Partially cover the pot, and cook 1 hour. Stir frequently to check for sticking.

Add the tomatoes, crushing them as they go into the pot. Cook uncovered, at a very slow bubble for another 45 minutes, or until the sauce resembles a thick, meaty stew. Season with salt and pepper.

smaller lasgana ready to go in the oven

Since the last savory Daring Bakers challenge, my daughter has decided to become a vegetarian, so my personal challenge for this month was following the main recipe as closely as possible while modifying a smaller single-serving dish for her.

This recipe was a joy and a breeze to work with. I’ve made pasta in the past, but not for a long time - probably ten or fifteen years. I was so excited about this challenge! But then this month went all kinds of crazy, and I ended up doing the whole recipe on the very last possible posting day. Thankfully, making pasta is like riding a bike - after spending half of your teens doing it while having instructions helpfully shouted by your mother, it comes back, even after all that time.

pasta rounds for larger lasagna, rolled and set aside while the bechamel thickens

I did a very simple substitution for the girl’s vegetarian lasagna - finely diced mushrooms replacing all of the meats, with a little extra olive oil to keep it moist in the initial saute. The mushrooms soaked up the broths during the reductions very quickly, and developed a deep, smokey, subtle, wonderful flavor.

With the larger dish, I tried something I was a little anxious about, especially with the spinach inclusions, and I was thrilled to discover it worked perfectly - rather than making 4×8″ strips of pasta as instructed in the recipe, I rolled out 12″ rounds and cooked them whole, and laid them whole into an 8″ deep-dish casserole. The result was a lasagna with a tiled, overlapping pasta shell up the sides of the dish, and a perfect, smooth, pie-crust like top.

trimmed off edges of pasta, leftover cheese, and leftover bechamel - a hearty, rich snack while dinner bakes

This month was a nearly total failure where local sourcing was concerned. I almost chickened out of this challenge altogether because it was just hopeless - but that would have been the end of me and the Daring Bakers, so I sucked it up and went with supermarket ingredients. The flour is my beloved local whole wheat pastry flour, as always, and the mushrooms are from the mushroom farm an hour west of here, but that’s it. (Oh, and to soothe my frustration, I threw some dried garden rosemary in the bechamel!) If only this had been an April or May challenge, I would have had my own garden spinach and herbs, and my own oyster mushrooms. Oh well… spring is coming, next month will be better!

Big and little lasagnas, side by side

Sunset along Highway 69, rural Huerfano County (Wednesday); sunset on the Riverwalk, historic downtown Pueblo, Colorado (Thursday).

Two of my favorite places to just step back from the rat race and take in the views, and I got to spend a little bit of time with each of them this week - what a treat!

The mushroom spawn, that is - we won’t have full-grown mushrooms for four to six weeks.

We bought a “mushrooms of many colors” kit from Field and Forest Products. This kit offers the widest variety and potentially best value (in terms of investment:output) of the super-easy starter kits. It includes grain spawn for three varieties of oyster mushrooms: Golden, Italian, and Grey Dove.

You start with a boiling pot of water and a bunch of toilet paper rolls. Soaking the toilet paper in water appears to do two things: sterilize them, and change the texture of the substrate while adding enough moisture to get the mushrooms through their innoculation phase.

The soaked and cooled rolls are then stuffed with grain spawn, packed in special plastic bags fitted with air filters, and put in a warm, dark place.

The kit said estimated that one bag of spawn would innoculate five rolls; I got eight, even despite packing the tubes pretty tightly and spilling a fair bit of spawn around the top and sides of the rolls. (I’m a little concerned about this, and plan to get on the phone with the Field and Forest people sometime in the next few days.) Since the kit came with fifteen filter bags and three bags of spawn, I’m going to need to buy more bags before getting to the third bag. I’m planning to start them two week apart; by the time I start the third bunch, I should have ready-to-eat mushrooms to post about from the first.

My seed order came in today.

I love the whimsy of heirloom varietal names. Corn: Candy Mountain. Lettuce: Merveille Des 4 Saisons. Tomato: Sasha’s Altai, De Barrao II. Bell pepper: Sweet Chocolate. Evocations of depths of richness, color, texture, flavor.

I have basil sprouting in the window and pots stacked up for seed starting. The nights are still dipping well below freezing, but I’ve gotten away with wearing tank tops a few days this week. I spent all day Sunday working on art pieces that speak of spring, and looking back on photograps from my trip to Florida.

This country will turn and bite the complacent. Take spring for granted, and you’ll have ice storms in April. I’m wary, but hopeful; it’s been a pretty mild winter thus far.

My family doesn’t eat a lot of meat - we’re pretty close to the recomended 3-4 oz. per serving - but we eat meat almost every day, integrated into almost every meal. I’ve spent a lot of years economizing, and beef tips in stir fry goes a lot further than a steak. So when my daughter decided to go vegetarian a few weeks ago, it brought about a major re-thinking in the whole way I think about cooking. One approach I’m taking to finding vegetarian-friendly recipes is a sort of competetive tasting menu approach, making sampling portions of several different variations on the same dish in one meal. Tonight, it was burgers.

Experimenting with a variety of veggie burger recipes: cooking side-by-side.

I worked with three recipes tonight: Vanilla Basil’s Sweet Potato & Pecan Burgers; Stichin n Bitchin in the Kitchen’s simple cheesy veggie patties; and Fantastic World Foods’ boxed veggie burger mix.

I tweeted the whole operation, taking notes about relative cooking times, texture, and passing impressions. The short version:

Nobody liked the boxed mix very much at all. The mouth feel is pretty grainy and… it just tastes like something out of a box. It’s not particularly flavorful. It’s not bad; it cooks up nicely, crisps beautifully and retains its interior moistness; it’s just not particularly good.

The Stitchin n Bitchin recipe cooked up way faster than either of the others. It had the best crispy-on-the-outside, moist-on-the-inside burger mouth feel. I liked the simple, fresh flavors; it’s a very light, summery burger and would be excellent served traditionally, piled up with plenty of fresh tomato, lettuce and raw onion on a fluffy roll. And because the prep and cooking time is so fast and simple - ten to twelve minutes from start to plate - it’s a good pick for lunch, and it’s something that the girl can make unsupervised. Awesome.

The Vanilla Basil recipe had an amazing meatloaf-like texture, both raw and cooked. (The uncooked mix, I swear, looks exactly like raw meatloaf, feels like it in the mixing, and shapes like it.) Just as a meatloaf-style patty takes longer, slower cooking than a pure-beef patty, this burger cooks up slower than the Stitchin n Bitchin recipe. The seasonings are wonderfully complex and unexpected - allspice and chipotle! - and play beautifully against the sweet potato base. I expected this to be my favorite, and I was delighted that it was her favorite as well.

I didn’t get a lot of process photos; this shot of the many spices going into the sweet potato burgers is my favorite.

All three were well served by being drowned in sliced avocado - which added some much-needed creaminess to the Fantastic burger, added to the summery freshness of the Stitchin n Bitchin burger, and did wonderful and utterly unexpected things in combination with the sweet potato and earthy spices in the Vanilla Basil burger - sautee’d onions and mushrooms, and cheddar cheese. I plated them up with lettuce, tomatoes, dill pickles, and home fries.

Yum!

I love this format. If I’d made either of the two fresh recipes alone, I might not have tried the other, and I’m really glad to have tested both of them. The competitive setup was fun and different. The test kitchen “event” is definitely something that’s going to make future appearances at my house.

The cow burgers turned out pretty too!