Mark's Gross Dinner

Mark always makes fun of me for cooking new, weird things all the time. He finds it unusual that everytime I cook something it contains new combinations of ingredients and that I keep making new things, instead of making the good, old, tried-and-perfected dish. Hence, everything I cook is bound to be "gross". Well, last night he made a "gross" dinner. It was delicious :)



For some unknown reason he decided to try and combine ingredients in a way he has never tried before. Moreover, he did that without following any recipe!
Basically it's whole wheat pasta with asparagus and other veggies, sauteed in olive oil. The veggies include fennel (mostly leaves -- the bulbs are still very small) and parsley from our garden. Also featured are tomatoes, olives, and lots of garlic.

Nutty, Leeky Pasta

A quick-and-easy supper:

Leek and Walnut Pasta

pasta of your choice (3 servings)
1 T butter
2 leeks, sliced diagonally
1/2-3/4 c walnuts, chopped
salt to taste
shredded or grated parmesan or romano cheese



Melt butter in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add leeks and saute until soft, stirring occasionally. Salt to taste. Add walnuts, stir for a couple of minutes. Add pasta, and stir for a few more seconds.
Serve topped generously with cheese (and if you're like me, you'll need to add more salt).

Hanging Pasta and Crazy New Dishes

I never liked this clothes drying rack I got - it's very small and the access to most of the "wires" is very inconvenient. So I was happy to find a better one in IKEA and try to use the old one as a pasta drying rack.


It worked out very well for the hanging and drying parts, but then, taking the pasta off was a mess. I guess this rack is good for nothing!

The pasta turned out very good, and we had it with a black-cherry-pesto sauce, this time not overdosing it with pasta. It was delicious! I adapted it to the ingredients I had on hand, so the recipe goes like this:

in a large frying pan over medium-high heat combine :

• 1/3 c olive oil
  
• 1/2 c chopped basil
• 1/8 c chopped garlic
  
• 1 chopped scalion
• 2 c grape tomatoes, cut in half

Reduce heat to low when it looks about ready, and add 1/2-1 c walnuts.
Stir well and mix with the 2 servings of pasta. Top with plenty of good, grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.



Isn't it lovely?

The pasta was served in the dishes I got from a friend as a late-wedding-gift that was totally unnecessary since we got married secretly. But I appreciate it and think their craziness gives them some charm. So thanks, Kelly!

More Pasta

It's not that we're having pasta all the time... We just had Indian the night before and sandwich bread before that. But Mark is a bit enthusiastic about his pasta maker, so on Monday he made some ravioli. I made the filling, trying to make it a bit more sophisticated and colorful, with sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil. Alas, not only did the colors failed to show through the dough (as you can see in the picture - I'm already violating the rule in set in the subtitle), but my additions didn't even significantly change the flavor of the ricotta! Maybe I should have used sun-dried tomato paste?



The pasta itself was very good, and even Mark had no complaints :)

Hair of Angels

This pasta was made by Mark (from scratch, of course!) on Thursday night, but I forgot to post it on Friday, being busy with work and that kind of silly stuff. So here it is - better late than never?



It's just semolina flour and water, from what I understand. It was my job to cook it, and I'm afraid I overdid it. It was still good. The best thing about fresh homemade pasta is that leftovers are never dry - even if you just warm them up in the microwave (as we did on the weekend), they still taste just as fresh as on the first day!