A Very Special Dinner

It was a boiling hot Friday in August and I was hosting a dinner party at my house. This wasn't just any dinner party.  I had donated the use of my house for this dinner party as a silent auction item to benefit Bricolage, a most wonderful and unique theater company in Pittsburgh. Bricolage is the brain child of two extremely talented and creative people, Jeffrey Carpenter and Tami Dixon, and after seeing a few of their stellar productions I jumped at the chance to serve on their board. As it turns out, Tami also loves to cook. So, on this particular Friday in August, Jason and I opened our home to the winning bidders and two of their friends and Tami and I cooked them a wonderful meal. This was truly a special evening.

Once we set a date, Tami and I discussed the menu. I told her I had a pasta maker and an ice cream machine and that was all she needed to hear. Tami's menu included a huge salad, homemade pasta with pesto and mint ice cream, all made with greens and herbs she'd grown in her garden. She also planned a special cocktail to go with appetizers and chose grilled steak to serve along side the pasta. The mint ice cream would be served with angel food cake and berry compote. It was a fabulous herb-based menu featuring simple yet stunning food and we had our work cut out for us. 

Tami arrived at my house at about 2 pm, our guests were set to arrive at 6:30 and dinner would be served at 7.  Knowing it needed time to chill, churn and set, we started with the ice cream. 

Tami's Mint Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

2/3 cups sugar

About a cup of mint leaves (basil would also be nice)

6 egg yolks

a pinch of salt

I've made ice cream many times, but never with fresh mint. Tami had never made ice cream before, so I'd sent her a link to a recipe I'd found online.  It called for making mint sugar, which is an excellent technique that allows the essential oils of the herb to permeate the ice cream. Tami jumped right in and made the the mint sugar while I separated the eggs. She combined the milk and cream in a pot, added the mint sugar and the salt, then put it over medium low heat. While the cream was heating up, she beat the egg yolks with a whisk. This being her first time, I coached Tami as she drizzled the hot cream into the egg yolks while whisking, tempering them like a pro, then adding them back to the pot with the rest of the hot cream. The mint added quite a lot of green color and we could see lots of lovely little flecks of mint leaf floating around in the custard. The custard must be heated slowly and stirred constantly so the eggs don't scramble. I stirred while Tami made the pesto. 

Tami's Double Garden Pesto

A lot of fresh basil, enough to pack the bowl of your food processor to the rim 

Two or three cloves of garlic

about half a cup of pine nuts

1 1/2 cups of good quality olive oil

a good handful of grated Parmesan and Romano cheeses

Salt and pepper

We both had basil in our gardens, so Tami combined them into her "double garden" pesto. I've made pesto before but I usually overdo it in the food processor and it tends to be smooth and runny instead of thick and chunky. Her technique is to barely pulse the food processor, starting with the basil, pine nuts and garlic, then adding the olive oil and cheeses making sure not to blend them all too finely. The texture of Tami's pesto was perfect. She added salt and pepper and put it in the fridge while I strained the thickened ice cream base and cooled it down in a bowl over ice. 

With the ice cream base cooling, Tami made a quick marinade and got the steaks into the fridge, then turned her attention to her bountiful salad, brimming with kale and peppery arugula she'd grown in her garden.  By 3:30 pm, the ice cream base was cooling, the pesto and salad were done, the steaks were marinating and we were able to sit down and take a break. It was so pleasant and relaxing to sit in the living room on that hot afternoon in August, watching the thunderstorms roll in and enjoying an easy and comfortable conversation with a new friend. 

When the rain stopped I ran out for a bag of charcoal and, of all things, a jar of maraschino cherries for the cocktails. I must have been the only person in America without a jar of maraschino cherries in my fridge - not any more! When I returned from the store, we got back into the kitchen to make pasta and we used the recipe I posted here. I think this was the most fun part of the day, getting our hands in the dough and taking turns kneading it until it was smooth and pliable.  We worked as a team to roll the dough into thin sheets, Tami cranking and me feeding the dough into the pasta machine. We rolled the sheets of pasta into logs, cut them into thin ribbons and set them under a damp towel until we were ready to cook them.

By this time, it was about 5:15 pm and things started to move really quickly. Jason got home from work and jumped into the kitchen to take care of the appetizers. Jeffrey arrived at about 6 pm and jumped into the kitchen to make cocktails. I started the charcoal for the steaks and somewhere in there I churned the ice cream and put it in the freezer to set. It was a whirlwind of activity!  And of course, there was the cocktail.

The Dirty Shirley

1 jigger vodka
squeeze of lime
Splash of Izzy cherry soda
Serve over ice
Lime wedge and maraschino cherry in the glass

Our guests, whom I'd never met before, arrived right on time. They were delightful, intelligent, passionate supporters of theater and the arts. While Jeffrey mixed cocktails for everyone in the kitchen, I grilled the steaks and by the time they were done, everyone had settled into the living room for an assortment of cheeses, sausage, olives, crackers and other tasty nibbles. The last thing to cook was the pasta, which we did just before we sat down at the table. I dropped the pasta into a big pot of boiling salted water, cooked it until it was al dente and dropped it into a big bowl with pesto in the bottom. Using tongs I rolled the pasta around in the pesto until it was all fully coated, Tami topped the bowl with chopped tomatoes and dinner was served.

Jeffrey, Margie, Abby and Linda in the front,
Alan, Jay, Tami and Jason in the back. 

Its hard to explain just how delicious your own fresh pasta tastes until you've tasted it and this one was especially good because of the amazing teamwork that went into making it. Dinner was a resounding success and Tami knocked it out of the ballpark with that mint ice cream. It was smooth and creamy and surprisingly herbaceous. We served it while it was still a little soft with angel food cake and berry compote for a refreshing end to a hot August evening. It was simply yummy. Everything was yummy. The conversation was excellent and our guests were having such a great time they didn't leave until after 11 pm. Jeffrey insisted on washing the dishes before going home. I finally dragged myself to bed at midnight, feeling incredibly proud of our accomplishment and honored to have played host to such a unique evening. Tami and I shared a pretty incredible day and we had a fabulous dinner for a generous Bricolage donor to show for it. That jar of maraschino cherries will probably still be in my fridge fifteen years from now and every time I see it, I'll think of this special dinner and smile.

  

Homemade Pasta

About five years ago, I bought a pasta machine at a garage sale for $3.00. It was brand new, had never been taken out of the box and I had every intention of making fresh pasta as soon as I got it home. It just never happened. My old kitchen had almost no counter space and the pasta machine spent a few years hiding in a cabinet and forgotten. Now I have a roomy kitchen with lots of counter space and a little voice in my head started nagging me about breaking out that pasta machine. 

I started the project on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and a little research. I scanned a few recipes, checked my pantry and made a grocery list. I cleaned the kitchen while mulling over my options and I decided on pappardelle, my absolute favorite, with tomatoes and some kind of seafood. At the grocery store, I found cremini mushrooms and Prince Edward Island mussels on sale for just $3.99 a pound. There is a wonderful Italian market called Labriola's not far from my house, so I made a quick detour to get a can of Italian San Marzano tomatoes, grown and canned in a small town near Naples. The flavor of the San Marzano is more intense and the fruit has less seeds than other varieties. They are prized for tomato paste because of their low moisture content and dense flesh. With all my ingredients procured, I was ready to head home and make amazing food.

Making pasta requires proficiency in a variety of techniques, but the dough is so simple to make. Flour and eggs are mixed together with a pinch of salt and a dribble of olive oil, the dough rests briefly, then gets rolled out and cut into the desired shape. You can add almost anything to this dough and create flavored pasta, but this being my first time, I started with the basics. I decided to make a double batch of dough and put half in the freezer. 

Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
4 large eggs
2 tbsp good quality olive oil
1 tsp salt

I poured the flour onto my work surface and made a well in the center of the pile. I cracked the eggs into the well and added the olive oil and salt. Using a fork, I beat the eggs and started mixing in flour from the sides of the well a little bit at a time. Eventually, I put the fork aside and used my hands to bring the dough together. I kneaded the dough enough to bring it into a cohesive ball and let it rest for just a couple of minutes to allow the flour to fully absorb all the moisture. Then I started kneading. The more I work with dough of various kinds, the more I learn that every kind of dough has a unique feel. The recipe called for the dough to be kneaded until it was smooth and silky. I relied on my instinct and kneaded until the dough felt right to me, about 10 minutes, and set it under a moist towel to rest while I set up the pasta machine.

The pasta machine was chomping at the bit and I had the rollers open to the widest setting. I cut my piece of dough and pressed it down enough to get it into the rollers of the machine. It went in after just a couple of cranks and a long sheet of pasta came out of the other side. I continued rolling, lightly flouring the dough as I went, adjusting the setting of the rollers each time to get my pasta gradually thinner and thinner. When the sheet of pasta became too long for my work surface, I'd cut it in half. I ended up with four sheets of very thin pasta.I dusted them with flour, and rolled up the pasta sheets and cut them into wide pappardelle noodles. I unraveled each piece of pasta, dusted them again with a tiny bit of flour and dropped them loosely onto a lightly floured towel. While the pasta dried out a little bit, I made the sauce.

First, I steamed the mussels in a big pot with just a splash of clam juice and a splash of liquid from the tomatoes. In a separate pan, I cooked onions and garlic until they were soft and starting to brown, seasoning as I went. Into the browned onions I added the slices mushrooms and let them brown slightly. I deglazed the pan with the steaming liquid from the mussels. Next, the tomatoes went in and I allowed some of their liquid to cook off and concentrate the flavor. My sauce was staring to come together. I removed the mussels from their shells, added them the sauce and moved it off the heat, then added just a small splash of half and half to give the sauce body and finished with a sprinkle of freshly chopped basil and thyme.

Fresh pasta cooks very quickly. In most cases, it takes less than a minute to achieve an al dente texture. Into a huge pot of boiling salted water I dropped handfuls of my fresh pasta. About a minute later, my pasta was done and I pulled it out and put it immediately into the hot sauce. I tossed it all together and gave the whole thing about five minutes to get acquainted and allow the noodles to absorb some of the sauce. My pasta was perfect, tender but slightly toothsome, having absorbed just enough sauce to impart flavor. Each bite had a little of everything. It was without a doubt the best pasta I ever ate. And now I have another piece of dough in the freezer, waiting for my next pasta dinner. I think I hear some ravioli calling my name.....