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I haven’t made fresh pasta in eons.  I’ve had this pasta machine for years, but I just haven’t used it for a while.

Anyhoo, I recently got a cookbook called On Top of Spaghetti, by Johanne Killeen and George Germon.  They are a husband and wife team who own Al Forno, a restaurant down in Providence, RI…someday Mike and I will try it.  I got the book from Amazon as a bargain book for under ten bucks, they don’t seem to have it for that price any longer. Oh, well.  I’m glad I grabbed it when I saw it…it certainly doesn’t take much in the way of sales training for a business to get me to buy a bargain cookbook!

Anyhoo, I had made some slow-cooker meat sauce the other day, and I have a ton of it left.  I decided to find something else to make with it, and looked at this book.  Lasagna…yummie!  There’s a recipe that calls for their meat sauce recipe, but I can easily substitute the meat sauce that I already have.  The recipe also calls for fresh, homemade noodles, rather than the dry ones in the box.  I am definitely going to make those.  Lasagna really is much better with fresh noodles, and it’s the time and effort to do it once in a while.

Hey, I figure if I *cheated* by making sauce in a slow-cooker, I can take the time to make *real* fresh lasagna noodles!

Here is the slow-cooker sauce recipe, it comes from Mable Hoffman’s Crockery Cookery.  Enjoy!

1 pound ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (12 ounce) can tomato paste
1 cup beef broth
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 bay leaf
salt & pepper to taste

Crumble up the meat and put it in the crock-pot. Add remaining ingredients, combine well. Cook on LOW for 6-8 hours.

Yummie!

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This dish got mixed reviews here.  The pork chops themselves were awesome…I used Grey Poupon Harvest Coarse Ground Mustard here, as I really like it.  And although I liked the roasted cabbage, Mike said he didn’t care for it.  He tends to like his veggies cooked to death, I prefer them more on the raw, crunchy side.  I refused to eat cabbage at all for many years, because my only experiences with it were the stinky overcooked dishes made by my mother (and most cooks back in the day).  Sometimes our whole apartment building would stink of overcooked cabbage; it made me wish I was grown up and could afford Outer Banks rentals or something, anything to get away from that horrible stench! Also, my mother always burned garlic, too, which just added to the awful smells.

I never liked cabbage nor garlic until I grew up and learned to cook it properly.  And now it seems that Mike would prefer mushy, stinky cabbage?  Sorry, not gonna happen, I refuse to have to smell that ever again!

Also, I didn’t follow the instructions as given for the pork chop sauce.  It’s hard to stir in the cream and mustard well when the chops are in the pan.  So I simply just drained the accumulated juices from the pork chop plate into the pan, added the cream and mustard, combined well, and then added the chops and let the sauce cook and thicken.  It came out just fine.

I would make this dish again, but there’d have to some sort of compromise over the cabbage!

Enjoy!

I know I’ve blogged about this cute little TV before.  But I just happened to find it on sale at Buy.com, for an even lower price than I paid for mine.  Go and check out the Haier Hlt71 7″ Portable LCD TV.

Unless you are living under a rock someplace, you know that all over-the-air TV signals must change over from analog to digital as of June 12, 2009.  This was supposed to take place on February 17.  But President Obama wanted to postpone it by a few months, and both the House and the Senate voted in favor of this.  So now, those who have not gotten ready yet still have a few more months in which to do so.

We had long ago taken advantage of the government’s converter box coupon program, which unfortunately has run out of money.  However, you can always purchase a converter box without a coupon, such as this one, through Buy.com.

But I had no way to hook up a converter box to the little portable TV that I take on trips, when we stay at little B&Bs with no in-room TVs.  And besides, who wants to lug the box along?  Anyhoo, I can’t sleep without a TV being on (long story as to why), so I started searching for a reasonably priced portable digital TV.

Most of the ones I found were very expensive.  I decided to keep looking and hold out for a lower price.  I was so thrilled to have found the Haier TV, it was exactly what I was looking for, and at a price that I was willing to spend.  And now Buy.com has it in stock for even less than what I paid for mine in December.

I don’t just use it for trips, I also use it at home, I have it set up on my computer desk so I can watch my shows while I work online.  I’ve had this for about two months now, and I am very pleased with the quality.  The picture is crisp and clear, almost high-definition quality (although this is NOT an HDTV).  It picks up just about all of the available DTV channels that we pick up on our bigger TVs, even with the standard telescoping antenna that comes with it.  The antenna is detachable, in case you need to replace it with a stronger one.

It’s about the size and thickness of a trade paperback book, and it tucks nicely into a large zippered cosmetic bag that I bought for this purpose, along with the power cord and the remote control.  It has a little stand thingy in the back, that flips out when you want the TV to stand up.  It takes up a LOT less space in my suitcase than did the old portable analog TV.  That old TV was just in black & white…this one is color, and the screen is bigger.  Oh, I just love this new technology!

The TV also comes with a rechargeable battery, which charges up while the TV is plugged in and turned on.  You can watch it on the battery for about two hours before it needs to be charged up again.  Very handy for when the power goes out!

So, if getting ready for DTV includes the purchase of a little portable TV, you can’t go wrong with this one.  It works great and the price is right!

This is from Jacques Pépin.  It is quick and easy, inexpensive to make, and very, very tasty!

Oriecchiette is Italian for “little ears”, and this recipe uses pasta that looks sort of like little ears.  If you cannot find this, you could use very small shell pasta, or elbow macaroni.

This is what fennel looks like.  Some supermarkets call it anise, and it does have a light licorice flavor to it.  For this recipe, you just use the bulb part…but the stalks and feathery fronds are edible, too.  In fact, Jacques garnishes the dish with some of the fronds.  In any case, don’t throw these away…they can be used in soups and salads.

Jacques uses a mandoline slicer to get those nice thin slices.  However, I have to call him to task for not using the guard that comes with it.  I learned this lesson the hard way, years ago, when I sliced my finger open and ended up at the ER getting stitches.  I have been religious about using the guard ever since.

If you don’t have a mandoline, just slice as thin as you can with a sharp knife.

Another ingredient you may or may not be familiar with are pignoli nuts, also known as pine nuts.  These are most easily found in jars like this one, in the Italian foods aisle of most good supermarkets.  You can also order pignoli online, as well as other Italian ingredients that you may not find at your stores.

The pignoli is the most expensive ingredient in this entire dish, and you should not leave it out unless you or anyone in your family suffers from nut allergies.  The nuts add some healthy protein to the dish, as well as a nice crunch and flavor.

The only members of my family who did not approve of this dish were the cats.  usually, when I use tuna packed in water, I drain the water into their food dishes, and they love to lap it up.  But here, the tuna water is part of the pasta sauce, so you dump the whole thing in, flaking it up a bit with a fork.

This recipe serves 4 very generously.  All you really need to serve with it is a nice green salad.  Enjoy!

Oreccheitte with Fennel & Tuna

Salt
1/3 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
3 tablespoons pignoli (pine) nuts
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons golden raisins
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Freshly ground black pepper
2 6 ounce cans tuna packed in water
1 fennel bulb, sliced very thin
3 tablespoons water
1 pound orecchiette or similar type pasta
Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the pasta. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet, over high heat, until hot but not smoking. Add the onions and pine nuts and cook for about 1 minute. Add the garlic, raisins, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the tuna and its water, crumbling the tuna up a bit. Cook for about 20 seconds. Then add the fennel slices and 3 tablespoons water, cover, and cook for about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Cook the pasta in the boiling water according to package directions, about 8 minutes or so. Before draining the pasta, ladle out about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water and add it to the tuna-fennel mixture.

Drain the pasta. If you cooked the tuna-fennel in a skillet that is large enough to hold the pasta, too, add the drained pasta and combine well. Otherwise, mix it together in a bowl or in the pasta cooking pot.

Serve with grated or shredded Parmesan cheese is desired. In Italian cuisine, it is traditional to not serve cheese on a dish of seafood. But it’s your food, do with it as you like, and besides Jacques Pépin is French!  We liked it with the cheese.

Finally, garnish with some of the feathery fennel fronds, serve, and enjoy!

I highly recommend that you purchase both of Jacques’ “Fast Food My Way” books.  They are available at your local bookstore, sites like Amazon, or through your local PBS station.  The recipes are fresh, healthy, and easy to prepare, and many of them are inexpensive, like this dish.  Jacques is a very thrifty chef!  This recipe costs under $10 to make.  Yeah, it seems to cost more at first if you have to go out and buy some ingredients like the pine nuts, golden raisins and cheese, but you will have plenty of those left over for other recipes.

Here is a video of Jacques preparing this and other recipes on his show, “More Fast Food My Way”.  Check your local PBS listings to see if this show is on in your area…or just watch them all on YouTube!

When we renewed our membership to WGBH recently, we decided to donate enough to get two of Lidia’s books as a thank-you gift.  Lidia’s Italy (shown here) and Lidia’s Family Table.

The books arrived last week.  I was watching the Lidia’s Italy TV show, and she was making this dish of sausage and potatoes.  Since I now have the book, it was easy to gather up the ingredients and make it.

This recipe is so incredibly simple, yet incredibly tasty.  All you need are:

1/2 cup olive oil
6 large cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1/2 teaspoon (or to taste) dry red pepper flakes
1 12-ounce jar of peperoncini, drained and chopped
2 pounds red potatoes, scrubbed, unpeeled, and cut into wedges about 1/2 inch thick
Salt to taste
1 1/2 pounds link sweet Italian sausage

In case you don’t know what I mean by peperoncini, here is a picture of what it looks like.  They are small, light-green colored peppers, pickled in vinegar.  Many grocery stores carry Pastene Italian products, but if you can’t find them, you can order online.

You will also need a large skillet with a lid, and a slotted spoon.

Put the olive oil in the skillet and place it over medium-high heat.  When it’s hot, throw in the garlic…should just be crushed, not chopped or minced.  Also throw in the crushed red pepper flakes, to taste.   Let this cook in the oil, stirring, for about a minute.  Use the slotted spoon to remove the garlic, leaving the oil in the pan.  Don’t try to scoop out all the red pepper flakes, you won’t be able to, trust me.  Reserve the garlic in a bowl.

Put the pan of oil back onto the heat and throw in the chopped peperoncini.  Let it cook for about a minute, stirring.  Use the slotted spoon to scoop out the peppers, putting them into the bowl with the reserved garlic.

Put the potato wedges into the pan of oil, season with salt to taste, and cook for about 6 minutes, or until they start to brown on all sides.  Stir them around a bit while they cook.

Then, push the potatoes to one side of the pan, and lay all of the sausages in the blank area.  Cook for another 6 minutes or so, turning the sausages to brown on all sides, and also stirring the potatoes to keep them from burning.

Cover the pan and lower the heat.  Cook for about 20 minutes, occasionally uncovering and stirring everything.  At this point, it’s okay if the sausages and potatoes get all mixed together.

After the 20 minutes are up, uncover the pan, and throw in the reserved garlic and peperoncini.  Mix in well, and cook, uncovered, for another 10 minutes.  Season with more salt, if needed.

And that’s it!  All you need to serve with this is maybe a green salad or a vegetable.

This is quite spicy due to the red pepper flakes and the peperoncini.  Unless you like it really wicked hot, do NOT use hot Italian sausage here.

This is the first recipe I made from the “Lidia’s Italy” book, and it will not be the last.  And it will certainly not be the last time I make this particular recipe.  If you love Italian food, you need to buy this book…or at least get it from the library!

Enjoy!