Anyone Can Make Biscuits. Everyone Should

As I prepare to head back down South to my hometown, in Galax, Virginia, to cook with my Aunt Mariah, I've been perusing some of my Southern cookbooks, which of course has made me hanker, like crazy, for some biscuits.

Not that Aunt Mariah makes biscuits. She is known for her exquisite Parker House rolls, which are pillowy yeasty pale butter-browned wonders, and I've always wanted to learn how to make them. She'd better teach me.

Contrary to popular belief, you see, not everyone in the South spends half of their daylight hours cutting lard into flour and frying up country ham to make ham biscuits.  If that were true, I'd certainly still live there.

While I do miss those super-salty, leathery slices of pan-fried country ham, which is what always accompanied  biscuits--at least in my memory--when I was growing up (ham biscuits seemed to show up everywhere back then, at the Midtowner Restaurant, at bake sales, at the Fiddler's Convention, at church potlucks, and for sale at card tables at the VFW gun show and flea market in Hillsville)--it is important to know that country ham is not the boss of biscuits. 

Biscuits are good with a smoked salmon and goat cheese frittata at brunch, or a bowl of vegetable or tomato soup for lunch, or butter and jam with tea. Biscuits are like flowers, which, according to Aunt Mariah (the Emily Post in my life), are a perfectly wonderful thing to offer at any time.


But I had never baked any myself until I grew up and bought Marion Cunningham's perfect little book "The Breakfast Book."  These biscuits do not require the least bit of hard labor, or buttermilk, no beating or much kneading, and they do not contain lard (this may be a downside for you). Also, they are very pretty and they are not round but cut into squares (which reminds me of an old Southern math joke--they exist--the punchline of which is: Pie are not square. Cornbread are square. Pie are round.) So you don't even need a biscuit cutter. 

And I dare you to find and send me an example/recipe of/for an easier and more delicious biscuit. Oh, I'm forgetting my Southern manners, yet again. What I meant to say is: Please try them at your earliest convenience, and share your own recipe if you wish. I'll set up a biscuit blogroll!

Cream Biscuits, from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book

Makes 1 dozen

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1 to 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup (5 1/2 tablespoons) melted butter (for coating biscuits)

1. Preheat oven to 425. Use an ungreased baking sheet. 
2. Combine the flour, salt,  baking powder, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir with a fork to blend and lighten. 
3. Slowly add 1 cup of the cream to the mixture, stirring constantly. Gather dough together. When it is tender and holds together, it is ready to knead. If it seems too shaggy and pieces are falling away slowly add enough cream to make the dough hold together. 
4. Place the dough on a lightly floured board and knead for one minute. That is not a very long time!
5. Pat the dough into a square that is 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 12 squares and dip each into the melted butter to coat all sides. Place the biscuits 2 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

Some Salmon for Ya

This is a recipe I entered in the weekly recipe contest at Food52.com. Since I didn't win that week (but I was an editor's pick, which makes me unspeakable proud), it seems like a perfectly  good idea to share it here at Cook the Wolf. The contest was for Your Best Couscous. (If you're not familiar with Food52.com, you should check it out; it's more fun than a barrel of Marcona almonds. Way more.) I got the idea to share it when I read the terrific Food52 blog Jenny's in the Kitchen, which, you'll note if you log on, features an equally fabulous salmon recipe that uses one of the same (perhaps surprising) ingredients that mine does (cinnamon) and would be wonderful and even quicker. Anyway,  here's what I entered:

 One of my favorite easy dishes is fish baked in foil. And I love tagines on couscous, the tiny pasta sopped with big flavored stewy juices.This is not a tagine, technically speaking. But it has some of the flavors and textures that make the classic Moroccan dish so alluring to me. And it only takes about 15 minutes to prepare, and 20 to cook. I don't really measure when I make fish in foil, but this is a close estimation; it's an easy dish to tinker with and you should feel free to do so. But try it this way first.

Splendid and Simple Salmon and Vegetable Couscous

SERVES 4

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 4 pieces salmon filet, 6-8 oz each, skin removed
• 1 medium zucchini, very thinly sliced
• 1 small red bell pepper, in very small dice
• 1 small to medium red onion, very thinly sliced
• 1 large tomato, seeded and diced
• 1 small bunch parsley, roughly chopped
• 12 large basil leaves, chiffonade
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 pinches red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (more to taste)
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 4 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 lemon (cut into quarters)
• 1 cup dry white wine, divided
• 1 cup cream, divided
• salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1 1/2 cup couscous

1. Place a large oven-proof casserole or baking dish in oven and preheat to 450.
2. Cut four sheets of tinfoil, about 18 inches long. Stack them; one by one, in the center of each, layer a quarter of the ingredients: a bit of olive oil, a bed of zucchini (about the size of fish filet), the fish, bell pepper, tomato, onion, parsley, basil. Sprinkle each with 1/4 of the cumin, the garlic, the pepper flakes, cinnamon, coriander. Squeeze the juice of a lemon wedge on each piece. Top with a tablespoon of butter.
3. Fold the foil into a little boat shape to hold in liquid. Then splash each filet with a quarter of the wine and a quarter of the cream. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
4. Fold the foil packet like an envelope and seal the edges along sides and top so that no steam or liquid could possibly escape. Remove the hot baking dish from the oven. Place packets of fish in the dish and bake for 20 minutes. They should begin to make a sizzling noise after ten minutes--cook for 10 more minutes after they do. Do not check for doneness until 20 minutes has elapsed.
5. Make the couscous once the fish has baked for 15 minutes. Boil 1 1/2 cups water, to which you have added 2 teaspoons of butter. Add the couscous, quickly stir, then cover with lid for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.
6. Divide the couscous among 4 bowls; open the foil packets from the top, being careful not to burn yourself. Tip the packets over each bowl so that the broth runs out; use a spatula or spoon to place the fish and vegetables over each portion. Serve with more fresh parsley if you wish.

Pizza: You Can Do It

Yes, one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life is buy a pizza stone. It's my version of Olympic gold; I got into pizza making out of curiosity, on a whim, to escape some challenging circumstances in life that might otherwise have made lesser beings give up forever, but I saw it as a chance to overcome my setbacks, and it turned into a reason to be, a chance to show the world that I could be number one at something.

Not really. Anyone can do it.

Actually,  I didn't even buy the pizza stone for myself. That would be too easy for a cook like me, who would rather crack a giant chunk of stone off of a mountain and heat it over an open fire pit I dug on my own, then grind the wheat for the dough and catch the pepperoni in the forest. Buying a pizza stone for myself would have been so self-indulgent, so weak. So. . . normal.

But it was a great gift for the architect, because I have turned him into the true pizza expert around here. Making pizza is incredibly easy when you have a stone and a peel, which are worth the investment because homemade pizza is also a very cheap meal, as long as you don't like lobster and caviar pizza. And to paraphrase my friend Mark Bittman once you start putting too much kooky stuff  on it, it's no longer pizza.

Anyway, let me share with you here the easiest and most triumphant pizza dough recipe in all of the Olympic Village. I don't have a giant mixer, with a dough hook (as I've complained about  a million times, probably); I mix it by hand, and not to punish myself. It's just really easy. I got the recipe from Simple Italian Snacks, a book you should own if you like, um, simple Italian snacks. And what crazy person doesn't? As the chef/author Jason Denton points out, this is a nonobsessive dough--"no eye on the clock, and no theories on rise times." Also, he suggests using a pizza pan OR a stone, so don't think you have to use a stone like we do. But they are cool.

Before I got this book, I would make an uncooked sauce of canned Italian tomatoes (San Marzano, as we all know, are best), with a bit of chopped garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. It was delicious, but before we got the hot idea of buying a peel to get the pie in and out of the oven, it was a way-too-wet sauce, which made it almost impossible to transfer and thus marred the joy of pizza-making.

We now use the cooked sauce from Simple Italian Snacks, too. It's wonderful. I make the dough. The architect assembles and supervises the pie baking. But all you need to do after you spread out the dough is give it a thin layer of sauce and top with your favorites: pepperoni, torn basil, slices of mozzarella, drizzle of olive oil, red onion, olives, arugula, mushrooms--whatever.

Pizza Dough, from Simple Italian Snacks

The book claims it makes 2 12-inch pizzas; we always end up with 3

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups warm water (about 105 degrees)
1 tablespoon of salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 1/4 cups all purpose flour.

1. In the large bowl of a standing mixer (I do this in regular mixing bowl, and do all the mixing by hand. You can too), combine the yeast with the warm water. Add salt and olive oil and stir to combine.
2. Using the paddle attachment (or a human arm and a big spoon, like I do), slowly add half the flour to the yeast mixture. When they are well combined, add the rest of the flour. With the mixer now set to medium and refitted with a dough hook if you have one (hahahahah!), continue mixing until the dough comes together in a smooth ball. Mix for 2 minutes, until the dough is soft and pliable. Turn it out ont a lightly floured board and knead it gently with your hands for a few minutes. (This part, contrary to popular belief, is not difficult but in fact fun and makes you feel very impressed with yourself, and a bit like Laura Ingalls Wilder).
3. Shape  the dough into a ball and place it in an oiled bowl. (I oil the ball of dough, too). Cover the bowl with a clean towel and let the dough rise for 30 to 40 minutes, while you clean up and prepare toppings. The risen dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap (not too tightly; it expands and will pop through the plastic) and refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 2 weeks. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator. (I actually think this dough works better after it has been in the refrigerator for a day.)
4. Turn out the dough onto a floured board, then cut it into half (as I mentioned, we make three generous pizzas with this amount of dough, so you can freeze one ball for later). Press and stretch the dough to form rounds, or 12 x 6 rectangles if you are using cookie sheets.

Note from me, on putting the pie together: if you are using a pizza stone, place it it the oven at 500 degrees for at least a half hour. Put it on the middle rack. We made our last pizza this way: layer of sauce (recipe to come) slices of pepperoni, thin slices of buffalo mozzarella (don't use crappy cheese; get the good stuff), torn basil, drizzle of oil. Don't overload your pie; this is not a lasagna you're making. The architect brushed a little olive oil on the exposed ring of crust, then slid it into oven at 450 or 500 degrees. You want to take it out when the crust browns. Keep an eye on it.

Assemble your pizza on a floured peel, or on a floured rimless baking sheet. You need something to slide it onto the stone (or your preheated pans or cookie sheet). 

Simple Red Sauce, from Simple Italian Snacks

Makes enough for 3 pizzas

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 additional tablespoons

2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced (I used 3; we love garlic)
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes
Salt
Pepper

Heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice. Using kitchen shears or a knife, cut the whole tomatoes into small pieces. Add salt and pepper and cook until the sauce is thickened and reduced by about a third, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Re-season with salt and pepper to taste, and refresh by stirring in a tablespoon or two of olive oil.

As the Barefoot Contessa might say, how easy is that?

And Another Thing

My continuing crush on Thomas Keller's latest cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home, has been good for me, because I tend to like extremely simple recipes. Simple, because I have a kitchen the size of an olive, and no mixer or food processor or very much that makes a cook's life very easy. I have some guilt issues apparently, and treat every joy in life like a hairshirt. 

In this cookbook, which is simpler than you might imagine (coming from one of the country's greatest chefs), even those recipes that are a (longwinded) breeze are good for the aspirational cook--which is what I am now, for better or for worse--because you learn new tricks to play around with.

You really need to want to learn some new tricks, however.

And let me say right from the get go that some of the recipes require you to have ready have at the ready concoctions made from other recipes in the book, before you can proceed. For instance, if you want to eat Keller's Catalan Beef Stew (with fennel, leeks, fingerlings and olives) on the spur of the moment, you'd better just pop in on Keller himself at home. Unless your refrigerator already contains his Braised Beef Short Ribs. And 1/2 cup of his Soffrito. Both of which are in the list of ingredients. Not that there's anything wrong with that. How sweet a world it would be if everyone did have all those things in their fridges all the time. 

I'm obsessed in this case with a technique, employed in the perfectly innocent sounding Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup. Get some lentils throw them in a pot with some sweet potatoes, right?

No. You must make the "parchment paper lid."  When I first read the instructions, the words "no way" floated around in my skull, like a feather on the wind.  I had to call in an architect, who lives here with me. He seemed to think it was fun following Keller's demands that he make a fan out of a rectangular sheet of paper, then "place the tip over the center of the pot to be covered and mark the edge of the pot the pot with your thumb, the cut the edge off there." I had to really think about what this meant. He did not.

The point is, I ended up loving the lid, which had a hole cut in the middle, fit inside my giant pot and acted as a sort of spa steam treatment that imbued the vegetables beneath it with the aroma and flavor of bacon, but not in an overwhelming way.  It was delightful. And I'm planning on folding parchment paper lids for other purposes. And maybe writing some haiku about it. 

Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup, adapted from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home

Serves 6

8 ounces applewood-smoked slab bacon (I just used sliced applewood smoked bacon)

3 tablespoons canola oil (Keller doesn't believe in cooking with olive oil, because high temperatures effect its flavor)
2 cups thinly sliced carrots
2 cups coarsely chopped leeks
2 cups coarsely chopped onions
3/4 to 1 teaspoon yellow curry powder (he gives a recipe for this in the book) or Madras curry powder (which is what I used; you can buy it at the store, but I've also made it using a recipe from Raghavan Iyer's great book 660 Curries; it's a snap)
kosher salt
1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes
2 sachets (more on this later; you'll need some cheesecloth but I have often used a wire mesh tea ball as a substitute in similar situations)
2 cups French green lentils (they hold their shape and don't turn to mush like your average lentil, so buy some of these definitely)
8 cups chicken stock (Keller gives directions on how to make this; I didn't do it. Canned chicken stock is not very good, obviously, but I used it anyway. I often make lentil soup with water and it is quite good. My goal in life is to make my own chicken stock. I do have frozen vegetable stock, however, and this makes me feel virtuous and discriminating.)
1 to 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (which I also add to my own lentil soup recipe. It does something great to lentils).
Freshly ground black pepper
Cilantro leaves

1. Cut the bacon into 1/2 inch pieces. Heat the canola oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the bacon, reduce the heat to low, and render the fat for 20 to 25 minutes. The bacon will color but not crisp. Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon, and set it aside (you're going to crisp it up later).
2. Add the carrots, leeks, onions, and curry powder to the pot and stir to coat in bacon fat and incorporate the curry powder. Season with salt (I used about 1 1/2 teaspoons), reduce the heat to low, cover with Parchment Paper Lid (! instructions to follow), and cook very slowly for 30 to 35 minutes. 
3. Meanwhile peel the sweet potatoes; trim and cut into 1/2 inch dice. Put the potatoes, one of the sachets, and 2 teaspoons of salt in a large saucepan, add cold water to cover, bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender but not mushy, about 10 minutes. Drain and spread them on a tray to cool. Discard the sachet. 
4. Add the lentils to the pot of bacon fat and vegetables, along with the second sachet, and stock; bring to a simmer and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, until the lentils are tender. 
5. Place the bacon in a small frying pan and crisp over medium high heat. 
6. Add the vinegar to the soup, then the potatoes. Cook until heated through. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the soup garnished with bacon and cilantro leaves. 

Sachet: lay out a 7-8 inch piece of cheesecloth. Place 1 bay leaf, 3 thyme springs, ten peppercorns, and a clove of garlic, smashed and peeled, at the bottom, then roll it up the way you would a paper tube. Tie the ends with kitchen twine with kitchen twine. Don't forget you're making two of these. 

Parchment Paper Lid (verbatim) "To make a parchment paper lid, fold a large rectangular piece of parchment paper in half to give you a square bigger than the pot ot be covered. Beginning at the crease, fold over the edge to create a narrow triangle. Continue to fold the triangle over until you have reached the opposite side of the parchment paper. To gauge the size, place the tip over the center of the pot to be covered and mark the edges of the pot with your thumb, then cut the end off there. With a pair of scissors, cut 1/4 inch off the narrow tip of the triangle. Trim the pointed edges of the triangle to form a smooth rounded edge. Unfold the triangle. It will be a circle the size of your pot with a steam hole in the center. Put the paper lid in the pot so that it rests gently on the food you're cooking. 

Cookbook Love

Once you've become addicted to cookbooks (taking them to bed the way old movie stars tote along pitchers of frozen margaritas) you will begin to notice that you've made only one or two (if that) recipes from each of the books that tumble from your shelves and onto the coffee table, kitchen counter, the floor etc. It's hard to get to them all.

A lot of cooks I know claim to feel a nagging guilt about this. I try instead to reserve my guilt for other uses and treat my cookbooks with lightheartedness. Remember that every cookbook you own has a reason to be in your life, even if it is to remind you why you don't make your own puff pastry. And it often happens that a cookbook you've ignored for years will fall open while you are dusting and lead you to discover that you would indeed love to do something with freshly cooked favas.

And your relationships to cookbooks change, of course. I used to like healthy vegetarian cookbooks (I know!). Then I started to like homey cookbooks, full of buttery things. Then I got stuck on on the Mediterranean style, olive oily, fresh lemony stuff. And on and on. In the last year, I've been attracted to cookbooks featuring more far-flung cuisines, Indian and Thai food most recently. I have never owned a book about baking. But it turns out that I need one.

I have tended not to fall for any cookbook that is way, way, way over my head.

But now I seem to be coming into an aspirational cooking phase. I love my new favorite cookbook the way I love certain people: I look up to it, and I know I'm never going to tire of it.

The Man, who is a great example of one of those of people, bought me a copy of the cookbook I refer to, Thomas Keller's "Ad Hoc at Home."

As we've all heard, opposites attract: Thomas Keller, of The French Laundry, is one of the world's most revered and famous chefs, and, obviously a very precise man for whom every motion in the kitchen is deliberate. His cookbook is also very precise and deliberate, but its tone and effect is very homey (hence the title) and warm (which I gather has not been true of his earlier cookbooks). I, on the other hand, am unknown, and imprecise in the kitchen--some might say a culinary loose cannon--but I think of myself as just lovely. Can you see what I'm saying?

I can go on being just who I am at this moment, as a cook, and leave it at that, or I can choose to stretch. And Mr. Keller is encouraging me to do that, whether he knows it or not, especially in terms of precision and focus. I know this is off the topic a bit (see: typical) but I grew up in a large family where food was made for 8, with enough for leftovers the next day. So if I make chicken today, I buy the one that looks like a heavyweight boxer. If I make soup I don't measure I just throw things in the pot until it's almost full. That's a slight exaggeration, and only slight.

But ever since I made my first dish from this book, the plain-sounding Sauteed Chicken Breast with Tarragon, I have started to think there may be something to this whole culinary/chef thing. I've actually begun to assemble my mise-en-place, which I used to think was only for suckers or people forced to do it in their restaurant jobs. Now, I find it makes me feel fancy, like I have a cooking show, as well as calmer in the face of time constraints. I like the ritual of chopping assembly-line style, then placing my work in little dishes for using later. Cute little carrot slices!

This is only the first dish I have cooked from the book (I've also made a lentil-sweet-potato soup with curry, and a whole roast chicken on a bed of root vegetables, both fabulous). It was a good one to start with because aside from being absolutely wonderful, and something that the 10-year-old around here requests by description, it was no trouble at all, and left me feeling like a genius. You throw some spices on boneless breasts, let them sit in the fridge, pound them, then fry them up, make a pan sauce with some shallots, wine, etc. We have this dish with roasted butternut squash seasoned with cayenne and lime and a cold cucumber salad. It's all perfect together.

Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Tarragon, from "Ad Hoc at Home"

Serves 6

• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon yellow curry powder or Madras curry powder (which is what I used)
• 6 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
• Kosher Salt
• Canola oil
• 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot
• 1/4 cup dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc
• One cup chicken stock
• 1 tablesoon coarsely chopped tarragon
• freshly ground pepper

1. Mix together the paprika and curry in a small bowl. Season the chicken on both sides with the mixture. cover and refrigerate for 2 hours
2. Lay 2 pieces of chicken on a large piece of plastic wrap. Cover it with a second piece of wrap and pound the chicken using a meat pounder or a rolling pin, to about 1/4 inch thickness. Transfer to a plate and repeat with the remaining slices.
3. Preheat the oven to 200. Set a cooling rack over a baking sheet.
4. Season the chicken on both sides with salt. Heat some canola oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat Working in batches, without crowding, add the chicken smooth side down and cook, adjusting the heat if necessary, until golden brown on the bottom, about 90 seconds. Turn and cook the other side until golden, about 90 seconds. Transfer cooked chicken to the rack in the oven; repeat process with the remaining chicken, adding oil to pan if necessary.
5. Wipe out the frying pan, removing burned pieces if there are any. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat. Add the shallot to the pan, reduce the heat t o medium, and cook for 30 seconds, stirring to coat the shallot. Pour in the wine, increase heat to medium high and cook until the wine has reduced by halve, about 1 minute. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, and cook until reduced and thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the chopped tarragon, remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, and any pan juices that have accumulated on the baking sheet. Stir in the butter, season with salt and pepper. Arrange chicken on a platter and pour sauce over. Garnish with some tarragon sprigs.
6. NOTE: These directions are almost verbatim from Mr. Keller's cookbook. The chicken turns out absolutely perfectly cooked this way, so don't mess around with that. I had to cook the sauce a bit longer to reduce, and I like a little more of the Paprika curry mix on my chicken, but just a bit.. And I did not make my own stock, nor did I thaw the frozen homemade stock in my freezer. I imagine it would be even more wonderful if I had.

Upstanding Baked Pasta

I'm not a giant meat eater, and yet here I am again offering you another very heavy meat and pasta dish--the kind of dish Henry VIII or Fred Flintstone or the king in the Hossenfeffer episode of Bugs Bunny (titled "Shishkabugs") or any other cartoonishly big eater would enjoy. I swear on a stack of Bibles we eat salads and green things at my house. We do! We make vegetable soup the way some families breathe air.

For now though, since I'm entering a dish in this week's Food52.com contest, for baked pasta, I may as well share what I've devised. Because sharing is a virtue, whether arteries are clogged as a result or not. That is what I must choose to believe.

I'd seen a recipe in some magazine--I think it was Martha Stewart--for a dish of vertical rigatoni lined up like little soldiers (with sauce poured over them) and baked in a spring form pan. It seemed like a fun dish to make with a kid in the room, and it turns out that I was right. And if you use really good ingredients (I bought hand-dipped ricotta, really good buffalo mozarella, reggiano, and some pasta that I don't even want to discuss--the bag was tied with a ribbon) it's pretty devourable and just what you want a baked pasta to be: plentiful, rich, and very satisfying.

If you have a pastry bag, it would probably be the best way to squirt the ricotta mixture into the pasta, plus it would be fun for the kid that is in the room. If not, you'll be fine. The pasta is big enough to drop a spoonful into using a spoon. This sounds like a lot of trouble, but it's the only thing about this recipe that could possibly make peevish those people who think they don't have time to cook. It is otherwise easy-peasy.

Upstanding Baked Pasta

SERVES 6

• 1 pound Italian sausage, casing removed
• 1/2 cup plus 1 TB olive oil, divided
• 2 15-ounce (or 1 28-ounce) cans of whole peeled Italian tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups fresh ricotta cheese
• 1 cup cup Parmigiano Reggiano, grated, divided
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 pound fresh mozzarella
• salt, pepper (to taste)
• 1 pound paccheri (giant rigatoni)

1. Preheat oven to 375. Get out your spring-form pan, wherever it is, and lightly grease it. Put on a giant pot of water to boil for the pasta.
2. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large heavy skillet; raise heat to medium high and brown sausage well (without casing), mashing it to break it into very small pieces as it cooks, about 8-10 minutes.
3. Place tomatoes, remaining half cup of olive oil, garlic in blender. Puree until just smooth.
4. Once meat has browned properly, add puree to skillet. Add salt; bring sauce to a very lively simmer and cook, over medium high heat, for 5 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer until the sauce has reduced by about one-third (20 minutes). Add red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar, and continue cooking for 5 more minutes.
5. Meanwhile, mix together ricotta, half the Parmesan. Stir in the beaten egg. Thin the mixture with a bit of milk if it seems too thick for its own good. Season with freshly ground pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon).
6. Cook the paccheri at a rolling boil until it is barely al dente. You don't want the large tubes to lose their shape and become too flattened. Rinse with cold water, then toss with a bit of olive oil and the remaining Parmesan cheese.
7. Place the paccheri vertically in the prepared spring-form pan. Using a pastry bag or a small spoon, squirt about a tablespoon or so of the ricotta mixture into each noodle, pushing it down a bit to make room for the sauce. Pour the sauce over the cheese-filled noodles. Place the spring-form on a cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes. Remove, cover the top of the casserole with slices of mozzarrella, and continue cooking until the cheese has browned and the casserole has heated through, about ten more minutes. Serve in slices, like a pie.
8. Run 8 miles.
   
   

Boo-hoo? Ragu.

I went away from myself for a while. (Sigh!) That sounds very melodramatic, I realize. As if I rowed away from myself while I remained on the shore, waving goodbye. In a student film. Made in Sweden. Or Germany.

It's been a schmaltzy, self-involved year. But tell me you've never been there! It happens to all of us: we come to a point where we have to sit ourselves down and establish who, exactly, is the boss of the relationship: our worst selves (surly, sockless in winter, feckless in all other seasons, and undecided to the point of absurdity) or our better selves (focussed, sly, claws unclenched from petty discontents). I cried like a slob more than once in the process (and when I say "slob." I mean the charming, adorable, interesting sort of slob whose face does not get red, and whose tears reflect the color of her eyes and the depth of her soul, under particularly flattering lightl). The point is I made a choice.

I still go sockless at the wrong times, but I'm definitely focussed enough to want to get back to being a writer. And I've settled into the idea that it's okay to spend one's days and afternoons doing something a person loves as much as I--and many people I know and admire--love to cook. And that sharing recipes writing about food can be as noble as writing about City Hall. Or as useful, at least. And more noble, certainly, than passing along gossip about American Idol judges.

Actually, let's just leave the word noble out of it.

I owe some of the return of my zest for life (and the reappearance of a lemon zester into my kitchen) to Food52.com, which is dedicated to home-cooking and will result in a cookbook containing winning recipes from a year's worth of competitions (hence the 52). If you don't know about the site, and you love to cook, you really should log on and see what's going on over there. It was created by two friends who've cooked together for some time (the lovely team of Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs), and once you start to participate you feel like they and all the other cooks are your friends, too. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the competition had something to do with it how much I like the site. Winning (as I did, for my lemony cream cheese pancakes) really will put the git back in your gittyup, no matter how zen-like your resistance to the idea of competition may be.

None of this is to say I didn't cook much over the last 9 months or so. I cooked a lot, and it made me really happy, even when I was being a pill; I think it made the two people closest to me happy, too.

Anyway, here is my Ragu Bolognese, which I perfected during my fallow period and which we have begun serving at Christmas in my family. It will make you cry. But in a good way.

Ragu Bolognese

Yield: 7 cups, which serves at least 10 people, or 10 million, I can’t remember. It’s a rich sauce. It freezes very well.

4 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter (you can leave this out and substitute more olive oil if you insist; I think it helps browning process)

2 medium onions, finely chopped

1 large carrot, scraped and finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound ground veal

1 pound ground pork (or use all beef/veal)

1/2 pound ground beef

1/4 pound pancetta, minced or ground (or you can use bacon, but less)

2 cups cream, half and half, or milk (or use a combination)

1 (16-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, chopped, with the juices

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups chicken stock

Salt and pepper

1. In a very large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic and sauté over medium heat until translucent.
2. Add veal, pork, beef, and pancetta to the vegetables, cook over medium high heat for about 15 to 20 minutes. You really want it to brown; stir it often, breaking up clumps of meat.
3. Add half the milk/cream and simmer until almost dry, about 15 minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer, breaking up any large pieces, 15 minutes. Add the wine and broth, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 2 hours.
4. After 2 hours, add remaining milk; simmer for another 1/2 hour, or longer, until the flavor has intensified, and the sauce has become somewhat dry. It is not a very “saucy” sauce. It’s a meaty sauce. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve on pappardelle, with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.