Pasta | Gourmandistan

Unhealthily balancing Swiss chard with gemelli pasta and pine nuts

June 23, 2013 by Steve

It is well known that this time of year finds Gourmandistan searching for new ways to deal with CSA chard. We’ve long been fans of this healthy idea from Martha Rose Schulman, but were recently in the mood for something a little more robust. Enter Martha Stewart and her circa 2003 recipe for Gemelli with Sausage, Swiss Chard and Pine Nuts. Pre-prison Martha saw the wisdom of loading carbs into the mix of chard, raisins and nuts, with some sausage added to […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Nuts, Pasta, Pork, Recipes, Swiss chard

Do do this ragout that we do so well.

May 20, 2013 by Steve

We’re not asking you join a great crusade to stamp out decency in the West. (After all, some would say there’s nothing left to do.) We’re simply asking you to start celebrating your fresh green vegetables with this simple, light “stew.” A while back, Michelle was hypnotized by some Whole Foods fava beans (a rarity in these parts), and found a recipe in Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Vegetables for Fava Bean Ragout. Alice indicated it was “great with Potato Gnocchi,” […]

Categories: Artichokes, Asparagus, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Pasta, Peas, Recipes, Vegetables, Vegetarian

(Re)iterating Bertolli’s baby artichokes, olives, meatballs and sage

May 11, 2013 by Steve

We found this recipe in Chez Panisse Cooking while looking for a creative way to use some semi-impulse-bought baby artichokes. (They were from Castroville and on special at Whole Foods. Even die-hard locavores couldn’t resist.) We were initially attracted by the interesting mix of ingredients, a step up from our previous effort. Then we were intrigued by Paul Bertolli’s perplexing introduction. Telling us his mother “used marinated artichokes and a type of green Spanish olive ” he “can’t find anymore,” Bertolli […]

Categories: Artichokes, Cooking, Food, Meatballs, Old cookbooks, Pasta, Recipes

Ravioli, Tortelli, Mezzalune, a Marriage

January 14, 2013 by Steve

It’s an unseasonably warm mid-January afternoon in 1988. Michelle is stomping around Louisville’s downtown, where we lived at the time, in a wedding outfit. People are driving by, honking their horns and hooting congratulations. Michelle is angry. She is angry with Steve, who has both sets of keys. Steve took Michelle’s keys when he drove back to the apartment from the wedding site to get the marriage license, which he had forgotten. He then forgot he already had his keys […]

Categories: Beef, Cooking, Food, Italy, Old cookbooks, Pasta, Potatoes, Recipes

Saffron Noodle Cake with Sautéed Peppers: worth raiding the reliquary.

October 15, 2012 by Steve

There is a small jar in our pantry. Inside, much smaller than the small jar, is a dark envelope. The envelope holds a few shreds of something quite precious. It’s not the True Cross, it’s saffron. Saffron is expensive, and while we usually have it on hand (Gourmandistan must uphold its inventory, after all) we tend to think of it as something used only for special occasions. Deborah Madison’s Saffron Noodle Cake is making us reevaluate our stance on the […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Pasta, Peppers, Recipes, Vegetarian

We just can’t quitaly: butternut squash & mushroom ravioli en brodo

November 13, 2011 by Michelle

Yeah, we wrote earlier about avoiding Italian. But Steve never meant for ravioli to be included in that resolution. He still looks for just about any excuse to make pasta, especially now he knows 00 flour is available locally in 5-kilo bags. And while we still have a pile of butternut and other winter squash on our counter, this batch actually came about as we prepared to greet our new upright freezer. (Hail, god of chilly overabundance! Thank you for […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Italy, Mushrooms, Pasta, Recipes, Vegetarian, Winter squash

That low, slow road to Morocco

October 28, 2011 by Steve

Gourmandistan cannot claim expertise on Morocco. American popular culture leads us to believe the North African country has an Express that leaves the smell of gardens in your hair, a certain avenue leading to Dorothy Lamour, and shockingly, gambling at Rick’s in Casablanca. Of course, Wikipedia can further enlighten us, but we’d rather turn to the pages of Claudia Roden’s Arabesque. We found this particular dish when searching for a way to deal with a lamb-share primal shoulder. Whole shoulders […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Lamb, Morocco, Pasta, Recipes

The trouble with tomatoes.

August 10, 2011 by Michelle

Slime. Goo, guck, glop. Or whatever you want to call the viscous heart of just about every raw tomato. That (and lots of little tough seeds) is why Gourmandistan can be very, very wary of its fresh “love apples,” much to the dismay of many of our friends who eat tomatoes out of hand in their gardens. We certainly think bacon, lettuce (or avocado) and tomato sandwiches are delicious, but (at least in our world) only require very thin slices […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Pasta, Recipes, Tomatoes, Vegetarian

A better bacon for pasta carbonara.

June 19, 2011 by Michelle

Steve’s guanciale has been sectioned, sealed and frozen, but not before we put some to a very good use. We’ve long been fans of pasta carbonara, even championing Calvin Trillin’s effort to change Thanksgiving into National Pasta Carbonara Day. (Trillin seems interested in the humorous aspects of carbonara-themed parades and presidential portraits. We’re more interested in eliminating the angst and crap food found in so many “traditional Thanksgiving” meals.) Carbonara sauce has a murky origin, but Gourmandistan is partial to […]

Categories: Cooking, Cured meats, Food, Italy, Old cookbooks, Pasta, Pork, Recipes