A walk to the store . . . Rolling, Rolling

A walk to the store . . .

Rolling, Rolling

# 21 - 2009

I was shocked and clicking my heels!
I was shocked: NO chocolate!
I was clicking my heels at the idea we’d be being Daring with pancetta, veal, pork, beef, prosciutto, the only four tablespoons of butter going into a Béchamel sauce, only two eggs and SPINACH!!! Holy Toledo! (Isn’t that what Robin used to say to Batman in the comic books?)

And I was clicking my heels at the new Daring Kitchen.

No matter what is challenging about a Daring Baker Challenge, you know you’ve got to plan ahead and you know you’ve got to read. Some recipes read easier than others and some simply are written in invisible ink that only turns black when you’re knee deep in the middle of the recipe and just about to wrap things up.

With out-of-town company coming in on a Saturday I made out my shopping list on Tuesday night, got way laid with another task on Wednesday missing my shopping and getting started until Thursday morning - one day later than I wanted to be.

It would have been so much quicker to get in the car and drive the one mile to the grocery store but I saved myself and walked!!
DB Lasagna
I love surprising the check out people with how much I can pack into my pretty simple and small back pack.

This month’s recipe wasn’t written in disappearing ink for me but I seemed unable to translate the English canned into cans or some such thing and translated “3 canned roma tomatoes” into “3 roma tomatoes” and used one can (14 oz) instead of three tomatoes. I decided when looking at some of the completed lasagnas that the recipe probably meant “3 cans”. Consequently, I had a really meaty “sauce”.

The Béchamel sauce . . . easy peasy. Hardest part is making an interesting photo for you:

Friday morning brings the real part of the challenge . . . the rolling . . . the noodles . . . thin enough to see through. I have another dish (husband’s favorite) where I have learned to deal with 300 grams of fresh spinach. Two things that never cease to amaze me are perfectly dry spinach has a HUGE amount of water in it AND cooked spinach reduces to nothing!

I first stuff the fresh spinach - all that green stuff you see on the sides here - into a microwave safe bowl - I use an old crock(bowl) - cover with microwave cover (great hole in the middle). Microwave on high 5 minutes.

Toss. Many times it’s ready - just wilted. Sometimes I may have to give it a few more minutes. Try to check it as soon as time is done in order to uncover, spread out on clean dry towels (I have several I use just for jobs like this, likely to stain things)
or paper towels so as to allow all the steam to escape as possible - less water to squeeze out when cool.

Spread it out on the towel and wrap to get the most spinach in contact with the surface of the towel. Then roll the towel into a cylinder and squeeze as much water out as is possible. When you unroll it, it looks like this.

Chop as finely as needed - pretty fine for noodles. I’ll chop more next time.

Good grief can you believe we haven’t even really started the noodles! It’s mid-afternoon, company comes tomorrow and I haven’t even thought about cleaning and making a bed!! What did I think was so important yesterday . . . no idea. Just keep moving girl . . . take comfort that the two sauces are done and my little baker’s assistant is cheering me on. Oh . . . yes, of course I had to make bread for the dinner so yes that’s my starter going next to my assistant.

Mixing the noodles is a snap even by hand as long as you wrap your head around being comfortable with sticky dough.

Simple ingredient list:

Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde) 2 jumbo eggs (2 ounces/60g or more) 10 ounces (300g) fresh spinach, rinsed dry, and finely chopped; or 6 ounces (170g) frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry 3 1/2 cups (14 ounces/400g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour (organic stone ground preferred)

Problem: I have large eggs not jumbo. My one large egg weights 60 grams . . . I used two.

The dough does finally come together.

I can’t say how but after a time of kneading it does. The recipe talked about running liquid - ha, I never had anything running. Wrap and let the dough rest for 30 minutes or more (3 hours). So the dough got a rest while I gave the house an hour of cleaning!

Now, comes the fun part, after the dough has rested not me.

Roll

Roll

Roll

Cut & Hang

If you don’t want a story, skip to next photo.

The dowels you see the noodles hanging on are from a book case we stained and put together when we were first married. My husband retrieved them from the garage, washed them and covered them with saran wrap. Hey, it worked.

Some I hung on rolling pins.

People, it makes noodles. Enough to equal a one pound box of dry noodles.

OK wrap it up for assembly tomorrow.

Dinner . . . you want dinner tonight. . . I have no idea . . . let’s go for a walk and talk about dinner. Tomorrow’s dinner.

Well, let’s just say if you have your two sauces and your noodles, assembly is a piece of cake.

Cook

Dry

Assemble

Yes, there is cheese.

Serve and enjoy.

CAKE . . . who said anything about cake. Oh, yes, cake, like for a guest’s birthday kind of cake.

Well, of course we had cake.

It’s a Daring Baker’s challenge after all, right. Right!

My warmest thanks to our fabulous Daring Baker hostess’ where you can find the recipe also
Enza from Da Grande,
Melinda from Melbourne Larder
and
Mary from Beans & Caviar.

For the recipe a most warm thank you to Lynne Rossetto Kasper writing in The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food.

Now, if you haven’t already, get out there and see how some of my other daring baker’s did with this. AND absolutely don’t fail to check out the new Daring Kitchen where you, yes you, can choose to be a Daring Baker OR Daring Cook at our new flashy site . . .

Thank you Ivonne & Lis, always.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Extra Extra!!

Read All About It!!

Daring Bakers

go Overboard

Without Sugar!!

For the Link to:

The Archives

Gadgets & Equipment

Kitchen Views

ravel
My Wine Diary Blog
infrequent entries
Cups

Daring Baker’s Blog Roll

Bloggers on my RSS

Bread Baking Babes have baked

Completed Daring Baker’s Challenges

Comments:

I have spent hours trying to work out the comment problems (one possible solution below) but the issue continues on & off. Please feel free to e-mail me if you have a question. Many thanks.

If you are getting the “we are unable to process your request at this time” when trying to leave a comment, please try the following:

1.empty the browser cache
2.use the URL

MyKitchenInHalfCups.com

everything will look the same on the page (the http address will be different - trust me) but the comment link will work and you’ll be able to leave a comment.

I really enjoy the exchanges that come up on comments. I try very hard to answer your questions .

Thanks very much for visiting and all your comments.

Pepper

Salt

Nutmeg

Daring Baker’s Blog Roll

Next >

< Previous