Eats - Whole Wheat Penne Pasta with Baby Squashes

Penne pasta and spinach salad

Whole wheat penne pasta with baby squash and mushrooms in a tomato cream sauce.

Cooked the pasta according to the directions on the box.

For the sauce - 

Melted 1/4 of a stick of butter in a sauce pan. Added 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup ricotta cheese, 3 tablespoons fontina cheese, and one small can diced tomatoes.  Cook on medium heat, stirring frequently until hot all the way through and all the cheese is melted.

For the squash - 

Browned about 1/4 cup onions in olive oil, then added the baby squash and browned slightly. Added the mushrooms (halved), some red wine, rosemary, garlic, and dried basil.  

Tossed it all together and served with a spinach and parsley salad.

Penne pasta

Spinach and parsley salad with champagne and balsamic vinegars, sumac, and black pepper.

Spinach salad

Quote

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating."
— Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story

Found: Old diaries

I found these old diaries several years ago. The author lived in Indianapolis (You can see his address on the telegram in one of the photos), and kept the diaries in 1921 and 1929-1932. They talk about his day-to-day life in Indianapolis, listing several places he visits and people he knows. I took these pictures as a sneak peek for the author of the Historic Indianapolis blog/facebook page.

Eats - White Bean and Vegetable Stew with Oat (and misc. other flours) Soda Bread and Yogurt, Honey, Cranberry Soda Bread

White bean and vegetable stew

For the broth:

Coarsely chop 3 onions, 3 carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 1 leek, one red bell pepper, 6 cloves of garlic, a handful of mushrooms, and a few outer cabbage leaves. Brown in 2 tbsp. vegetable oil for about 10 minutes. Mash 4 tbsp tomato paste into the mixture, then add 2 tsp oregano, 2 tsp rosemary, black pepper, white pepper, salt, one bunch Italian parsley, and 8 cups (2 quarts) water. Bring to a boil. Turn down and simmer about 45 minutes. Strain, pressing as much liquid as possible out of the vegetables.

While that simmers, cube 3 cups potatoes (I used french fingerlings and small yellow potatoes), chop 4 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 1 leek, 1 cup onions, 1 shallot, one half head of cabbage, and 3 tbsp Italian parsley. When approximately 20 minutes remain for the broth to simmer, brown the onions and shallot in 2 tbsp butter, then add the potatoes, celery, carrots, leek and white beans (I used 2 cans in this, because the recipe wasn’t planned, but if you use dried or frozen, it ended up about 2.5 cups). Add salt, black pepper, and white pepper. Cook for about 10 minutes. While cooking, make rivels (see below). Add the cabbage and parsley, cook approximately 3 minutes, add the broth, and cook together about 5 minutes. Add the rivels and cook an additional 10 minutes. Serve hot with bread.

The broth fixings

Eats - Potato Pancakes

In a previous post, I mentioned turning the leftover pierogie stuffing into potato pancakes. I’ve never made potato pancakes, but I had some idea how it should be done. Anyway, I did it, and they were good! Really good! I just threw an egg and some flour and some more ricotta in before I cooked them. Sadly, I didn’t bother with pictures - they weren’t as pretty as they were tasty. That’s all, just had to brag.

Antiquing: Bread Box

Today’s antique store purchase - a bread box! For all that bread I’ve been making (see - there’s some in it already!). Thanks, Mom!

Eats - Pierogies stuffed with mashed potatoes, ricotta, and onions; Red cabbage; Polish Sausages with a honey mustard apple sauce; Challah.

The whole dinner

Pierogies - Filling:  Boiled potatoes mashed with heavy cream and ricotta, blended with sauteed white onions.  I used this recipe  for the dough. Cut circles, brush with egg, fold in half, press edges with a fork. Sauteed in butter and white onions. (I only used ricotta because I had it, and I don’t need to have large quantities of cheese in the house.  But, it turned out really good. In fact, I think I’m turning the remaining filling into potato pancakes tonight. Yum.)

The pierogies cooking

The pierogie filling

The pierogie dough

Polish sausage - Boiled first in Spaten Optimator, then cooked with apples and onions. Sauce made of honey, german mustard, remaining broth off of meat.

The Polish sausage going into the oven

The Polish sausage

Red cabbage - Sauteed onions in oil, added one head shredded red cabbage, cooked down a bit then added red wine and champagne vinegars and a dash of raw sugar.
Challah with poppy seeds - a friend’s recipe.

The red cabbage cooking

Challah

And since it's a friend's recipe, I'm going to post it as he told me (I've done conversions where necessary):
One kilo (*2.2 pounds) white flour
2 table spoons dry yeast, or 50 grams fresh ones
3/4 cup of sugar (you can do less, but why would you?)
BTW, its for two big hallas, but i think that's what you should do.  It's super fun.  Okay:
1-3/4 to 2 cups of water
2 eggs
table spoon salt
100 grams (*7 Tbsp - almost a stick) of room temp butter.
So now what you do is mix the flour with the yeast in a large bowl (wooden or plastic), then make a hole in the middle of the flour, pour in the water, eggs, and sugar.  Add butter, then start mixing with a spoon, and then add the salt.
The salt kills the yeast, so you add it last.
Then knead for at least 10 minutes.  That's important. I always set an alarm for 15, but 10 is enough. Then you let it sit for about hour and half, and it rises and doubles in its size, and smell really good and yeasty.
Two things - cover the dough while it sits (oil it slightly before), and I know it's cold there - When I made it in Berlin, it wouldn't rise as quickly. What I did was heat the oven to the lowest temp, then close it, then wait 5 minutes, and put the bowl inside....  
After it's risen, divide it in two, then divide each part into three and make long sausage-like rolls, I think they'll be about 8 inches long.  They're supposed to be a bit fat.. you know what a halla looks like....
Now make braids, and you have two hallas.  Cover them, and let them sit for 20 more minutes. Before you put them in, you brush them with one egg. 
Preheat the oven to 180c (*350F) and bake for 35 minutes.
The best way to check, is when they look ready, turn them over and knock on the bottom, if it sounds like a wooden door, they're ready. And here comes the next tip. They might get brown quicker than wooden doory underneath. If they do - cover them with foil (loosely, just put some over them) and all will be well :)

Poppy seeds