What To Do With All That Spinach?

We have fresh spinach coming in right now.  The Galilee Spinach seed that I saved had bad germination, but the old standby variety that we like (Monstrueux De Viroflay) is really producing.  The spinach that Popeye would eat from a can cannot be compared to this stuff.  Popeye would never eat canned spinach again once he tried this variety.  Anyhow, for the recipe we'll be cooking up today, we needed 2 cups of spinach packed tightly.

We're cooking up some Pasta with tomatoes, spinach and ricotta.  We have some bowtie pasta cooking on the back burner.  Here we have the spinach cut up with 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 lb cocktail tomatoes and salt and pepper all sautéing in a pan.

The spinach is added last and is sautéed lightly.

1/3 cup of basil is added and then all of it is poured atop the cooked and drained bowtie pasta.

I don't know if you remember, but a couple of months ago, we made several batches of mozzarella cheese from several gallons of LuLu's milk.  When you make mozzarella, you get ricotta cheese as sort of a by product.  We had some of it frozen, so we thawed it out and added it to the pot.

To the top of that we added 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

This is all stirred together and it's now ready to serve!

Delicious!  Creamy!  It's a great way to use some of the spinach that's coming in.  The next time we make it, we'll double the amount of spinach to 4 cups packed and also add more fresh basil and some minced garlic.  With all the spinach, and cooler weather coming in this week, we were talking about also making a Cream of Spinach soup.  Ravioli stuffed with spinach might be on the agenda as well.

Making Homemade Pasta

We decided it was time to get the kitchen dirty.  It was pasta-making time!  Tricia pulled the pasta-making contraption out of the cabinet and mixed up some dough.  The pasta-roller has different settings.  She rolled out a ball of pasta dough and ran it through the press.  Each couple of passes, she adjusted the settings down a notch to make it thinner and thinner.

You can see how the dough not only gets thinner, but the dough gets longer and longer.  In the back left of the photo you can see the rolling pin and the balls of dough ready for processing into pasta.

We floured the island down so the pasta wouldn't stick and as the pasta got to the desired thickness and length, we laid it out to begin to dry a little bit.

Then we put the pasta cutting attachment onto the pasta roller.  In this case we were making fettucine.  As we run the pasta through the cutter, it is transformed from flat dough to fettucine.

The 'nests' of fettucine were pulled out and placed in clumps on the island to dry.

Soon we had processed all the fettucine.  I was all in a big pile.

Man, I love pasta!  Doesn't this stuff look good?

We got a pot of salted water boiling on the stove-top and put the past in.

Once done, we poured into a colander and drained.  Instead of taking the time to make a sauce, we decided to just eat it with garlic, butter, green onions, salt and pepper.

Just prior to eating, we grated some Parmesan cheese on top, sat down and enjoyed.

I tell you, it is delicious!  We're going to start making up pasta, drying and storing in plastic bags to enjoy a little later.

Growing Angel Hair Pasta in the Garden

It's all the rage today to eliminate the carbs in your diet.  Trouble is, I LIKE carbs.  Whether they be in the form of rice, potatoes, or pasta, I'm digging them and not trying to reduce them.  As far as pasta, I have many favorites: linguine, bowtie pasta, spaghetti for starters.  My all time favorite, however, is Angel Hair Pasta.  I don't know why, but it's just better to me.  I like it just plain with butter and garlic or with Shrimp Scampi.  We eat it a lot with homemade pesto.  I never get tired of it.

What if I told you that you could GROW angel hair pasta in your garden?  You can.  Below, you can see it growing.  There's a lot going on in this photo.  Some of the vines are for birdhouse gourds.  Some are butternut squash, but some are spaghetti squash.  Let's hunt through the jungle of vines to see if we can discover a spaghetti squash in its natural habitat.

Yes, there's one right there, and it is ripe for picking!  This one is about 8 inches long and about 4 or 5 inches in diameter.  It's a nice size - not too big, but not too small.  Tricia and I are empty-nesters, so this will be the perfect size for the two of us.  

Spaghetti squash are easy to prepare.  Simply cut them in half and scoop out all of the seeds out of the middle.  We pre heat the oven and brush with plenty of butter.  Then it's placed face down in a baking dish and put in the oven.

When it's done, we remove it from the oven and 'fluff' it with a fork.  Simply take a fork and scrape the sides and all around.  The 'spaghetti,' which closely resembles angel hair pasta comes off of the outer rind of the squash.  Unlike other squash like butternut or Tahitian melon which are creamy, the spaghetti squash resembles angel hair pasta.

We remove it from the squash with a fork and put it on a plate.  Can you see what I mean about its resemblance to angel hair pasta?

Most times we put a homemade tomato sauce on top or maybe a pesto sauce.  Today, we'll just eat it with real butter, garlic, and salt.  Last year we didn't have a good spaghetti squash crop at all.  This year we were able to have a decent harvest and I'm planning to plant a fall crop of them, too, in a few weeks. You can grow your own "pasta" after all!

The Pasta Plant

I coworker fried for years would tell me about the "zoodles" he and his wife would make.  It sounded interesting.  Instead of using pasta in dishes like spaghetti, they opted for vegetable noodles.  They bought a vegetable spiralizer and would run zucchini through it to make their noodles.  He said it was much more healthy for you.  I can see that, but I love pasta (and rice, and potatoes, and bread).

I briefly looked on the Internet for spiralizers and found them ranging from $9 to $55.  Thing is, you don't need another kitchen appliance if you grow Spaghetti Squash.  This is a strange squash, but is pretty easy to grow.  I planted ours late, but didn't have room in the main garden until this fall.  We have them planted in the side yard bed.  They have done quite well and there are a number of spaghetti squash on the vine.

The problem is that we've had several nights that dipped to about 30 degrees and several others where the temps hovered right at freezing.  Those temperatures spell doom to the squash, so I figured we should begin harvesting a few and eating them before the freeze kills them.

You can tell when they are ripe by pushing your fingernail into the outer rind.  When it is hard and doesn't leave a mark, it is ready to pull.

We've grown bigger ones, but this one is okay.  I need to keep amending the soil in this bed and add compost and chicken litter to boost fertility.  We'll take this one inside and cook it.  To cook it, we cut them in half, take the seeds out, turn the squash upside down on a stone baking tray with water in the bottom and put it in the oven.

When done you pull out of the oven and use a fork to 'fluff' the spaghetti squash up.  The "noodles" are roughly comparable to angel hair pasta.  You can add butter to it and eat it as is.  We've done that.

But we also like to make up some spaghetti meat sauce and serve it over a bed of Spaghetti Squash.

We thoroughly enjoyed eating it and have several more waiting in the wings.  If a freeze is imminent, I'll cover the plant with a tarp as they still need to grow a little bit.

Here's to You, Chef Boyardee

Who can forget growing up and opening a can of Chef Boyardee Raviolios?  I remember them being a kid-favorite.  For me, at least.  Those tasty "pillows" of pasta stuffed with meat in a red sauce.  I could wipe out a can in no time flat.  From time to time we'll make homemade ravioli.  It is a fun family project.  Since our kids have mostly moved out, Tricia and I tackled the project this time.  Although the boys came in to help us eat them!

I starts with some pasta dough.  It was made with Kamut flour.  Tricia rolled it out into little tortilla-shaped rounds.

We have a little Hamilton Beach Pasta-maker machine that we use to do things like this.  It has settings on it to reduce the thickness of the pasta.  You hand-crank it through the rollers and then adjust the settings and then feed it through again.

Repeated iterations through the machine makes the dough thinner.  And longer...

And even longer!  The raviolis are ready to be assembled...

Tricia, earlier in the day, put together the filling.  It is made with ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, mushrooms and salt and pepper.  We begin putting little dollops of filling on the long 'tongues' of pasta dough.

The end closest to the edge of the counter is painted with water to moisten the dough, and then it is folded over to cover the ravioli filling.

We use our fingers to seal the individual raviolis, pushing out any air.

Then we begin cutting the raviolis free from the long strip and the result is a bunch of individual raviolis.  You can see how this is coming together.

Ain't that nice?!  Little pillows of deliciousness almost ready for eating.

Rinse.  Wash.  Repeat.  Finally, we're done.  They are ready to be cooked.

We pick them up one by one off the counter top that was dusted with flour so they don't stick.  They are dropped into a pot of boiling water and allowed to cook for 3 or 4 minutes.  You can accompany these raviolis with any sauce you want.  We've done them with a tomato-based sauce before, but tonight Tricia made up a sauce with butter, garlic and heavy cream.  That is simmering on the back burner.

The cooked raviolis are pulled out of the water and drained.  They are put into a dish and the sauce is poured over them and Parmesan cheese is grated over.

The supper bell didn't need to be rung twice.  We lined up, loaded up our bowls and feasted!  Chef Boyardee or Franco-American Raviolios don't hold a candle to this!

From the Beginning to the End

Part of homesteading, trying to "do-it-yourself", or even trying to eat healthier, less processed foods require learning to start from the beginning and taking it to the very end.  Here's an example.  We've always loved pesto and make container after container of the stuff, freeze it, and eat it all throughout the year.  It is delicious over pasta or eaten as a dip.  Here is the link from a previous post that shows you how to make it: How to Harvest Basil and Make Pesto.

Now you can purchase pesto from the store, or you can purchase basil to make your pesto, or you can purchase basil seeds and grow your own.  While there is nothing wrong with the former, we prefer the latter. Then you can save the basil seeds and grow basil every year thereafter.  The stuff grows quicker than weeds or our Federal Deficit.  I have a number of basil seedlings that are popping up right now in some containers. Once they put on their true leaves, I'll transplant them into the garden. The seedlings you see below are the beginning.  The end result will be pesto or seasoning for pizza, spaghetti, and other Italian dishes.

The Beginning

As the link above showed you how to harvest basil and make pesto, you still have to serve it over pasta. Prior to last year, we had always bought pasta by the box or in the bag, but we found out that making pasta is super easy.  We use spelt flour, but you can use any flour, I would assume.  All you need is 2 cups of spelt flour, 3 eggs at room temperature, a little salt, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Stir all ingredients and knead until it all comes together.  Voila!  Pasta Dough!

Pasta Deaux

We don't have a fancy schmancy pasta maker.  Tricia picked this one up on clearance from a discount store. It gets the job done.  Essentially, you run the dough through the rollers to stretch it out.  Then you run it through again using a different roller to make different sized pasta.  Today, we're making regular spaghetti pasta.

We're rolling in the dough!

When you crank it through the device after removing the rollers, it cuts the pasta dough into whatever type pasta you want to make.  You'd think this might take a long time, but it doesn't.  From flour to pasta in just a few minutes.

From dough to spaghetti

Then we move it right into a pot on the stove top full of water and cook like you normally would pasta.

Homemade pasta in the pot

Add a little salt and check on it from time to time, but it won't be long until your homemade pasta is done and you can pour it into a colander to drain off the water.

It's done!

Then we grab a bowl and heap mounds of pesto on top of the freshly made pasta, which serves as a delivery mechanism for getting the pasta to your mouth.  Since our basil plants are just seedlings right now, we thawed out a container of frozen pesto from last summer and warmed it on the stove top.

Fresh pasta and pesto 

I mix it up real good to get the pesto flavors all commingled with the pasta and we thank the Good Lord for His provisions...

A nice, easy, delicious meal

And Supper's on!  From beginning to end, this is an easy, delicious meal containing mostly ingredients either grown and/or processed right here on the farm or in Tricia's kitchen.