Spring vegetables are in, and around our house that means salads and pasta. With enough veggies, you can have both in one bowl. You could call this a "pasta primavera", I suppose, although that name has been abused enough that I'd just as well rather not.

I'll give you an actual recipe with quantities for this pasta, but change it according to what spring veggies you actually have available. Just try to get a good variety. Here in Oregon we've had a terrific asparagus season, with local asparagus available for five weeks now, so that definitely goes in. Our snap peas have started to fruit, so I used those. Herbs, spinach, and spring onions all looked good at the market, so I used those too. And we can get some gentle pungency from garlic spears/scapes; those work well with all of the other lightly cooked vegetables.

You're going to want a mild, gooey cheese for this pasta. We used Trader Joe's "burrata filling", otherwise known as strachiatella in Italy. Cresenza would also work brilliantly, as would a very mild tallegio, and quark would be pretty good. Chevre would work as well, but you'll want to add some additional pasta water for moisture.

Ready? Let's eat!

spring pasta with green vegetables

• 1lbs short twisty pasta
• 4-5 Tbs high-quality virgin olive oil
• 3-4 garlic spears or 6-8 garlic scapes
• 1-5 spring onions (depending on thickness, about 2/3 cup sliced)
• 1 small bunch asparagus, about 11oz
• 1 pint snap peas
• 1 small bunch fresh spearamint, about 1/2 cup chopped
• 1 small bunch Italian parsley, about 1/2 cup chopped
• 12oz mild gooey cheese (see above)
• Fresh grated parmigiano, 1-2oz
• Salt
• Fresh ground pepper
• Large pasta pot, spider or steaming basket, large serving bowl

Prep all the vegetables. Cut the garlic into 1/4" pieces, slice the spring onions thin, stem and snap the peas in half, and strip and mince the herbs. If the asparagus are skinny, cut them into 1" long pieces. If they are thick, slice them into 1/3" slices.

Bring a large pot full of well-salted water to a boil. Put the asparagus and garlic spears/scapes in the spider or basket, and blanche them for 2 minutes. Lift, shake off the water, and put in the bowl. Put the peas in the basket and blanche for 1 minute, and then do the same. Add the spring onions.

Add the pasta and cook according to the given timing. You want the pasta a bit beyond al dente, since it won't cook further, so check that it's done all the way through. As soon as the pasta is done, reserve 1 cup of pasta water, and drain the rest.

Put the still hot pasta into the bowl and cover it with dabs of the gooey cheese. Toss it with the vegetables in the bowl until the cheese evenly coats everything. Then add the chopped herbs and fresh ground pepper and toss again. Taste for salt, and add some if necessary. Finally, grade the parmigiano over the top. Serve warm or room temperature.

Enjoy, and happy spring!

Note: the pasta can be any short, curly/twisty variety. You can use telephone cord pasta like I did, or fusilli, casarecce, radiatore, or similar. It would also work pretty well with farfalle.

Now that tomatoes are finally coming into season, it's time for some pasta salad that really makes the most of summer produce. It also has the advantage of being a dish that only requires boiling a pot of water, but no other cooking, which is going to be welcome to a lot of y'all contending with heat waves.

The "warm" part of this recipe is that we usually serve it somewhat warm, rather than cold. It's a bit better that way. But if you're dying of heat, it can be eaten cold. The important part is that the past be dressed while still warm, so that it absorbs the dressing.

What's below is less of a recipe and more of a set of guidelines, because you have a lot of flexibility in what you put into your salad. There are lots of tips to make it better, though, and read below the recipe for notes on ingredients. Also, these guidelines make a large portion because this pasta salad makes excellent leftovers.

warm pasta salad

The Pasta

• 1 lbs (500g) short curly pasta
• 1 large pot boiling well-salted water

The Dressing

• 1-4 cloves garlic, whole peeled OR 1 Tbs roasted garlic paste
• 3 Tbs quality red wine vinegar, plus more to taste
• 1/2 cup quality olive oil, plus more to taste
• 2 Tbs minced fresh herbs, OR 1.5 tsp dried herbs
• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

The Cheese

• 8-11oz flavorful semi-soft Italian cheese.

The Veggies

The trinity of required veggies:

• 1 to 1.5 lbs ripe tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, diced or sliced in half
• 5-8oz bell peppers or other sweet peppers, diced or sliced OR roasted and peeled sweet peppers, chopped large
• 6-10oz cucumbers, peeled if needed and diced

Plus none to a few veggies from this list:

• 1 cup diced sweet onion
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 1/2 to 1 cup chopped fresh herbs
• 1/2 cup olives, pitted and halved or sliced
• 1-2 Tbs capers
• 1 cup fresh snap peas
• 1-2 cups blanched green beans
• 1/2 cup sweet peas, steamed
• 2-6 young carrots, peeled and sliced, either raw or blanched
• 8 oz grilled, roasted, or steamed asparagus, cut into 1" pieces
• 8-12 oz grilled, roasted, or fried summer squash, cut into 1/2" pieces
• 4-6oz diced marinated artichoke hearts

Equipment: pasta pot, colander, very large salad bowl

Instruction

Heat the pot of pasta water. If you don't have roasted garlic, then peel the garlic cloves and blanch them in the water for 1-2 minutes. Cover the pot and push it aside; you're not ready to cook the pasta yet.

Make the dressing. Mash the garlic with the salt and vinegar, using a mortar & pestle, minichopper, immersion blender and cup, or just a fork. Add the olive oil, ground pepper, and the herbs. Whisk together until blended.

Dice and prep all of the vegetables, piling them in a large bowl. Put veggies you want to treat gently, like cucumbers, herbs, and tomatoes, on the bottom, and put veggies that could use a little heat, like onions and peppers, on the top. Finish with the diced cheese.

Now you cook the pasta. Use the maximum time listed on the package; since this is a salad, you want it a bit more done than al dente. Drain the pasta, and immediately dump the still very warm pasta on top of the ingredients in the salad bowl. Drizzle it all over with the dressing, and then start gently tossing until all of the ingredients are mixed.

Taste it. Add oil, vinegar, salt, or pepper as needed.

Let sit for at least 10 minutes for flavors to blend and the pasta to cool. Then serve. Makes 4-7 dinner servings, or dinner for two plus 2-3 leftover lunches.

Ingredient Notes

Pasta: you want a short, "curly" pasta for this, such as such as strozzapreti, fusili, rotini, cavitappi, radiatore, or mafalda (as pictured). Farfalle will also work, and his is a great use for flavored pastas. Tubular pasta like penne and rigatoni, or small shapes like elbows or orzo, do not work well because they don't hold the dressing.

Cheese: you are looking for a semi-soft cheese that has distinct flavors but is not too strong. Flavored cheeses, including smoked ones, work great. Italian cheeses that work include scamorza (smoked mozz), marinated mozzarella, provalone dulce, fontina, asiago, caciocavallo, or young pecorinio. You can also use cheese curds, particularly garlic cheese curds, and manchego or gouda also can work. Plain mozzarella gets lost in the ingredients. Cheddar and feta are a bit too salty, and blue cheeses are not a good idea. If you're vegan, use vegan cheese such as Vegan Smoked Mozzarella, Babybel plant-based, or Just Like Smoked Provalone.

Veggies: At a minimum, the salad needs tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. The salad benefits from adding a few other veggies, either cooked or raw, and you don't want any specific veggie to be too strong. Strive for variety and balance, like onions and one kind of bean, or squash and olives, or herbs and peas. You're looking for 5-7 cups of diced veggies and cheese, total.

Herbs: appropriate herbs include basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro, chives, and thyme. Herbs should be chopped roughly for the salad, and minced for the dressing.

In Portland, it is once again final basil harvest. Any basil that's left in the garden will go to seed or just wilt on the cold nights, so we turn it into two things to last the rest of the year: dried basil, and pesto.

This is a recipe for preparing large quantities of pesto in the food processor. There are other ways to make pesto -- mortar & pestle, blender, hard-core knife work -- but this one is for the FP, because it's really the best tool for making a gallon of pesto to freeze for the winter.

Now, I've written about making pesto before, but I thought that recipe could use a bit more quantity precision, as well as a photo essay on exactly how to prepare and store it. So, here goes.

First, harvest all your basil and strip the leaves off the stems. Some tender stems and blossoms are fine, since we're going to puree it, but no woody stems. This will take a while. If not making the pesto immediately, bag and refrigerate for up to 24 hours.

See how dirty your basil is. It's best to avoid washing if you can, because then you need to dry it. If the bottom leaves are dirty, I usally discard those instead of washing.

Now, here's the quantities of ingredients we're working with per 11-cup food processor batch. If you have a larger FP, you could try scaling up, but I recommend instead just having it slightly less full. Where weights are given, they are more precise than the volume measurements are.

food processor pesto batch

• 3.5oz or 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 3.5oz parmesan, parmigiano, or grana padano cheese
• 1oz or 6-8 cloves peeled garlic
• 4oz or 5-6 cups loosely packed basil leaves
• 1/2 cup good olive oil (plus more for storage)
• 1 tsp table salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh-ground black pepper
• 0 to 5 Tbs water

Equipment: 11cup or 14cup food processor, baking sheets, knife or grater, spatula, measuring cups and spoons, scale, and jar funnel.

First, toast the pine nuts and the garlic. You're looking here to bring out the nutty flavors in the pine nuts, and to tame the bite of the garlic (mostly so that you can add more of it). Heat your oven to 375F and put the peeled garlic cloves and the pine nuts on baking sheets, and toast for 6-12 minutes, checking periodically. You'll know they're ready when the nuts have turned a very pale brown, and the garlic is slightly spongey to the touch (and you can eat a clove without it blasting you). It's better to under-toast here than to burn anything.

Cut the cheese into small pieces, or grate it with the large holes of a grater. It's going to get ground down in the FP, but you want it to start in small pieces first or it won't grind as fast as the other ingredients. Put the cheese, pine nuts, and garlic into the FP.

Turn the FP on and grind them until they resemble a coarse meal, like bulgur wheat. Don't pulse, it won't work well, just run it continously for 30 to 90 seconds depending on your unit.

Now, add the basil. In my 11-cup FP, I add enough basil to fill it to the top. If yours is a different size, fill accordingly. You'll be adding some 5-6 cups of loosely packed basil, or 4oz if you want to do it by weight. Pour on the 1/2 cup olive oil, the salt, and the pepper.

Now, turn on the FP and run it until the leaves incorporate, 1-3 minutes. Have some patience here; at first it'll look like the FP is just blending the nuts and garlic and isn't grabbing any leaves, and then suddenly they'll all go. When all the leaves are being chopped, stop the FP and scrape down the sides for any stuck leaves or bits of cheese, and then finish your puree with around 20 seconds more.

Now, judgement call time: see how creamy your pesto looks. If you had to wash the leaves, it'll probably already be there. If they were dry, you might need to add a little water, anywhere from 1 tablespoon to 5. Pulse the FP one more time, and check the texture. It should look like this:

You just made 13fl.oz. to 17fl.oz. of pesto! That's enough for two family-sized bowls of pasta, or 4-5 individual servings, so you want to put some away. Which means freezing, because there's no way to make pesto shelf-stable without cooking it, which would then ruin the sauce.

So, time to jar up. I recommend using 4oz jars or plastic containers, because 4oz is the right size for a small pasta serving (first course for two), two personal-sized pizzas, or a 2lbs filet of halibut. And if you need to feed more people, you can combine 4oz jars. But if you put it away in 8oz jars or pints, you'll find yourself with a half-full jar in the fridge which will expire quickly. Pesto does not keep.

So get out your jar funnel and start filling jars. Leave 1/4" headroom in each jar for ice expansion. Tap down the pesto in each jar to drive out as many air bubbles as possible, and then add a protective layer of olive oil (around 1 tsp) on top of each. Seal, and put in the freezer as soon as you can.

Now, repeat that until your basil is all gone and you have too much pesto to fit in the freezer. Give some to the neighbors.

See my older version of the recipe for notes on the ingredients.

Variations and substitutions:

• you could probably make this with vegan cheese, but I'm not sure how well it would freeze. I'd be worried about the cheese separating.
• you can definitely substitute other hard grating cheeses for the parmesan, such as asiago, dry jack, piave vecchio, or even a very aged manchego or comte. Avoid salted cheeses like pecorino romano, though, as they will make the pesto too salty.
• walnuts are also traditional, and good pestos can be made with pistacios.
• punch it up a bit by adding some red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper.

Unless you're Italian, you've probably never heard of agretti. This saltwort plant, also colorfully known as "friar's beard", is yet another one of those greens that you rarely see until you run into it at a farmer's market, then snap it up hoping you can find a recipe for it. It's a green, grassy herb, that tastes a little like seaweed and a little like celery and is quite delightful.

It's also harvested only in the spring, so hopefully you're reading this article after an internet search, because right now you can't get any more for the year. Sorry.

We discovered agretti when we were staying near the Campo di Fiori market in Rome; they had it there with a lot of vegetables we didn't recognize (including puntarelle, which maybe I'll write about later). We bought a large bunch and took it home to make an ad-hoc pasta dish using other ingredients we picked up. We've liked the result so much that every spring we buy some agretti and re-create it.

This is definitely a dish of few but exotic ingredients that you're only gonna find in a good gourmet market. In addition to the agretti, it requires trofie, a pasta made of little hand-rolled spindles of dough. While you could make it with some other pasta shape, the small size and chewy texture of the trofie really work with the crunchy brightness of the agretti. If you're really getting carried away, you can make your own.

Finally, there's the cheese, which needs to me some kind of soft but slightly funky cheese, such as taleggio, young pecorino or asiago, quadrello di bufala, or similar. The cheese definitely needs to be on the gooey/sticky side so that it melts into the pasta immediately, and you need some tang from it.

trofie con agretti

1 lbs / 500g trofie pasta
1 large or more small bunches of agretti; stripped leaves should total 2 cups
8-10oz soft tangy cheese (see above)
2-3 Tbs good olive oil
Salt
Pepper
4qt pot, very large pasta bowl, colander, heatproof cup

Fill a large pot with salted water and set it to boil for the pasta.

Strip the leaves from the agretti. We're not really cooking it, so you need to remove the little tubular leaves from any tough stems or roots. If the leaves and tender stems are long, cut them into 1-2" pieces. Put the pile of agretti leaves in the bottom of a large bowl, sufficiently large for vigorously tossing a pound of pasta in. Also get something for tossing it; I suggest salad tongs.

Remove any rind from the cheese and then divide it up into small pieces, like 1/2" cubes or blobs. Depending on the cheese, you may be able to do this with a wire or sharp knife, or you may need to pinch off blobs with your fingers.

When the water is boiling, put in the trofie. Don't do this too early; you want to have both the agretti and cheese prepped before the pasta comes out of the water. I have found that trofie actually needs to cook for a couple minutes longer than the time listed on the package. It never loses its chewiness, but it should taste fully cooked around 11-13 minutes.

When the pasta is done, dip out one cup of the pasta water (or capture it while draining), and drain the pasta. Immediately, before it can cool off at all, dump it on top of the agretti and add 1/4 cup of pasta water, Toss vigorously for around a minute, which should distribute the agretti and wilt it.

Add the cheese cubes/blobs, well distributed, and 2 Tbs olive oil. Toss some more, until the cheese melts. Add additional pasta water and olive oil as necessary until the cheese dissolves into a creamy sauce.

Season with a little salt and pepper. Serves four as a main dish, 6-8 as a first course.

(Continued from part 1)

Since our first course was fairly substantial, we took a break followed by a palate-cleansing "pomegranate soup". This soup was truly amazing for something with so few ingredients and steps involved. I really recommend that you keep the recipe (at the bottom of this post) available during pomegrante season because it is so easy and yet so tasty. Really. Until you try making it, you won't believe that anything this simple can taste this good, but it does.

And then it was time for the manti. Manti are tiny dumpings popular throughout Central and near-Eastern Asia, including Turkey, Armenia, Uzbekistan. While exact fillings and shapes differ a little, they're always tiny and labor-intensive, and served with yogurt and tomato or pepper sauce. In Armenia, lamb manti are a traditional dish for Christmas eve, so I thought they would be perfect for this meal. I'm gonna show you how labor-intensive these are, which is why I'm giving you a recipe for the soup and not for the manti. Face it, you're not making these; I'm not making them again either.

Now, one of the reasons I wanted to try making these is that, while you can sometimes find lamb or beef filled manti frozen or in fancy Turkish or Armenian restaurants, you never ever see vegetarian manti in the US, despite chickpeas being a standard filling in Turkey. So I made a paste from cooked chickpeas, onions, and spices, and set out filling a bunch of tiny pastries. The dough is a white-flour pasta dough, you roll it thing and cut it into 1.5cm squares, and fold it into a little four-cornered hat. Then repeat 200 times, because you need 25-40 of these tiny dumplings for each diner.

Due to the Armenian influence, I didn't just boil the Manti. I first baked them until lightly browned. This both adds to texture and prevents them from splitting open when boiled or steamed, which was definitely a good thing because the seals on the little dumplings were none to great. I'm not sure I'd recommend that for the chickpea manti, though; it also made them pretty dry inside, which was not a good thing. The dish up to this point having taken three hours, I put them away for the night.

Right before the meal, I boiled them in vegetable broth, to make them extra-savory.

I then plated them and dotted them with garlic yogurt sauce, and a tomato sauce I also made the day before. This was the classic manti presentation, and they were good, and I'm happy to have finally had proper chickpea manti. But I don't think I'll make them again.

Dessert (of course we had dessert) was a terrific kataifi "bread pudding". My sweetie dried out the shredded phyllo, then soaked it in a cinnamon-seasoned custard, and baked it. It was delicious and a perfect end to the meal, if surprisingly reminiscent of noodle kugle.

pomegranate soup

based on a recipe by Ghillie Basan

• 1 liter boxed veggie stock or broth (I used Imagine brand)
• 1 cup pomegranate juice
• 1-2 Tbs juice from 1 lemon
• Seeds from 1 pomegranate (about 2/3 cup)
• Salt to taste
• Fresh mint leaves (as garnish)

Heat the veggie stock to a boil. Add the pomegranate and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Bring it back to a bare simmer. Turn off and stir in the pomegranate seeds.

Taste, and adjust with a little lemon juice and/or salt.

Dish out into 4-5 bowls, making sure to get some seeds into each bowl. Garnish each bowl with sprig of mint. Serve.

The city of Shanghai as a lot of distinctive dishes (perhaps most notably soup dumplings) but there are none which are so friendly to social isolation time -- or really any time you want to throw something together in 20 minutes and one pot for a meal -- as spring onion noodles. A quick throw-together of Asian sauces, flavored oil and noodles, they can be made entirely from pantry ingredients, modified based on what's on hand, or even easily made vegan or gluten-free.

I first had these while on a food tour of Shanghai with Lost Plate Tours, and decided I had to find out how to recreate them. I started with a recipe by Chinese Cooking Demystified and added some tweaks to make it simpler and faster.

Now, I'm going to give you the whole schmear of a recipe for how I make it at home using all the proper Chinese ingredients. However, almost every ingredient in the recipe can be substituted or omitted, so don't skip this because you don't think you can get something. Read the notes at the end on substitutions. And, because it's actually a very quick recipe, requires few measurements, and is honestly very hard to mess up in a way that's not still edible, I'm calling it a Good First Recipe and giving you very explicit instructions.

The first part of this is making the green onion oil. My recipe below makes a quart, because the oil actually keeps quite well for up to 5 months in a cool pantry, or probably longer in the fridge, and it's actually easier to make a large batch than a small one. Plus, once you taste the oil, you'll want to use it on other dishes like steamed fish.

green onion oil

• 1 quart vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
• 3-5 bunches scallions, 1/2 to 3/4 pound

Wash the scallions and dry them very well. Cut off the roots and any ragged ends, and then cut apart the green and white parts. Cut the green parts into 2" pieces. Split the white parts in half lengthwise, or in quarters if they're thick. Then cut those into 2" pieces.

Put all the onion pieces into the oil. Heat it until the onions start sizzling, and then leave it over medium heat until all the onion pieces turn brown and the sizzling decreases. Set aside to cool.

Pour oil and burnt onion pieces into a glass jar and store in a cool cupboard or the fridge for up to 5 months. If you are concerned about food safety, use the fridge.

Once you have your oil, you can make the noodles any time you like.

spring onion noodles

For two diners, scale up as needed. Note that almost every ingredient below can be substituted.

• 12oz Shanghai-style wheat noodles
• 2 Tbs tiny dried shrimp
• 2 Tbs Shaoxing Wine
• 2 Tbs light soy sauce
• 1 Tbs dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 4 Tbs scallion oil (recipe below)
• Fried onions from the scallion oil, about 2 Tbs
• Fresh green onions, sliced thin, about 1/2 cup
• Salt & Water
• Equipment: large (4qt+) pot, steamer of some kind that fits it

Fill the pot with water, salt it, and set it to boil. Prepare two small cups or bowls that will fit together in the steamer. In one, put the dried shrimp, Shaoxing wine, and 2 Tbs water. In the other put the light and dark soy sauce and sugar. Put the steamer over the pot, and steam for 10 minutes.

Remove the steamer from the pot (but keep it on heat). Strain the dried shrimp, letting the shrimpy wine liquid drain into the soy sauce mixture. Mix that, making sure no sugar granules remain. Mince up the dried shrimp and set them aside.

Boil the noodles until cooked, 2-4 minutes depending on variety. Quickly, drain the noodles, and then divide them between two large bowls. Drizzle 2 Tbs scallion oil on each. On top of the noodles, put half the fresh green onions, half the minced shrimp, and a small pile of fried green onions. Drizzle half the sauce (2-3 Tbs) on each bowl.

Hand each bowl to your two diners, allowing them to mix the noodles themselves.

substitutions

Noodles: Shanghai noodles are a white, round, wheat noodle slightly narrower than spaghetti. You can replace them in this recipe with almost any relatively thin, eggless Asian wheat noodle, such as the "dried udon" available at many markets (what I used in the photo at the top), or even Korean knife-cut noodles. You can even use angel hair pasta, although it won't absorb the sauce as well. For a gluten-free option, use glass (mung bean) noodles.

Dried Shrimp: if you can't get these from an Asian or Mexican market, or if you want to make this recipe vegan, just omit them. If not using them, then omit the 2 Tbs water from the sauce, and mix all sauce ingredients together in one bowl before steaming. In this version, you could also boil the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan instead of steaming.

Shaoxing Wine: in many/most places in the US, you either can't find this or can only find the salted "cooking" version (check the label for salt), which would make this recipe too salty. If you can't get the good stuff, use a medium or dry sherry instead.

Light Soy Sauce: any lighter variety of soy sauce would work, including Tamari. I use Pearl River Bridge Light Soy Sauce.

Dark Soy Sauce: a sweeter, darker soy sauce with a molasses flavor. If you can't get this, then replace all the soy sauce with a richer, darker regular soy sauce like Kikoman, and double the amount of sugar.

If you want to make this entirely from pantry ingredients, the fresh green onions are optional.

So we're into the sixth week of isolation, and you've already mastered sourdough. What's next? Well, making your own cheese, of course!

While many cheeses like cheddar or brie require special aging environments, there's several cheeses that either require no aging at all, or can be aged in a household fridge. The obvious one to start with is ricotta, which is probably the easiest cheese there is and has the benefit of being worlds better fresh-made than from a store. But after you've done that, what's next?

Well, in Italy we were introduced to crescenza (aka stracchino), which is a very young, soft-curd cheese ideal for melting over pasta. Because it's a young cheese with a short shelf-life, it's really really hard to find for sale in the US. It also goes great with a lot of veggies that are in season right now, like asparagus, fiddleheads, and agretti. It doesn't require special cheese cultures you need to mail-order, and you can "age" it in the fridge. So let's make some!

The below is based on a recipe from Ricki Carroll's Home Cheesemaking, a book I heartily recommend to anyone interested in getting started with making cheese.

crescenza cheese

1 gallon of milk
1/4 tsp calcium chloride (if milk is pasteurized)
1 Tbs fine salt
2-3 oz live culture yogurt, Bulgarian or Russian style
1/8 tsp liquid rennet or 1/4 rennet tablet
non-chlorinated water
equipment: large pot, large spoon, long knife, instand-read thermometer, 2 cylindrical cheese molds (but see note), 2 cheese mats (but see note)

Slowly heat the milk up to 100F/38C. If using, dilute the calcium chloride in 1/4 cup water and add. Stir in the salt, then the yogurt. Cover and keep at 100F for 30-45 min.

Dilute the rennet in 1/4 cup water, and stir in for 30 seconds. Cover and let sit (keeping at 100F) for another 60 minutes, at which point the curd should give a clean break. Cut the curd into 3-inch cubes and let "heal" for 30 min. Cut the curds in quarters, and carefully and gently stir them around. Cover, let sit 5 minutes, and stir them again. Do this twice more.

The curds should sink; spoon off most of the whey from the top. Ladle the curds into the two molds, trying to distribute them evenly. Place the mat across the top of each mold and flip it over. Let them drain for an hour, then flip them back over, and then do this twice more (3 hours total). Finally, let the cheeses rest in the molds for at least 4 hours, ideally 8, and preferably in a room that's between 72F and 78F.

Remove the cheeses from the molds, carefully because they will be very delicate and soft. Put them on the mats in a big tupperware and put it in the fridge. Let age for 3-5 days, periodically taking them out and draining out any excess liquid.

Once you're ready, you can put the cheese on pasta, although it's equally good on bread.

Note: the yogurt really needs to be Bulgarian or Russian style, because those contain some different cultures (Y-1 yogurt culture) from other yogurts. On the West Coast, I recommend Pavel's brand.

Equipment Substitution: you can also use ricotta molds for this cheese. If you don't have cheese molds at all, get two empty 1qt yogurt tubs and punch a few 1/8" holes in them at different levels, four holes in the bottom and 12 holes around the outside. For cheese draining mats, you can use sushi rolling mats, or a relatively tight-mesh cooling rack, or basically anything that forms a tight mesh and can be sterilized.

pasta with crescenza, fiddleheads, and asparagus

1 lbs short, ruffly pasta (campanelle, farfalle, torchietti, garganelle, etc.)
12 oz cresenza cheese
10-12oz skinny asparagus, stemmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
8-12 oz fiddleheads
small bunch chives, minced, about 3 Tbs
salt
black pepper

Boil a 4-6qt pot full of salted water. Blanch the asparagus and fiddleheads, together, for about 2-3 minutes. Drain and put in a big bowl. Top with the chives and the crescenza cheese, diced small or pinched into small blobs.

Cook the pasta (you can use the same water from the blanching) until al dente. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta water. While still very hot, toss the pasta with the cheese and veggies. Add pasta water as needed to make it creamy. Salt and pepper to your taste, and optionally drizzle with olive oil. Serves 4.

Note: you'll notice that this is essentially the same recipe as the taleggio pasta

Since Passover is now done with, we can get back to simple recipes to sustain you through self-isolation time. We're back with more "hot pasta tossed with stuff" this week, with a decidedly springtime twist.

Now, our last "tossed hot pasta" recipe was hot pasta & eggs. But "hot pasta & cheese" is also a big thing, as I'll show you. Overall, I can't overemphasize how useful it is to master the basic tossed hot pasta technique for being able to turn out a variety of tasty meals, with minimal ingredients, in a really short time.

There are four tricks to good hot tossed pasta recipes:

1. Use a large, insulating bowl (ceramic, glass or wood) at room temperature;
2. Make sure non-pasta ingredients are at room temperature or slightly warm;
3. Reserve some pasta water and use it later;
4. Get the pasta from boiling water into the bowl of ingredients quickly and toss vigorously.

This particular recipe has only six ingredients, including salt. That does mean, though, that you have to pay some attention to the ingredients.

First, like for other simple pasta recipes, buying somewhat better dried pasta pays off here. Even major supermarkets carry "bronze die" or other higher end pastas these days, and it's worth the extra $1 to $3 to get those for one of these simple recipes. For this one, we want a short, stubby pasta. I used strozzapreti (literally "priest stranglers"), but penne, fusilli, gemelli, or any short, straight, and not too big pasta shape will work here.

Second, the cheese I used is taleggio, which is a very soft and gooey, but pungent Italian cheese. There are a number of cheeses you could substitute, including robiola, cresenza, and teleme, or fancy gooey American cheeses like Red Hawk or Harbison. The key is that the cheese needs to be very soft, very moist, and yet have a pungent flavor, becuase there's not a lot of other seasoning in the recipe. Despite the similarity of texture, though, brie and camembert will not work -- they're too "chalky".

As a variant on this recipe, though, you could use chevre instead of the gooey cheese. I've done that before and it was also very tasty. It just required a bit more pasta water for texture.

Either way, this is a better "tossed hot pasta & cheese" recipe to start with than, say, cacio e pepe, which is a lot more sensitive to timing and temperature. Both taleggio and chevre are pretty forgiving if you maybe take too long or get things too hot.

Asparagus & Taleggio Pasta

1 lbs skinny asparagus
Salt
1 lbs short pasta, like penne rigate or strozzapreti
1 lbs taleggio, or substitute (see above)
Fresh oregano, basil, thyme or parsley, about 3 tbs minced, or 2 tsp dried oregano and/or basil
Fresh ground black pepper
Equipment: 4qt pot, large wide bowl, knife & cutting board, cheese wire

Set a 3-4qt pot of heavily salted water (2 tsp per quart) to boil on the stove. Stem the asparagus (i.e. cut off the bottom 2-3") and cut it into 1" lengths. Cook it in the boiling water for 2-3 minutes, depending on how skinny it is. Strain it out and set it aside. If you can do this without dumping out the water, using a spider or similar, you can immediately reuse that water for the pasta. Put the asparagus in a large, wide bowl.

Remove the rind from the cheese (losing 2-3 oz in the process). Using a wire or very thin knife and a lot of swearing, cut it into 1/4" cubes. If you don't have the tools for this, just pinch small blobs off with your fingers. Drop the cubes or blobs on top of the asparagus, together with the minced herbs, and some fresh-ground pepper. Try to spread these out evenly across the bottom of the bowl.

Put the pasta in the boiling water (either the water you used for the asparagus, or if you had to dump that, new salty water you just boiled). Cook until "al dente" which pretty much just means "done but not mushy", usually the time given on the package.

Strain the pasta, somehow reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Very quickly, before the pasta can cool at all, dump it into the bowl and start tossing it with the asparagus, herbs, and cheese. The cheese should melt and form a gooey sauce on the pasta; if it seems a bit dry, add the pasta water, 2-3 Tbs at a time, until it's creamy but not wet.

Serve right away, with a salad and wine. Makes 4-5 portions.

Here's a super-fast, tasty pasta recipe you may be able to make from ingredients you have in your pantry right now. Like other dishes I'm publishing for quarantine month, fresh ingredients in it are minimal. It's also a Good First Recipe.

The name of this dish comes from the mock-Latin aphorism "illegitimati non carborundum", which supposedly translates to "don't let the bastards grind you down" (this also appears in the Handmaid's Tale as "nolite te bastardes carborundorum"). It's an extra play on words, since the recipe started as a vegetarian variant of Pasta Carbonara that our family gradually modified to be more interesting. The sentiment is also perfect for the current world circumstances.

Like any of the many pasta dishes that depend on tossing hot pasta with eggs or dairy, the key to this dish is timing. You need to have the egg-and-cheese mixture beaten and waiting in a bowl, so that you can take the hot pasta directly from the boiling pot and drop it in the sauce, and then toss it immediately. Do not drain it in a colander in the sink. The elapsed time from the pasta being cooked to serving the dish should be less than two minutes.

If you master this, you can make dozens of easy pasta dishes, including Cacio e Pepe, alla Gricia, and Fettucine Alfredo. And, of course, traditional Spaghetti alla Carbonara. Since beaten-egg sauces are more forgiving than cheese, pork fat, or butter-and-cheese, I recommend starting with a recipe like this one.

So, some additional tips to help you in your mastery:

1. Grab a salad tossing set, two big serving forks, or salad or BBQ "hands" to toss the pasta. While TV chefs are fond of using metal tongs, I've found that it's extremely hard to toss pasta effectively using them.
2. You want a room-temperature, or slightly warm, bowl to toss the pasta with its sauce. If you toss it in the cooking pot, the sauce will overheat and become clumpy (this is the #1 cause of Cacio e Pepe failures). Ideally, this will be a large, heavy ceramic or glass bowl. To save dishes, this can/should be your serving bowl as well.
3. Each of the "tossed" pasta recipes has its own recommended pasta to use, and there's reasons for that that have to do with flexibility and heat retention. Substituting pastas may result in the sauce failing, so if you have it available you should try to use the recommended pasta. In the case of Pasta Non Carborundum, I strongly recommend linguine, because you want a thicker pasta than spaghetti to retain enough heat to cook the sauce ingredients.
4. Unless you have special equipment, these recipes scale up poorly. With too much pasta at once, the sauce will not emulsify. Instead of trying to make a quadruple batch for a crowd, set things up so that you can do multiple batches in a row.

pasta non carborundum

12oz linguine or similar
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup good olive oil
2-3 tbs lemon juice
1/2 cup finely grated pecorino romano, grana padano, or parmigiano cheese
2 oz sun-dried tomatoes, chopped or cut into slivers, around 3/4 cup
minced parsley, around 1/2 cup
salt "to taste" (see below)
fresh ground pepper, around 1/2 tsp

equipment: pasta pot, large heavy bowl, tossing forks, whisk, pasta strainer, tongs or fork

Heat up a 4qt or larger pot with well-salted water (1 tsp per liter of water), until it boils.

Beat the eggs with the olive oil and lemon juice in the large heavy bowl. Mix in the pepper, any salt, the cheese, and minced tomatoes and parsley. Set next to the stove.

In the boiling water, cook the pasta slightly past "al dente" according to the package instructions. For most linguine, this will be 10 to 11 minutes.

As soon as the pasta is done, grab it out of the pot and drop it in the bowl (or strain it, reserving some pasta water, and immediately dump it in before it cools). Toss the pasta with the sauce ingredients right away, scraping the bottom of the bowl to make sure that all ingredients are incorporated. If the pasta seems a little dry, add a little (1/4 to 1/2 cup) of pasta cooking water and toss again.

Serve immediately. Serves 2 as a main dish and 3-4 as a side dish. Do not save leftovers.

Notes on ingredients:

Dried Linguine is the ideal pasta for this dish, and it even works with whole wheat linguine. You can make it with spaghetti, but the thinner pasta requires faster, more determined tossing. It would probably work with fettucine or pappardelle too, but angel hair won't work, nor will short, "stubby" pastas like penne.

Cheese and Salt: if using pecorino romano, you'll want to add either no salt, or up to 1/4 tsp salt to the mix. If using parmigiano, you'll want a little more, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 tsp.

Parsley could be replaced with basil or cilantro, or even dried herbs (in which case use 2 tsp instead of the 1/2 cup).

It's St. Patrick's Day, which of course makes you think of ... pasta?

Well, apparently it does if you're Costco. In honor of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland (in a green minivan, presumably), Costco has provided us with luridly green ravioli stuffed with Irish cheddar. Which my sweetie bought.

The back of the package has a recipe for "Irish vodka sauce," which was the most preposterous thing I'd ever heard of. What could I dress these with without using cabbage or dulse or corned beef?

Based on a trip to Safeway I came up with this, mostly celebrating springtime and green things rather than anything particularly Irish. If you have a recipe for corned beef and cabbage sauce, you can leave it in the comments.

Irish cheddar ravioli with leeks, asparagus and new potatoes

1lbs Irish cheddar-stuffed ravioli
3/4 lbs tiny new potatoes, halved
3-4 large leeks, around 1.5 lbs, trimmed, washed, halved, and sliced 1/8" thin.
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin
1 lbs trimmed thick asparagus, bias-cut
1/2 tsp dried thyme, or 1 Tbs fresh leaves
2 Tbs butter
3 Tbs olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
Salt & pepper
Cheese for grating, such as pecorino romano

Heat up a big honkin' pot of salted water, preferably with a strainer insert or basket, until it simmers. Put the new potatoes in it and parboil them, around 7 minutes. Lift them out of the water (or scoop them out if you don't have a strainer insert), and put the water back over low heat. Drain and blot dry.

While the potatoes are parboiling, put the butter, olive oil, and sliced garlic in a large, deep saucepan (I used a 14" one with 2" sides). Heat medium-high, until the butter melts and the garlic starts sizzling. Add the leeks and cook until just limp, around 3 minutes.

Add the potatoes and the asparagus. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about another 3-4 minutes. Add the thyme and pour over the wine. Put a lid on the pan and let the vegetables steam for 2 minutes. Remove the lid and reduce heat.

Put the ravioli in the big pot of water, cook for two minutes, and drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water. Add the ravioli to the pan of ingredients, and mix together. Add enough pasta water to make everything damp and saucey.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve. Pass grating cheese at the table.

(this is an old post from four years ago, reprinted by request. I know this is the wrong time of year for this recipe, but I'm about to go to the Sourthern Hemisphere)

A few years ago there was an excellent Italian restaurant in Jacksonville, Oregon called "Caterina's". Unfortunately, it was a little too gourmet for the Rogue Valley and Caterina soon found she could be more successful, with less work, doing catering and Italy tours. However, she did give me a recipe for one of her signature dishes, Lasagna per L'Estate ("Summer Lasagna"). Her original recipe was a little too "restaurant" for home use (some ingredients needed to be chilled overnight, and it was cooked in single-serve portions) so I modified and adapted it, and (as I usually do) added more vegetables to make it into a one-casserole meal.

I present it here as a lighter-feeling lasagna for August when summer vegetables are at their peak (oh, and before you ask ... "Fabio" was my nickname in Italian class).

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs fresh pasta sheets, rolled medium-thin (#5 on KitchenAid)

The Vegetables

• 1 large eggplant, about 1 1/2 lbs, peeled and sliced about ½ inch thick
• About 1 ½ lbs zucchini or summer squash, sliced ½ inch thick
• 2 red bell peppers, cored and halved
• 2 lbs of ripe tomatoes, sliced medium
• 1 large bunch fresh basil, half of it chiffonade (shredded)
• 3/4 cup garlic-flavored olive oil
• salt

The Bechamel

• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ white or yellow onion, minced
• 8oz fresh spinach, chopped
• 4 tbs butter
• 4 tbs flour
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 3 cups milk (nonfat ok), room temperature
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp ground pepper
• 4 oz parmigiano, grated
• 2 beaten eggs

Plus:

• 8 oz fresh mozzarella balls, sliced ¼” thick
• salt and pepper

Equipment: 2 cookie sheets, parchment,
brush, large wide lasagna pan (I use a glass pan 15" x 10" x
2.5"), foil or lid, large nonstick pot, non-scratch whisk,
rubber spatula, plus pasta-making equipment if you want to make your own.

Instructions:

First off, do you have at least 2 hours to make this? If not, make something else.

Before you start preparing the vegetables, place two racks in the oven with enough space to use both, and heat the oven to 400F.

Slice the vegetables. Line the two cookie sheets with parchment. Place the sliced eggplant, zucchini, and bell peppers on them, and brush them with some of the garlic olive oil, and sprinkle them lightly with salt. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the eggplant and zucchini starts getting soft and browned on the edges.

In the meantime, make the bechamel.

Melt the butter in the large non-stick pot. When it foams, add the garlic and onion; saute until the onion is translucent. Add the flour and stir until it clumps up. Add the spinach and thyme and stir until wilted. Add the milk and wisk until blended, then turn heat down to medium-low. Whisking frequently, add the nutmeg, pepper and half the basil, and continue to whisk until the bechamel thickens, about 10 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the parmigiano, until blended. Set aside to cool.

By now the vegetables should be done.
Set them aside to cool, too. Roll out the pasta dough at this time, if you're making your own. If you're not, then go make yourself a drink and get a magazine; everything will take at least 20 minutes to cool off. Leave the oven on, though. Slice the peppers in to strips.

Okay, now you're ready to build the lasagna. This has lots of layers. Start by brushing the inside of the pan with the remaining garlic olive oil. Then, build in this order from the bottom to the top:

Half the tomato slices (with a little salt & pepper)

first layer of noodles

coat the first layer of noodles completely with ¼ of the bechamel

zucchini slices, surrounded by half the pepper strips and lightly sprinkled with salt and pepper

second layer of noodles

coat the second layer of noodles completely with ¼ of the bechamel

eggplant slices, surrounded by the rest
of the pepper strips and lightly sprinkled with salt and pepper

third layer of noodles

coat the third layer of noodles completely with the rest of the bechamel

the rest of the tomato slices (plus salt & pepper)

Then, cover it loosely with greased foil (or a greased lid) and bake for 25 minutes. Take the lasagna out, uncover, and poke down any bubbles. Scatter the mozzarella slices and the whole basil leaves over the top of the lasagna and put it back in the over for another 15 minutes, or until the mozzarella browns in spots.

While it's baking, make heirloom tomato crostini for your guests who are dying of hunger while smelling the cooking lasagna.

Allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving. Serves 6-8 as a main course.

Notes: I find it helps to make your lasagna in a broader, shallower pan like the 15” by 10” mentioned above, rather than a deeper, narrower pan. The lasagna cooks faster and doesn't end up soupy. Also, fresh pasta is really the way to go for making lasagna; it's less of a pain than pre-cooked pasta, but cooks better than dry pasta, even the “instant” lasagna noodles. Also, it's much easer to lay out in the pan and trim to fit than dry pasta. However, supermarket fresh pasta sheets may be a little thick – you really want noodles which are between 1mm and 2mm thick.

• 1 bunch Tuscan cabbage (lacinato kale), about 1lbs (400g)
• 4-6 cloves garlic (depending on size), peeled whole
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 1 lemon
• 1 tsp or so salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• pepper grinder
• 3 to 6oz parmigiano, pecorino romano, or similar Italian grating cheese
• 1lbs (400g) potato gnocchi (store bought or home-made)
• two large pots, skewer, cheese grater, blender/food processor, cup measure

Fill both pots with warm water and put them on the stove to heat. One is for the gnocchi; salt the water as you normally would. The other is for the kale; salt it substantially, with at least 1 tsp salt.

Trim, chop and wash the kale. While the kale is soaking, but the garlic cloves on the skewer and poach them in the kale cooking pot for about 4 minutes. This will tame their flavor; otherwise you will end up with "gnocchi al Hulk".

When the garlic is poached, put the kale in the water and cook it for 1 to two minutes. If you are looking to preserve the brightest color scoop it out and dunk it in cold water. Otherwise, just drain the pot, reserving 1 cup of the salty kale water.

Put the blanched kale, garlic, olive oil, 1 squeeze of lemon (around 1 tsp), nutmeg, and several grinds of pepper (around 1/4 tsp) in the blender or food processor. Puree until reduced to a sauce consistency; if it's too thick, add the reserved kale water a little at a time until it's fairly smooth. Adjust seasonings for balance, using salt, pepper, and additional squeezes of lemon juice if required.

Cook the gnocchi in the other pot. Drain and toss the gnocchi with the pesto. Serve, and top with generous gratings of the cheese, or better: hand your guests the cheese and a hand-grater to serve themselves.

Variations:

• Spring version: replace the garlic cloves with 3-4 stalks blanched green garlic.
• Creamy version: add 1 cup ricotta cheese to the pesto when pureeing.
• Nutty version: add 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts or almonds to the pesto while pureeing.