Spaghetti with cheese and black pepper (or Spaghetti cacio e pepe if you want to sound impressive)

Bethie sent this to me from Smitten Kitten:

Adapted very loosely from Mario Batali

As I’ve mentioned, for something with such a simple ingredient list this dish manages to fall all over the map. Some versions use just oil, no butter, some use neither oil of butter; some stud the sauce with large, barely cracked peppercorns and half-melted pebbles of romano; some opt for a smoother cheese, cacio de roma, which I located, auditioned and discovered I liked the saltier and more accessible Pecorino Romano better. There are a lot of ways to approach the dish and people who will find something inauthentic with each of them. I say ignore them all and just enjoy your spaghetti.

Serves 4 as a main, 8 as a first course

1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound dried spaghetti
2 tablespoons butter
4 ounces Pecorino Romano cheese, finely grated
1 1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
Salt (optional)

Cook spaghetti in well-salted water to your al dente tastes in a large, wide-bottomed pot. (You’ll have fewer dishes to wash if you use this pot to assemble the dish as well.) Drain spaghetti, reserving 1 1/2 cups of pasta cooking water.

Dry out your pot, then heat the olive oil over high heat until almost smoking. Add drained spaghetti and 1 cup of reserved pasta water and jump back, this will splatter mightily, also known as “I made this three times, and never once learned my lesson. Do as I say, not as I do.”

Add butter, 3 ounces cheese and ground pepper and toss together with tongs. Taste, adding more pasta water, cheese, pepper or salt (which should not be neccessary, as Romano is very salty) to taste.

Serve immediately, sprinkling with reserved cheese and an extra grind or two of black pepper.

RESULTS: This was really easy and the taste, proportionally, was way impressive for the work put into it. Chris had concerns about the pouring spaghetti and water into hot oil thing, but I was using our really tall spaghetti pot and I had the lid on hand to slap over the top immediately and minimize disaster.

When I read the recipe, I was thinking, what's the big difference between this and just putting butter and cheese over spaghetti our your plate? I think the pasta water makes all the difference. It comes out looking and tasting like a less-heavy cheesy alfredo sauce. We were in a hurry to eat, so I didn't make any vegetables or meat to go with this, but I think you really need it. It's just a little too plain to eat as an entire meal, but it would be delightful as a side to sauteed mushrooms or some fish or chicken. (So says me. Chris, who happily makes himself pasta and butter for dinner each and every time I don't cooks something believes it wasn't plain at all.)

New spice!

I found a fun new item in the spice section. Old Hickory Smoked Salt. I've already had it on sauteed greens, homemade kettle chips, tortellini... regular salt is ruined for me. Ruined!

warm spinach salad

Lately I've been really into making a warm spinach salad based on the recipe for Warm Spicy Greens with Bacon and Eggs in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, which is a great cookbook, by the way. But I think you could basically make it anyway you want, so I'm not going to type up the recipe, I'll just give you the basics.

Warm some olive oil in a skillet and saute, brown, toast or otherwise cook whatever in the salad (other than the egg) that needs to be cooked. I've been doing some onions and chopped almonds. Bittman does bacon and shallots. I've also thrown some dried fruit in the skillet in the end to warm them up, and I tried a segmented orange at the VERY end. I think the important thing is to remember cooking times. Onion takes longer to cook and is less likely to suddenly burn on you than almonds, so put the onions in first and get those almost done, then throw in the almonds. You're on your own with the bacon, I've never been good at that.

Make the dressing by putting in the skillet whatever you want, in addition to the olive oil. I've been using dijon mustard and red wine vinegar (and salt and pepper). Be careful not to have the skillet too hot, or the mustard will do weird stuff. Low to medium-low is good.

Mix in the greens, either by throwing them in the skillet and tossing it there or by pouring the dressing over the greens in the bowl. I like spinach slightly wilted much better than raw, so I've been mixing it in the skillet and letting it sit for a little bit.

Top with a poached egg or a medium-boiled egg.

This really hits the spot when I get home from swimming laps at the gym.

Fried Mississippi Catfish

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• ¾ cup cornmeal
• ½ flour mixed with ¼ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• Catfish fillets (allow at least one 7-9 oz fillet/person)
• Vegetable oil—Enough to put 3 inches in a dutch oven type pan.

Directions
Mix the dry ingredients together. The fish should be moist to capture the batter—do not towel dry. Coat the fish evenly in the dry ingredients and drop in the hot oil (360 degrees). Do not overcrowd the pan. The fish will turn golden brown and float to the top when done. Remove and place on absorbent paper—a brown grocery bag topped with paper towels works great. Serve with hush puppies, cornbread and or sweet potato fries!!!

Results
This was my FIRST deep-frying experiment, and turned out pretty well. Chris and I both liked the catfish, but we also bought really fresh catfish from our local coffee shop (this is an AWESOME coffee shop). It wasn't fishy at all. In fact, one might say that the catfish itself didn't have much flavor. It was all in the batter. It was really moist and the texture was excellent.

One challenge I found was that it was really hard to maintain the oil at a constant temperature. It got hot really fast, but then the temperature plummeted when I put the catfish in it. I did them in two batches, and the first batch took about 5-8 minutes to cook, but the second batch took about 2 minutes to cook. It was pretty confusing. Also, my eyes are still burning from the cayenne vaporizing into the air.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

I got this from one of my new favorite blogs-by-people-I-don't know, Love and Olive Oil.

Makes approx. 3-4 dozen.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup milk or soy milk
• 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 14 oz dark chocolate candy coating (or 14 oz dark chocolate if you want to try tempering the chocolate)

Directions

1. Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add soymilk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed (or by hand) until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.
2. Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.
3. When dough is firm enough to handle (it may help to lightly flour your hands), form dough into 1″ balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in freezer and let chill for 30 minutes.
4. Melt chocolate candy coating in a double boiler or in microwave according to package directions. Using forks or a dipping tool, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. Tap fork on side of pan to remove any excess coating, and return to waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container for up to 1 week (though good luck making them last that long).

RESULTS:
At some point in the middle of making these I was struck with the thought of how they were just wrong. We all crave raw cookie dough, but it's the danger of the raw eggs that keeps us from indulging. (and, let's face it, that danger is part of the appeal, no?) And now here's this recipe that says, go ahead, eat all the raw cookie dough you want. It won't kill you, at least, not immediately. But, believe me, they are oh so good. Chris is very mad that I took some to a party and am sending another batch to my old (and now redux) office in Bloomington.

I say make the balls whatever size you want. I yet again used my melon baller. I have yet to use that thing to ball melons, but it gets a lot of use.

If you're wondering, like I am, why the recipe includes baking soda when there's no need for leavening, the author said it adds a little something to lend to the authenticity of the cookie taste. Leave it out if you don't want it.

Kathleen's winter vegetable soup

Kathleen made this for me the last time I visited. K, if you want this to be a secret recipe, I'll take it down. It was just so good! Also, this is one of the few recipes that I actually followed faithfully. :)

1 small festival or acorn squash, skinned, cleaned & diced (this is the hardest part of the soup.. its time consuming to cut a raw squash)
1 large sweet potato skinned & diced
2 parsnips diced
1 large onion diced
(the goal is to have about equal parts of each of the 4 items)

saute the above in a few tablespoons of olive oil

after 8 mins or so of sauteing, add 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp thyme, salt and pepper to taste
saute for 2 more minutes
add 4-8 cups of your favorite veggie or chicken broth. Adjust amount so you feel like its just a little less than the right amount of liquid for the amount of veggies you have above. Simmer for 10-20 mins or until all veggies are tender
finally, add about 1/2 to 1 cup of half and half, wisk in to combine.

Candlelit snowshoe hike... but no.

So Chris was out of town last weekend, but there was a candlelit snowshoe walk at a nearby reserve that I REALLY wanted to go to. My spidey-sense was warning me about the idea of going snowshoeing by myself in the woods, in the dark, but I thought that if there were enough people who go to these things, then I wouldn't have to worry about creepy/dangerous men too much. After all, if it was shoe-to-shoe crowded, what could happen?

So I asked Betty, a woman I work with who loves to snowshoe, if she had been to these things before. She said she hadn't, but I asked her anyway if she thought it would be a problem if I went by myself. She started telling me a story about how she went walking through her property alone one night tracking a deer that her husband had shot, when she suddenly realized how stupid she was being.... because there are so many coyotes around. Now, I hadn't even considered coyotes as being a problem. Betty directed me to Randy, who had been to the reserve for a nighttime snowshoe, to ask him if he thought I should worry about coyotes.

Well, I asked Randy what he thought about a woman going alone, and he initially said he thought it would be fine... but, oh wait, there's that wolf pack in the area!!!

Needless to say, I didn't go. Next thing people would be talking about cougars or bears or something. I'll just wait and go sometime with my nice tall non-bite-sized husband.