Seared scallops and ravioli in a peas, mint and feta salad

I've been working in the bush this summer. I'm gone for 5 days straight and so when I get home I barely have time to catch up with the world and then I'm gone again. The job, though excessively demanding physically, wouldn't be so bad if I could be home at night. Thankfully I only have a week of this to go.

When I do get home I like to treat myself and my fiancé to good food. She's also working very hard this summer so we really do need some time to focus on living the life we want to live and not one centred around work, work, work. That's why I prepared this meal. That and because I was seriously craving to make something delicious.

This dish is a combination of four different elements:

1) sea scallops seared in a very hot pan till they're crispy on the outside and moist on the inside

2) purchased cheese ravioli

3) a salad of sweet peas, radishes and mint from my garden with red onions and a mustard seed, red wine vinegar and olive oil dressing

4) a sprinkle of feta cheese on top of everything

Since it's pretty hot here recently I wanted to serve this dish warm. So I let the ravioli cool down after they'd boiled, mixed it in with the salad which had been getting happy in the fridge and then topped each bowl with the seared scallops sprinkled with feta cheese. The mint sprig is just to make it all pretty.

All in all, this was a great dish, very fresh and totally satisfying.

P.S. we have a new camera which, as you can see, takes amazing picture (Sony A55)

Boudin Blanc

Boudin is french for blood sausage. Boudin blanc would therefore mean white blood sausage. However, whilst talking to my friendly market charcutier, he informed me that there is no blood in white blood sausage. The name, he says, comes from the fact that the same casing is used for blood sausage and white blood sausage.

The sausage is actually made of milk and chicken in a sort of sponge form which I found out fries really quickly. For this meal, I cut the boudin blanc into discs, fried them and incorporated them into what is becoming a staple tomato sauce and homemade ravioli dish.

The taste of the whole thing was pretty good especially when accompanied by a bit of Italian Chianti. However, I have to admit that white fat sausages are sort of weird. But I bought them anyways. Cause I'm just that crazy....

P.S. Sorry for the crappy photo quality. Not much sunlight during supper time up here in the northern winter. And the flash just makes food look disgusting.

Garlic Shrimp Ravioli

You might have noticed that we eat alot of ravioli. Every week actually. Hell, they're fresh, handmade and will turn you off all other pasta for all time. So what's not to like, especially when you add delicious stuff to them like garlic butter shrimp.

For this particular recipe I can take no credit. This was all my girlfriends doing. So here is what she did. First she melted a good bit of butter in a pan with alot of crushed garlic...we seem to love the stuff...maybe even unhealthily. Once the butter was all nice and garlicky, she plopped in some shrimp, added thyme and oregano. She cooked the ravioli in the meantime, saving a tablespoon or so of the pasta water to add to the butter and then served it all topped with a good heaping mound of grated parmesan cheese.

Beat that Red Lobster!

Organic garlic and gardening escapades

I think it would be fair to say that for most of us, garlic is just garlic. Unfortunately, our culinary knowledge is mostly formed by what's available in supermarkets so here in North America we are ignorant at the best of times. So you can imagine my surprise when I volunteered at Amarosia Organic garden and was put to the tast of sorting through a dozen varieties of garlic.

That wet and cold day was the first time I've ever been able to chat with my friendly neighbourhood organic gardeners. They're winding down their season now so can finally take a breath only to find themselves blathering on with me about topics as varied as farm economics to long-distance familial relationships. Besides the cold, it was a great day. And Rowena was kind enough to send me home with a knob of horseradish, a few garlic cloves and some Russian cooking tomatoes who's exact name I forget.

Now the catch was that I had to sample the garlic raw in order to really appreciate the different characteristics of each garlic variety. So to the utter displeasure of my girlfriend, I munched on some raw garlic whilst preparing a super garlicky tomato sauce. Here are my impressions of the different varieties I sampled raw: 1) the hot and spicy variety was rather mild with only a slight spice; 2) on the other hand, the roja variety had a good spicy kick and it's taste was reminiscent of green onions; 3) finally, the music variety of large garlic cloves was also spicy with an almost fruity aftertaste which was quite pleasant. As for the other varieties, they went unlabelled so I couldn't really tell you what their individual characteristics are. Best talk to Rowena.

Seeing as I was graced with so much garlic, horseradish and cooking tomatoes, my obvious reaction was to make a tomato sauce for our farmer's market bought ravioli. I first sweated an onion along with some celery, then added the dozen chopped cooking tomatoes, some fresh horseradish, oregano, thyme, a bit of anchovy paste, a splash of white wine, salt and pepper. Now seeing as Rowena had advised me that the garlic varieties lose their individuality once cooked, I chose to "infuse" the garlic into the sauce rather than cook it. What I mean by that is that I cooked the sauce till the tomatoes had broken up and everything was reduced, took the pot off the fire, and stirred the half dozen sliced garlic cloves into the sauce. So they didn't really cook. The sauce was more like the hot water and the garlic was the tea...if that makes any sense.

Along with handmade fresh ravioli, a good handful of grated grated parmesan, capers, and a glug of quality cold pressed olive oil, this was a smashing albight stinky success. I love garlic.

Thanks Rowena.

Ravioli with Minted Peas and Lamb

I know you're asking yourself the question. And yes. It was as good as it sounds.

I basically just cooked some frozen peas in a bit of water with the mint. I then drained these and smothered them in olive oil, letting them sit for a bit with a bit of salt and pepper. In the meantime, I boiled my market bought ravioli and pan fried my tiny lamb chops. Nothing magical here.

The fresh, bright flavours of the mint and peas went perfectly with the rich lamb, tender raviolis and salty parmesan. Like I said, not really anything extraordinarily complicated about this dish. But was it ever good.

Plus it was supposed to be made with homemade pasta but that failed. My dough was as stiff as, well, stiff dough. Jamie Oliver's pasta recipe in Cook with Jamie is as useless as any pasta recipe I've come across before. It's the sort of thing that someone has to show you how to do. And the nice little Italian lady at the market was kind enough to give me a few pointers. Even though I pointed out to her that she's helping train her competition. ;)

Ravioli with Sage and Roasted Pine Nut Butter

Once again drawing inspiration from the farmer's market, I found a huge bag of fresh sage for only $2. Considering that one quarter of this amount would easily have cost me close to $10 at the supermarket, I really couldn't pass up the opportunity. And since I've recently discovered fresh pasta at the market (though I have to go to both market's in town) I couldn't help but make a sage butter for my ravioli.

From reading Heat (see previous post) I've understood that butters or light, uncomplicate sauces are traditionally served with filled pastas such as raviolis or tortellinis. So I chopped up a good handful of fresh sage, dry roasted about 1/4 cup of pine nuts in a frying pan, chopped these and grinded about 2 tablespoons of fresh pepper into a bowl. I added 3/4 cup of butter (I unfortunately can't seem to find any unsalted butter) and mashed the whole thing together. Rolled up into wax paper, you can then take it out and slice off the required amount.

Now there's this thing I don't quite understand about adding pasta water to your butter when preparing. I little splash helps cut the richness of the butter and sizzles when you throw it in. I guess it's just to give an even bigger role to the pasta. Which is much deserved. I mean two ingredients and you've got one of the best inventions in the history of human kind. Forget computers. Or cars. Pasta. Now there's innovation.

I served my ricotta filled ravioli with the "watered" down sage and pine nut butter and some finely grated and melting Kerrygold Blarney Castle Cheese. It's a mild, creamy cheese which they say is similar in flavour to gouda. Along with a bitter frisée salad with soured cream dressing (10% cream with lemon juice, salt and pepper) this was a very satisfying meal. A 10 on 10.

Simplicity is king.