Italian Summer: Weeks 9, 10, 11

Good grief, where the hell have I been?? B.U.S.Y. That’s where I have been. Work has been a little bit nutty, I’ve been working on a new knitting project, lots of yard stuff, blah blah blah. So the blog has taken a hit, and I’ve got quite the backlog of meals! So, without further ado:

Week 9: Eggplant Parmigiana and Rosemary bread

I planted a couple of Japanese eggplants in the garden this spring. The neighborhood raccoons tried their best to kill them, but they survived and have produced quite a few eggplants already. I picked three in one week, so decided for Week 9 to make the parmigiana. This recipe didn’t call for frying them ahead of time but roasting them instead, so they weren’t breaded like the traditional recipe. I did cut the recipe in half because the whole recipe would have meant I was eating eggplant for three days. It was very good, we paired it with some delicious rosemary bread I picked up at the farmer’s market. YUM!

Week 10: Next up was homemade spinach ricotta ravioli with a creamy sun dried tomato pesto sauce!

I have made my own pasta a few times now. It’s not hard, and playing with the pasta roller attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer is FUN! It’s kind of messy, I am a flinger so I usually end up with flour everywhere, but oh well. The outcome is worth it! I used Lidia Bastianich’s medium pasta dough recipe (sorry it’s missing from the pics!). For the filling, I did not use a recipe! I LOVE to make things up as I go. I used a 10 oz. box of frozen spinach, thaw it, drain it, and squeeze out as much of the water as you can. You don’t want extra water thinning out the filling. A 15 oz. container of part skim ricotta, stir the two together in a bowl. I sauteed a finely minced shallot, and a couple of minced cloves of garlic in some olive oil, added them in, along with some dried Italian seasoning, S&P, freshly ground nutmeg, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and about a cup of grated Parmesan. Stir it all up and let it sit while you make the pasta. Ricotta and spinach are pretty bland unless you jazz them up!

My ravioli are not pretty. It takes a lot of practice to make them look uniform, so that bugs my OCD a little bit, but they TASTE good, so that’s what matters!

I used a Pinterest recipe for the sauce which was very easy, and the cream with the sun dried tomato pesto was a nice mix with the cheese in the ravioli. Use 3 tablespoons of jarred sun dried tomato pesto (I used Barilla) and 1 clove of minced garlic, warm them together in a small skillet to start to toast the garlic; add in 4-5 sliced basil leaves, 1/2 cup of heavy cream, and S&P to taste. Mix in about 1/2 cup of pasta water from your cooked ravioli and let it simmer a few minutes to thicken. Done! You’re working pretty hard for this dish, so just sit back and enjoy it with a good white wine because at that point you earned it.

Week 11: I cheated. I didn’t cook. My sweet sister-in-law made us delicious sandwiches with baguettes, salami, homemade pesto, fresh tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. DELISH! And, huge fail, I was so hungry I snarfed it down before I could even think about taking a picture of it. Am I sorry? Well a little, because this is a blog after all, and having pics of your food kind of helps. However, sometimes you just need to live in the moment, and I was definitely living in THAT moment! Go live in your moments!

Cheers! ~ Jen