Aaaannnd for tonight's post! Wow, two posts in one night, it's like Christmas in my head right now and my fingers are these tiny little elves making wonderful toys for all the boys and girls. Haha I work in a weird world where conversation like that is normal, please don't judge me :)
On the map for tonight were taking a left turn at dumplings, heading strait for Tortellini and stopping at vegetable stock! Clearly I am starving right now! Who wants to make me dinner? I promise I'll teach you something cool while you do it!
Vegetable Soup:
1 tablespoon Oil
2 each Yellow Onions*
2 each Celery Ribs*
2 each Carrots*
1 each Garlic Clove (smashed)*
1/2-1 cup Baby Bellas*
1 tablespoon Tomato Paste
1 teaspoon Black Pepper corns (whole/cracked)
5 cups Water
TT Salt
*Always use fresh vegetables. Using pre packaged ones or ones that are not in good condition will yield bland and flavorless stock.
The best part of this soup is making your own vegetable broth for the Tortellini. If you want you can absolutely just fill up a pot with vegetable stock and heat it up and drop your Tortellini in there BUT you're missing out, and your cheating yourself. I bet you, you can look on the back of your stock box and not be able to name or identify at least 1 ingredient, if not more (especially if you're using Swansons). How many of the ingredients listed above do you have questions about?
To get started go ahead and small dice all of your veg (except mushrooms and garlic). The small dice allows for the water to hit more surface area allowing for more flavor to be drawn from the vegetable. Next, crush your garlic, literally take your knife, lay it on top of the garlic clove and press down until it's crushed.
Take you stock pot and add the oil to it. Bring it to temp and add your onions, carrots, and celery. Cook until you begin to smell their flavor. Add your garlic, cook for 30 seconds and add your tomato paste. Stir the items around until your tomato paste is aromatic and rich/deep in color.
Add the remaining item and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 30-45 minutes. You don't want to cook it too long because you can cook the flavor right out of it. For extra flavor throw in a fresh bay leaf or sprig of thyme about 15 minutes before it's complete. Constantly taste for flavor. Add salt to season it, be weary of adding pepper since you already have some in there. Strain and set to the side.
Tortellini:
1# Flour
4 each Eggs
1-2 teaspoons H2O (only use if necessary)
You can get the basics for making pasta {here}
Decide on your vegetables and get them in a sautee pan. You're going to cook them ALL the way through. You want them fully cooked because when you go to cook the pasta you don't want to have undercooked vegetables and over cooked pasta! No bueno! For my pasta filling I chose to do onion, garlic, eggplant, spinach and roasted red pepper. I roasted my red pepper on my electric stove btw... no haters. I finely chopped them once they were completely cooked through (removing the skin from the peppers) and then placed about 1/2-1 teaspoon into the center of a square piece of pasta dough. I then folded two corners together and then grabbed the remaining corners to meet each other opposite the other two corners. Resembling something of a rounded triangle. If you're confused, Google images for Tortellini pasta :). You can also turn your vegetables into a paste by pureeing them if you feel like that is the texture you're going for.
Once I assembled them all I brought a giant pot of SALTED water to a boil and dropped them in. It took about 3-5 minutes for them to be done. Once they float to the top they are most likely done. Remove one and taste it. If it tastes done, looks done, and smells done... then it's probably done. Don't second guess yourself and over cook the pasta. It's a waste of time and ingredients and you'll be disappointed with your dish.
** I also want to encourage you guys to go out on a limb. Maybe don't put fresh herbs in your stock or your vegetables, maybe cut it up and put it in your pasta dough. Try cooking the pasta in your stock instead of salted water... what I'm saying is, experiment, see what avenue you like best and then run with it. No one has the same taste buds and I'm sure we all have a different opinion on how food should be made... so prove my recipe wrong and make a better one that you are completely coo coo for! Love you!
Blessings Ohana!
No comments:
Post a Comment