Extravagance In the Form Of Dough

Many years ago, when I was first married, a group of Tibetan monks came to my city to paint a sand mandala. Together, they painted a large and elaborate pattern on the floor of a museum, using grains of colored sand. And when they were finished, they swept it away. At the time I was pained by this, having only a basic understanding of the reasons why someone might go to the trouble of creating something beautiful, time intensive, and intricate only to destroy it.

I had not thought of this for many years. In fact, I'd forgotten it entirely until this Christmas; it came to mind as I was making ravioli from scratch. By the time I'd finished eating, I understood quite clearly.

I do not celebrate Christmas, unless you consider Taking Advantage Of Long Stretches of Time In Which Nothing Is Open To Poison My Family a celebration. And so, I took this particular opportunity to do something I've been itching to do for some time now, which is make ravioli from scratch. Quite possibly I would have felt no burning desire to torture myself in this way if you could find chicken and goat cheese ravioli for sale in the deli case, but you can't, so I did.


I am fed up with store bought ravioli, because it never seems flavorful enough. I wanted to be able to eat them without feeling bored, so I made the filling as interesting as possible without being ridiculous. I sauteed little bits of chicken thigh with basil, onion, and about half a head of garlic. Then I mixed it with goat cheese and a little Parmesan.

Looks uninspiring, no? I was a little worried at this point, because it tasted about as dull as it looked. But the grocery store wasn't open and neither was the pizza place down the street, so I plowed ahead.


I mean it -- I plowed ahead with a rolling pin.

Making dough is simple. You break some eggs, add some water, throw in some (spelt!) flour, maybe a little olive oil, mix it together and *bam.* Houston, we have a shapeless lump. And it must have been quite the tasty little shapeless lump, since my dear friend Meghin ate quite a bit of it. It's nice that this part is so simple, because the rest of the process is nothing short of lengthy, backbreaking, disappointing labor. You roll the dough out until it is very thin, and then you roll it some more, and then you cut out a couple of dough circles. This is bad enough, but half the time your dough gets stuck to the counter, or to another circle of dough, and it's a complete loss and you only get one good circle of dough for all of that.

But eventually it worked out.


Now, at this point, several hours had passed, my will to live was gone, and Meghin was more or less fanning me and feeding me grapes to keep me in the game. And I wasn't finished, because I had to fill all of these things -- which is only slightly less labor intensive than making the dough circles, because you have to put the right amount of filling in, fold it over, and make sure the ravioli stays shut. Which it will refuse to do on general principle. Repeatedly. But in any case, I managed to get through all the dough circles and about 3/4 of the filling and then decided to call it quits. If it wasn't enough, my audience could fill up on garlic bread.


Aren't they adorable?

Right about the time I completed them, my dear, dear, dear Jess wandered into the kitchen, found me frustrated and overwhelmed, and said "I thought you liked cooking." It is a testament to my extreme exhaustion that he still walks.

I went into the living room, sat on the couch next to Meghin, and looked at the clock: 5:30pm. Some unnamed members of the family were making noises about being hungry, and I'd skipped lunch myself. "I just spent four hours making ravioli and I'm still not done," I whined. Dinner was most definitely not served. I didn't think I had the energy to continue. But I did.

Only to find that the raviolis had stuck to themselves in the bowl. I did what I could and then threw the rest in the boiling water and called it a day.

I expected the ravioli to be very heavy and flavored, and I wanted a nice light sauce to compliment them, something that would dance across the tongue. I didn't get that, but I did make a nice lemon basil sauce with olive oil -- too heavy for my dinner, but probably nice on plain pasta. I also made garlic bread and green beans simmered in tomatoes and onions.

How did I do? Not too shabby, not too shabby. The green beans were perfect, the right shade of doneness -- a little snap and a little bounce. The bread was brilliantly buttery. And the ravioli? Definitely good. The flavors were in perfect balance: the spelt made them hearty and earthy, the goat cheese added a pungent creaminess, and I had enough basil and garlic to smooth the whole thing together. It was not quite good enough for five hours worth of work, and the dough had not been rolled thinly enough -- so it was a little too doughy, a little too present. But it was still a hit. (Because really, no matter how much you value criticism, no one will tell a woman who spent 5 hours making you ravioli that it was anything less than completely perfect.)

What did I learn?

• Never, ever, under pain of death, use lemon juice from a bottle.
• Never attempt to roll pasta out by hand. Buy yourself a pasta maker posthaste.
• And while you're at it, get yourself an apron or quit wearing black.

Tabbouleh and Pita

I didn't realize that parsley was something one could actually eat until I was well into my twenties. I was living in a city I felt completely uncomfortable in, having a business lunch with someone I was less than fond of. She took me to a Lebanese place around the corner from my office and ordered tabbouleh --a kind of Lebanese parsley and bulgur salad -- and made me promise to try it. It came to us in a big bowl with plenty of warm, freshly baked pitas to wrap it in. I took one look at it and said, "You expect me to eat that? Parsley?" I thought parsley was something people stuck on top of their grilled cheese sandwich to make it look interesting. But I tried it. Tabbouleh was one of those foods that surprised me. It was light, and flavorful, and unlike anything I'd eaten so far. At a time when I wanted to be anywhere else on the planet than Denver, tabbouleh and fresh pita let me live in Lebanon for a little while.

I tried making it at home once, but that was before I discovered the wonder that is sharp, quality cooking knives; it is nearly impossible to bungle tabbouleh, since all it requires is for you to chop up a lot of stuff and throw it in a bowl, but I managed to bungle it. My knives at the time were just not good enough to chop the parsley finely. Josh even asked me if I was intentionally trying to choke him. I recently bought myself a decent knife, and the instant I realized what it was capable of, I thought Now I can make tabbouleh.


Tabbouleh is not something I follow a recipe for; to be more precise, tabbouleh is something I follow about six recipes for. Indeed I had at least two cookbooks open on the counter when I made it tonight. It is just a little bit of bulgur, cucumber, tomato, and green onions, and a whole lot of parsley coated in olive oil and lemon juice. I like to add feta, too, but Jess is lactose intolerant and I wanted him to be able to have some, if he chose.

And because tabbouleh is not worth eating without a good pita, I made some of that, too. I didn't have time to wait for a leavened version to rise, so I made an unleavened, pan cooked version instead.

The result is a lovely, soft bread that is a little more tortilla than traditional puffy pita, but oh, yum.

*

Jess:coming home while the fan is going so I don't set the fire alarm off Why do you have to make so much noise?

Allycen: I don't know, why do you have to be a jerk all the time?

Jess: Oh, c'mon, what would you do if I walked in and said, 'Wow, you're cooking something delicious, thank goodness'?

Allycen: I would cry with happiness.

Jess: And what kind of a friend would I be if I made you cry?

Let Them Eat (Olive) Cake

Something wonderful happened in my kitchen today: I ran out of yogurt.

I was getting ready to make this: Black Olive Cake only totally different. I made it last week and followed the recipe closely – except I used spelt flour, because I’m a hippie, and we like to ruin things with whole grains. I was not totally impressed. I had been expecting happiness in my mouth, because Olives! And Cake! And what I got instead was something kind of herby and oniony and dense. Jess liked it, but he is mostly bowled over by my cooking technique, by which I mean He Didn’t Have To Do Any Cooking.

But I had discovered that such a thing as Olive Cake existed, and I wanted it to happen, and I was damn well expecting to enjoy it. So I planned on making it again today, only this time it was going to be fantastic. Except that I got home from the store, turned the oven on for preheating, and then realized that I didn’t have any yogurt.

This is not strictly true. I had plenty of yogurt. It was just blueberry flavored. And while I am fairly gastronomically adventurous, I have limitations. I knew I could go back out for yogurt, but…it was cold. I was hungry. The oven was already on. And I once had a really bad yogurt experience and I’ve never been disposed to it since. “Screw it,” I said. “I’ll use milk instead.”

Which goes against just about everything I know about substituting, because if you try to substitute 1% milk for yogurt, you are going to get something totally different than the recipe writer intended. What you cook is not going to taste like what the writer made.

Which means that what I made was totally, totally delicious.




Altogether much lighter than the dense thing I made originally. The crust? Much more flavorful and buttery, thanks to using olive oil instead of solely canola. I also substituted basil for mint and doubled it. I added feta, which is the best idea I’ve had in years. And I still used spelt flour. Because I’m a hippie. If you’re not a hippie, feel free to use white flour. Preferably the finest white flour money can buy, sanded off the wings of angels.

Let Them Eat (Olive) Cake

3 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup canola oil
2 cups of black olives, quartered
1 bunch green onions, chopped finely (I only used the firm white part of the onion, because I’m not a fan of the green part, but you can do as you like)
1 cup finely chopped basil leaves
Roughly 6 oz. of feta, crumbled
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups of flour

* Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. The internet says this is 190.5555556 degrees Celsius if you are one of those heathens that insists on using the metric system.

* Beat the eggs until they cry for mercy. Add milk and oil. Mix well.

* Add olives, green onion, basil, feta and salt and mix.

* Add baking powder and flour.

* Pour in a greased oven dish. I used an 8x8 glass dish.

* Bake for about 50 minutes. I baked mine for 55 minutes and it was perfect. It will bubble a little, which looks ominous, but it’s okay.

Let it sit for at least 15 minutes before you cut and serve. It tastes okay cold, but is much better warm and even better with wine.