Friday, February 28, 2014

Rosie Makes Cannelloni And Ravioli.

Rosie is having fun.
Fun with pasta.

I've already made some intense cannoli.
 Singular:  cannolo.



Today, I'm making cannelloni.  Singular:  cannellone.

First I made a tomato sauce
with onion, green pepper, garlic, and diced tomatoes.
I'm going to stuff the cannelloni with a 
sausage/spinach/onion/ricotta/cream/Parmesan mixture,
and boil them for 2 minutes.
This is homemade pasta.
Cooks in no time.
And the flavor is amazing.
Store-bought pasta pales in comparison.
Actually, there is no comparison.

And it's just flour, water, egg, oil, and salt.

Pasta Dough
1 cup cake flour
1/4 cup AP flour, plus additional for kneading and dusting
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 TB extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water
Pulse all ingredients in food processor, ...

... until you form a ball.
Wrap in plastic and set in refrigerator for at least one hour.

Now, I start on the tomato sauce:
This much tomato sauce, onion, green pepper, and garlic.

I chopped the onion and pepper and minced the garlic
and switched out diced tomatoes for the tomato sauce.

Heat some oil in the pan.
Add in onions.

And green peppers.

Stir around about a minute.

Add in the garlic.

And the diced tomatoes.
We try to date all our cans.

Bare simmer about 45 minutes,
stirring occasionally.
At the end,
I added in some pinches of my dried basil.

I browned 8 ounces of sausage, forking it up.

When the sausage is almost browned,
add in the chopped onions.

This much spinach.
Coarse-chop it.

Add the spinach to the sausage/onion mixture,
give it s few tablespoons of Chardonnay,
cover, and wilt the spinach and let the wine evaporate.

Remove from heat.

Beat two eggs.


I have two beaten eggs, 1 cup of ricotta cheese,
my sausage mixture, and some Parmesan cheese.

Mix the eggs and ricotta.

Add in the sausage and spinach mixture.

And add 1/3 cup grated Parmesan.
Set stuffing aside.


Turn your attention to the pasta dough.
Cut dough in half and run through the pasta machine,
twice at each setting, backwards and forwards,
from setting #1 to #5.



Flour as needed.

I'm at setting #5.



First I tried my cannelloni attachment
and quickly said screw it.
I need more practice on that thing.

I ended cutting the pasta pieces out and stuffing them.
Seal with water.
I know.
  They look lame.

So I turned to ravioli.

Add filling, being careful not to overfill.

Roll over with pin.

Peel off excess.


My ravioli are so CUTE!

Boil for two minutes.

Drain cannelloni and place on bed of tomato sauce
in a 9 x 11 inch pan.

Pile in the drained cannelloni and ravioli in the pan.
Top with more of the tomato sauce.

Grate Parmesan and mozzarella over top.

Bake 25-30 minutes in a 350° oven.



We loved this!
There's nothing like homemade pasta.
And sausage!
And spinach!
And everything's better with cheese!

Mr. Hawthorne and I had small bowls,
as in 1 cannelloni and 1 ravioli apiece.
Middle Hawthorne apparently liked this.
This is the dish after lunch.
A few hours later, it was all gone.



Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Rosie Makes Cannoli.


I just realized I've never made cannoli.
I must rectify this tout de suite.

Cannoli Shells
1 1/2 cups flour, plus extra for dusting
1 TB sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
big pinch Kosher salt
2 TB cold unsalted butter, cut into little pieces
1 egg, separated
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup cold water

In a food processor, mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
Add in butter and egg yolk.
Pulse.
Add in wine.
Pulse.
Add in enough water, a little bit at a time,
until the mixture comes together in a ball.
Turn out onto lightly floured surface
and roll into a ball, then press into a disk.
Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

When you're ready to use,
cut the dough in half and work with one half at a time, 
keeping the other half covered.
Lightly flour your surface and flatten the dough
as much as you can by hand.
Roll each half out to 1/8-inch thick.

I have a pasta maker so I used that.
I start out at the widest setting on the pasta rollers, #1.
Give the dough sheets a dusting of flour as needed.
I roll the dough through twice at each setting,
eventually ending at #5.
Using a pizza cutter,
I cut the dough into 3-inch squares,
keeping covered until ready to fry.

Wrap the dough squares diagonally around metal cannoli tubes
so that the points of the squares overlap.
Brush the overlapping points with the an egg wash-
the egg white beaten with 2 TB water.
Seal and press to secure.

Heat oil to 350°.
Carefully slide the cannoli into the hot oil,
being careful not to crowd the pan.
Fry until light brown and crispy,
about 1 minute or so.
Drain shells on paper towels and sprinkle powdered sugar over top.
Cool on wire rack.

Make the filling:
2 cups ricotta cheese, drained through a sieve overnight
1/4 mascarpone
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 TB lemon juice
Whisk all ingredients together.
Fold in:
1/3 cup grated coffee crunch dark chocolate.

Place filling in pastry bag and pipe into cannoli.

 
For the dip:
Melt some bittersweet chocolate in a small bowl.
Fill another small bowl with crushed pistachios.
Dip the end of each cannolo in the chocolate,
then the pistachios.
And cannolo is the singular of the plural cannoli.






First run through the pasta machine at setting #1.

Setting #2.
Setting #3.


Setting #4.

I got the hang of this now.
Remember to run the sheets through twice at each setting,
in opposite directions,
dusting with flour as needed.

You pick up the stack
and run the top of the stack back through.
Setting #5.

Cut into squares.

Brush egg wash to seal.


Ready to fry.
Only 2 or 3 at a time.

Give it some powdered sugar lovin'.




Make the filling.


I love this filling.
It's fluffy and oh-so-light!

Pipe filling into cannoli.
Then dip ends into the melted chocolate and pistachios.

Oh goodness.

These are heavenly.
The shells are crisp.
The filling is so very light
and I love the hint of lemon with 
chocolate and subtle coffee flavors.
I love the contrast of the crisp cannoli shell
against the smoothness of the creamy filling.

Do not fill your cannoli until you're ready to eat.
If the filling stays in there for several hours or overnight,
the cannoli will get soggy.

I do not have that problem
 what with the company that hangs around here.
All twelve were gone in no time
and I made a second batch with the other half of pastry dough.