tattum's kitchen

Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna

This weekend we had the feeling that the autumn had arrived. We had low temperature, very windy and a little cloudy sky. The weather is being quite strange this year...so I really felt like having a nice plate of pasta would make my day. While we watched the most exiting Formula 1 races we tasted this absolutely delicious Lasagna.

I always prepare the Lasagna the same way, and this time I wanted to try something new. Looking in my cooking books I found this recipe, easy, creamy and mmmm...

Looking now to my old post, I have just realized that I cook Lasagna in autumn days...

Ingredients:

Dry pasta for Lasagna

1 1/2 kg Spinach (I use frozen spinach)

500gr Ricotta

2 onions

1 can of crushed tomato

7 or 8 dried sun tomatoes

200gr corn

100gr mushrooms

Parmesan

25gr flour

25gr butter

milk

salt and pepper

nutmeg

Chop one of the onions and fry till it's transparent.

Also chop the dry tomatoes, and when the onion is ready add them to the pan. Stir for 5 min and add the can of chopped tomatoes. Add a little sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

 

In another pan fry the other chopped onion, and once it's transparent add the spinach, the corn and the mushrooms, and the nutmeg.

Now you have both prepared, take a oven pan, maybe 5cm high...add the first layer of dry pasta. the ones we have here in Spain ( I suppose you may find the same everywhere) has to by hydrated first, we do this with the tomato sauce.

Now you can start with spinach layer, and on top of the spinach you can add the ricotta. You can also mix it previously in a bowl but this is up to you!

Now on top the another dry pasta layer, more tomato sauce on top and more spinach with ricotta. and after that the last layer with dry pasta and what you have left of the tomato sauce. Put the oven to 200º.

For the bachamel sauce. On a deep frying pan, melt the butter, once it's starting to boil, add 2 spoons of flour. Stir till you have a paste and add slowly a little of milk. Don't stop moving the spoon. Add more milk, nutmeg and salt. Add milk till you have an almost liquid sauce. Now the last thing you need to do is to add the grated Parmesan to the sauce and stir well. Add the sauce to the lasagna, and sprinkle some Parmesan on top.

enjoy!!!

Lasagna Mixta

it's a cloudy and windy day here in Madrid...and I'm sure that the fall has come to stay... Eat, Drink Man Woman on TV, and Alvaro having a "siesta" just beside me... just the perfect combination...
I love this movie, each time I watch it, I wish I had grown up in China, with all that tradition and that cooking paradise..."my childhood is full of smells"  just like Jia-Jen said...if you haven't watched it, please make the effort, it's worth it...

well, I didn't make chinise food, just a Lasagna. But for me it has the same meaning. it's elaborated and you have to start a couple of hours before lunch, and I love to do it. It's a shame that because of work I can't dedicate as many hours as I wish to the kitchen...

well, this lasagna is half of meat and half vegetarian, so you can always add more vegetables, like brocoli and make it totally vegetarian if you prefer it that way...here you have the recipe...

1kg of spinach
3 or 4 carrots
1 big onion
200grs of loose corn
500gr grinded meat
1 grinded tomato can
salt, sugar
precooked dry lasagna pasta
parmesan cheese

Chop the onion and in two pans add half and half of it. In one of them you will cook the onion, the carrot , the spinach and the corn, in that order and always waiting for the carrot to be well cooked, if not it will be too hard.

In the other pan you'll make the same as for a  bolognese sause, onion, meat, and the tomato can. The only difference is that for this one you need it more liquid, so that you can add it on top of the dry lasagna pasta.

The next step is quite simple, make different coats, the first one of meat, the second one of spinach and the last one again of meat, separating the coats with the dry lasagna . On top I always cover it with parmesan cheese, but some people make a bechamel sauce, it depends on what you like best.

Enjoy!

 

Hand Made Gnocci (or Ñoqui)

Though my sister had already moved in last weekend we didn’t really noticed the change of more people in the house till yesterday.

They had a really busy week, moving from their old house, having a wedding to attend, a family dinner, a birthday and of course the change to a house that wasn’t theirs…

Even Saturday afternoon was a little messy, they arrived with the idea of staying home, but we had plans to go out for dinner with some friends, …so we didn’t spend much time together either…

Sunday morning Alvaro and me woke up early and went to the village to buy some “Churros”, and the newspaper. We made some coffee and tea, and we had our typical Spanish breakfast around the kitchen worktop.

At my parent’s house, for our birthdays, my mum always did Gnocci. She started cooking the potatoes at 11 or 12 in the morning. Meanwhile, my father started chopping the onions to make a slooooowww cooking Tuco…and we, the girls, jumped around the kitchen excited with all the cooking and happy because we where going to eat our favourite dish.

My sister’s birthday was last Wednesday, and my parents where in Malaga without a chance of coming to Madrid to visit us…so we planned to make ourselves the Gnocci for the first time. I must say, that it was the first time I did Gnocci, ‘cause Tintin Toto, cooked them a few times in his old house…

So, Alvaro, katira, Tintin Toto, Javi and Tattum, all together, prepared this delightful dish.

Here comes the Gnocci recipe:

1 potato per person + 1 or 2 extra (de regalo)

1 kilo of all-purpose flour

1 egg

40gr aprox of butter

Steam the potatoes in a pressure cooker, don’t peel them, just leave them as they are.

It took aprox 10 to 15min till they were done.

While they are still hot, peel them, and after that, mash them, till they look like mashed potatoes.

If you have one of these potato press, it will be much simpler and you won’t get so tired.

Once you have all the potatoes in a big bowl, add the butter, the egg and a little of flour. Now, this is important, keep on adding as much flour as you need,better with a flour sifter(that I didn't have), always kneading the pastry, till it has that compact look and your fingers are nearly clean.

Cut the pastry in smaller pieces, and make looong rolls. Each roll must have 1cm width.

Cut these rolls in another 1cm or 1.5cm.

Now comes the best part. The Gnocci, (or Ñoqui, that are called in Argentina) are almost done, but so that they are not too heavy, you have to give them shape.

Take a fork, put the “almost Gnocci” on it, with your thumb, squash it a bit and make it roll down the fork. (I don’t know if my explanation is clear enough, but tell me so if not) I bought in Argentina, a “ñoquera”, and it’s what I used to give them shape, but till they invented the "ñoquera", everybody used the fork.

While you’re cooking the potatoes, start doing the Tuco, it will taste great if it’s slow cooking for an hour or 2.

Another important detail is that once you’ve given them shape, you will have them all around the worktop so put them in flat bases (like a pizza base) and leave them not too close to each other, if not they will fix together, and you will have a one huge Gnocci.

To end, add them to the boiling salted water, they will be cooked in 3 min. Or when they appear floating on the water. Add the Tuco and open a good red wine!

Maybe it sounds complicated, but it’s not, so try them soon and come back to tell me!!

Spaghetti alla Bolognese

There must be a million ways to do spaghetti alla Bolognese, a million…but because it’s one of my favourite recipes (and my husbands too) and because it’s easy to make, I decided to send it through the web space, so that anyone that is just starting to get in this cooking world, carnivorous, and hungry enough, can run into the kitchen, take a pan and follow the simple footsteps to this yummy pasta dish.

1 onion
1 chopped tomato can
500gr minced meat
30gr aprox of funghi secci
1/2 dry consommé cube
1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar
olive oil

once again, chop the onion, fry it in saucepan, remember, slow heat, and a loooong cooking, so it gets transparent and sweet. Add the meat, and after removing and removing,, add the tomato, the consommé cube, and the sugar.

At the end add the funghi secci, that you must have damped previously.

Your spaghetti, or favorite pasta in a huge plate with the Bolognese Sauce, would end with the terrible feeling that there’s nothing else in the world.

Ok this is great after a long Saturday night!

Sorrentinos con Tuco

despues de un fin de semana largo y cansador...donde hubo comida marroqui, BBQ y un tipico español actualizado, pantumaca con jamon serrano y huevo de codorniz, no podia faltar un plato tan tipico de  Argentina como de Italia, la pasta.

Los sorrentinos son una especie de ravioli, aunque son redondos y tambien algo más grandes, suelen estar rellenos de ricotta y espinaca, aunque tambien los hay de jamon y queso, e incluso una vez, en Nueva York, los probé rellenos de setas. riquisimos!! lo complicado de comer sorrentinos es que si no te pones a hacer tu la masa y el relleno, son dificiles de conseguir (aqui en España, por que en Argentina se pueden comprar en cualquiera de las miles de tiendas de pasta fresca).

mis papis se vinieron el domingo desde Marbella con los sorrentinos en el coche, bien guardaditos como si de oro se tratase. y es que en Marbella esta  Pomposiello, un casa donde hacen y venden para llevar pasta fresca...es un lugarcito no muy grande y sin pretensiones, con la decoracion poco cuidada, pero donde lo principal, que es la pasta, esta cuidada al detalle.

lo que seguro que os estais preguntando es que es el Tuco...

Spaghetti a la Putanesca

es

we have been terribly busy with the house the last 5 months. finally the works ended last week, so it was my turn to paint the living room walls. between thursday and friday I ended that too, so all that was left was the wooden floor. do you know Pergo? well it's an amazingly easy way to have in a few hours a lovely wooden floor. the installation technique is a glueless click-together system. soooooo easy!!
well, because we were so busy with this, I had too little time to get in the kitchen and do something original...so I ended up doing some Spaghetti a la Putanesca. I must say this recipe was given to me by my sister, and I love it!!
ok lets go! Ingredients:

8 or 10 anchovies (2 or 3 per person aprox)
1 garlic clove
parsley (lots)
1 crushed tomato tin
black olives (without the bone)
250gr spaghetti (125gr per person)
2 spoons of sugar
olive oil

ok, you must know by now how to make the spaghetti ( boiling salted water, and 5 to 7 min with the spaghetti)
now, chop the garlic clove thinly and the parsley too. cut the anchovies in pieces of 1 cm aprox.
in a saucepan, add a base of olive oil, and just before it starts boiling add the garlic, 3 sec later the parsley, and the anchovies. remove a little and after you see the anchovies get dissolved add the olives. finally add the tomato and the spoons of sugar (there's no need to add salt) get to boil and after 5min, slow down the fire to the half aprox. cook for 15 min and you're done!

you can find more photos down here and one from the new living room! (ok, that table wasn't suposed to be there...)

Zucchini and Green Zebra Tomato Lasagne with Basil Pistachio Pesto

no podia dejar pasar esta receta , la encontré en un foro de 101 cookbooks. y tiene una pinta....la pruebo este fin de semana y prometo colgar la foto de como ha quedado.

The Chef
Matthew Kenney of Pure Food and Wine

Ingredients
Lemon-Pignoli “Ricotta”
2 cups raw pignoli nuts, soaked in water for at least 1 hour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (optional; available in health food stores)
1 teaspoon sea salt

Tomato Sauce
2 cups good-quality sun-dried tomatoes (dry-packed), soaked in water for at least 2 hours
1 medium ripe tomato, diced
1⁄4 small onion, chopped
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1⁄4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 teaspoons maple syrup
2 teaspoons sea salt
Pinch hot-pepper flakes

Basil-Pistachio Pesto
2 cups packed basil leaves
1⁄2 cup raw pistachios
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
Pinch freshly ground black pepper

Lasagne
3 medium zucchini, ends trimmed
3 medium green-zebra tomatoes (or other heirloom variety)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
Garnish: whole basil leaves

Cooking Instructions
Lemon-Pignoli “Ricotta”

summer fusilli

el electricista

resulta que teniamos que estar pronto en casa porque venia el electricista. . . de manera que salimos cada uno de nuestra oficina corriendo a las 2.30.
llame a alvaro y le pregunte si queria que pasara por el The Wok en el plaza norte y que comprara algo rico. Llame antes de salir del trabajo pero me dijeron que habian tenido un problema con el gas y que tenian la cocina cerrada... de manera que me fui directa a casa con un atasco monumental de varios miles de madrileños que salian desesperados, sin mirar atras, y que solo la meta de llegar algun dia a la tierra prometida de las vacaciones les mantenia esperanzados... .

asi que llegue a casa, y nos pusimos a pensar en que comer...

summer fusilli

tomates
queso blanco
perejil
ajo
sal
aceite
fusilli

todo esto cortado en cuadraditos, menos el ajo y el perejil que deben estar bien picaditos. ah! y la pasta al dente!