PS, I love you ~ a new Pasta e Fagioli

I get paid to cook people dinner. It's what I do and it's something I enjoy, but there is nothing more enjoyable than cooking for my friends. Particularly when I'm in Palm Springs with a cocktail in one hand and a bag of farmers market veggies in the other.  I'm speaking of Brad and Denis' Pam Springs abode. Yes, I said Pam Springs. Not to mention access to the pied-a-terre cupboard of holiday crackers, chips, salsa, pasta, and quality canned tomatoes and beans... a list of unmarried ingredients that become my favorite challenge.

In Pam Springs, limitations can create great meals.

Fortunately, scrap-cooking, as I call it, is one of my favorite ways to cook. Forget the hours of menu writing, shopping lists and grocery store lines, it's so much more pleasurable to just cook what is right in front of you. Isn't that how most people cook, anyway? And isn't that how most heritage dishes came to be? What was available, what was at hand became breakfast, lunch, dinner. And if it was simple, and memorable, it would be written down and repeated until someone somewhere called it by name: "let's have pasta carbonara!".

So, to be more specific, if there is celery root and pasta, well, you'll have celery root and pasta. And if a can of cannellini beans and an egg are waiting there, then they should certainly join the party. And that's how small miracles happen; one after the other-- the vegetables are ribboned and roasted while the pasta cooks; and the basil and lemon zest become pesto without garlic and parmesan. The egg is stirred and the beans are warmed and the whole lot of ingredients marry into one miraculous dish. And before your dinner guests know it, they are setting the table for a cupboard feast of something old yet new: pasta e fagioli meets carbonara, sorta...

Oh, and how it all makes perfect delicious sense in a warm dinner bowl with a Cheese Crisp cracker pangrattato; a lemony salad of frisee; and a Riedel of red...

Here we go...

introducing, Pam Springs finest... NOT brad and denis' home... yet

let's get started

always go to your farmers market and take home something in season, especially if you don't know what to make of it...

celery root, celery, carrots and green onion make for a simple vegetable roast... a little olive oil, bay leaf, salt and pepper; and whatever fresh or dried herbs on hand...

roast in a 450' oven for 15 minutes, while you cook your pasta...

chop your basil, lemon zest, celery leaves, what have you, and season with salt and pepper; don't forget a good lug of olive oil...

heat quickly in a large skillet with some white wine, stock, water, whatever..

heat the beans with the roasted veg until the skillet is nice and hot...

add the cooked pasta to the hot skillet of pesto... add 1/2 cup of pasta water...

have a large, warm pasta bowl ready, with one beaten egg...

once the pasta is combined with the steaming skillet of pesto, dump the pasta into the large pasta bowl with egg and stir quickly and evenly... adding the roasted vegetables... 

everything needs to be hot!

a crisp cheesy topping will make up for Parmigiano Reggiano... really! 

che brava! 

seconds?

oh, and a Bill Cosby chocolate pudding pie as our Palm Springs desert dessert... yes, really

Zucchi'nis Cake

When a giant zucchini the size of Endeavor showed up on my front door step, I felt like a kid who had lost a tooth and woke up to a visit from the tooth fairy; only I had done nothing, nothing, to warrant such gifting. I had a hunch who the Zucchini Fairy might be, first eliminating obvious possibilities such as Zooey Deschanel (she famously has a zucchini patch), or some weirdo down the street.


In fact, it was my compadre, Lisa Kirk, who had just acquired a community garden in Venice after a lifetime of a waiting list.  She was newly endowed with zucchini the size of WW2 bombs, and lots of them. Apparently, she was hitting the neighborhood hard, dropping zucchini on door steps like some sort of raid, and I was so happy I was hit. It offered the perfect opportunity to closeout summer produce by making an "end of summer" cake: zucchini cake.

Mind you, I didn't have a recipe in my back pocket but David Lebovitz always has one in his. I found the perfect recipe on his namesake blog: a zucchini cake from the esteemed pastry chef Gina Di Palma of the Mario Batali camp; and set about my cake-making business. I knew it would be something.

Something for me to screw-up. Well, sort of.

I followed the instructions, adding some lemon zest to the batter, as Lebovitz suggested, and greased and floured my tired grooved bundt pan, and proceeded to bake the cake. It was incredibly lovely until a certain turn of events. When I placed the cake in the oven I turned the oven off. I did. I turned it off. Big time loser situation... and all I can say for myself is that I was really tired. I had taught a cooking class that day and was so energized I decided to come home and clean my house and organize my fridge and polish the hardwood floors and... bake a cake and photograph it! Why not??? And why not forget to set a timer as I laid down with my cup of afternoon tea...

I woke up and didn't smell cake and zombied myself to the stove and got extremely WTF and heated the oven and finally baked-off the cake, like a normal person.

And with that, a small tragedy was just around the corner...

As I flipped the baked cake out onto a wire cooling rack, with the intention of turning it out to cool, I could feel that the weight of the cake had not fully shifted onto the rack. In fact, the top of the cake would not budge and stuck to the inside of the pan... super mad face. I am sure my tepid-oven-nap-session was to blame for this. Lame, for sure.

But it was not my first "lost" cake and I knew exactly what to do. After a few curse words, a glass of milk, and some lost cake pieces, I went about my business to save it. All I had to do was trim the cake flat with a serrated knife and remove the craggy pieces; then flip the cake once more so that the bottom of the cake was now the top. Dress it with the lemon sugar glaze and it was as good as new. No one would ever know. Until now.

And best of all? It was the best zucchini anything I had ever had, earning a permanent place in my baking repertoir, scraps and all.

Good Luck, XO

Gina DePalma is the master creator of this cake and you can find it in her book, Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen, or on David Lebovitz' blog, as I did. This is almost the same cake that Lebovitz posted, only that I substituted grape seed oil for olive oil. As much as I enjoy olive oil in cakes, I didn't have enough for the recipe. Either way its an incredible cake. You'll see.

And a side note about preparing the cake. Typically, one would prepare the cake pan first so that it is ready for the fresh cake batter. I have a weird habit of letting the batter rest a little while I prepare my cake pan... what works for me may work for you.

Zucchini Cake with Crunchy Lemon Glaze

serves 12-16 mouths

Cake

1 cup almonds, pecans, or walnuts toasted, I used walnuts
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil or grape seed oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
zest of one lemon
2 1/2 cups finely grated zucchini

Crunchy Lemon Glaze

1//4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar

here we go...

preheat your oven to 350', and do not turn it off

a giant zucchi'nis... haha!

finely grate the zucchini

measure the dry ingredients except the sugar, into a colander: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg...

and sift, breaking down every little lump

ta da...

combine with a beautiful whisk, such as this, bragging...

toast your nuts and chop finely, by hand or by sheer food processor-speed, be sure to pulse

pulse! avoid pulsing into a paste...

combine the eggs, sugar, oil and lemon zest and mix with a whisk, hand-mixer or stand-up mixer, for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy

be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to be sure everything is incorporated

don't forget your vanilla, once the mixture is well beaten

a piece of parchment is an old trick pastry chefs use to pour the flour into the mixer, evenly, and no mess

try it

just tip it in... and pour evenly while the whisk turns on medium speed for 30 seconds

what's next?

add your finely chopped nuts and finely grated zucchini, gently folding with a spatula, careful not to over mix the cake batter

grease your bundt pan with melted butter, then dust with flour until every crevasse is covered...

and knock out the remaining flour

fill your prepared cake pan with the cake batter...

and bake for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake pulls away from the sides

let the cake cool for 10 minutes... and flip the cake out onto a wire rack, hopefully not like this!

don't cry... make the lemon glaze

and drizzle with lemon sugar glaze... yum...

even better the next day when mom comes to town, xo

no one can see this pretty thing's missing parts... smile

it is and was as good as it looks

front cover of Gourmet? absolutely...

and don't foget these... 

It's a Bread Revival

This is not a freshly baked loaf of bread. On the contrary. It's a tired old loaf from Trader Joe's that was forgotten during our end of summer heat wave. No one wants toast when it's 100 degrees. I could have wrapped it in plastic and froze it, as I usually would have done; pulling it out to defrost when I was ready. But I didn't. Instead, I left it wrapped in the back of the fridge, to harden like an old leather boot. Was it salvageable? I had no idea. I just needed two slices with my tea...

I have saved many loaves over the years with this one being one of the driest, densest I've attempted to revive; and with nothing to lose, why not make some toast, anyway? At the very least someone will learn how to save a perfectly good loaf of bread.

First, the mission: to reconstitute this thing back to life. We are looking for moisture and slice-ability. Secondly, we want to eat it. I prefer toasting older bread in slices; bringing out the last of its qualities, and maybe even erasing some of its tiredness.

Here is my most simple revival; an elementary technique I have done a hundred times over. But you will need a microwave. Yes, disparaging chefs, a microwave. Hey, if Ferran Adria can use a microwave to bake-off sponge cake... validation right here:



It's not a big deal, the bread is practically dead anyway; just be sure to stand far away from the microwave, like, in the next room.

And if you are a luddite, as we should be, I'm sure you'll find the time to defrost, naturally. It could take at least an hour in a cool kitchen. 

Bread Revival

1) Microwave the loaf in 30 second increments until just market-fresh soft. I find that 90 seconds is usually good enough. You do not want to loosen the bread too much, just soften it to the degree of slice-ability. Avoid a sweaty, steamy loaf, at all costs. It will be spongy.

2) Next, you have two choices: slice and toast to order, or bake the half or whole loaf in a 350' oven for 15 minutes, then slice.

Slicing

Having the right knife is the most important factor when working with whole loaves of bread. People use the wrong knives all the time resulting in injury, or even worse, ruining a good loaf. The wrong knife is a chefs knife, or any knife that is not serrated. Serrated is the only knife one should use for slicing bread.

When you have purchased your serrated "bread knife" from Bed Bath and Beyond, very affordable, remember to gently "saw" the bread. Never push down on the bread, as you will smash it's delicate crumb into a gluey mess.

Update

I can now slice bread with my less dominant left hand... And right dominant hand is less lame everyday(!)

the tired, old boot

the resuscitation begins

the mighty serrated knife, emblazoned with my alma mater

slice and toast up... 

wish I had eggs...