Ham Sandwich Indicted!

This past Monday, the pasta rollers for my KitchenAid mixer were delivered. Tuesday night, I made my first every batch of fresh pasta. And yes, what "they" say is true--fresh pasta beats dry, store-bought pasta by miles. Partially, it's the satisfaction of watching eggs and flour come together in light, ribbony noodles, but it also just tastes better. Fresher. I used a recipe from Mario Batali (3.5 c of flour to 5 eggs, but found I needed to add 2 more) from his book Molto Italiano. After kneading the dough for 10 minutes (which, when you're kneading dough is a looooong time), you let it rest for 30 minutes, cut into 4 pieces and you're ready to roll. Seriously, the pasta rollers make it ridiculously easy. Once we got the hang of it (the speed of the rollers, ideal pasta width), we were off to the races. First, we rolled it out into sheets of increasing thinness: And then, once the pasta sheet was the desired thickness, we flipped to the fettuccine attachment: Whe...

My friend Brian turned 32 last week, and celebrated by having his friends over for pozole. It's becoming increasingly clear that he has a serious affection for slow cooked pork (see post on pig roast), and last Saturday's event was a great success. Pozole (or posole) is essentially a pork and hominy soup, pre-Columbian in origin. The pork (usually a shoulder) is braised for hours in a broth of chilies and spices, and the hominy is added near the end. Garnishes for the pozole included crispy tostadas, warm tortillas, sliced radishes, fresh cilantro, shredded greens, and a sauce made of reconstituted and pureed chipotle peppers. Needless to say, it was delicious. I'll see if I can't get Brian to share his recipe for the blog... "Three most essential parts of a good pozole: pork, hominy, and chile." Vince on shredding duty. There was also a pinata--which was demolished by some very enthusiastic participants wielding drumsticks.

An important victory for the prosecution. SCOTUS did a good job of keeping this decision narrowly tailored and acknowledging that there are times when evidence from a search/seizure should be admitted, even if the search/seizure was initiated by some mistake or accident. There didn't seem to be any intentional negligence or malfeasance on the part of the sheriffs' departments in this case; the officers were going off of what they thought was solid, accurate information in a computer database. Obviously, there are going to be instances when the exclusionary rule must be enforced, but as the Court makes clear, applications of the rule are going to be fact specific and will require balancing the seriousness of official misconduct with the possiblity of letting an alleged criminal go free. The NYTimes article detailing the ruling is below. January 15, 2009 Justices Say Evidence Is Valid Despite Police Error By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the convi...

You're probably wondering what's in the picture above. Well, it's the leftovers from last night's dinner. (I forgot to take a picture at dinner--not that it matters--learn why below.) A little background. Due Amici is a great Italian restaurant here in downtown Columbus. According to a friend, they at one point had an amazing butternut squash ravioli in a sage-cranberry cream sauce. She and I recreated it once at her house--and it was great. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make it again, using won ton wrappers instead of fresh pasta. I froze the ravioli, and kept them in a Ziploc until I wanted to use them. Which was last night. Interesting lesson: there's a reason why good ravioli is made with real pasta dough and not won ton wrappers. They don't hold up to the slightest overcooking, becoming instead a gluey, sticky mess that fall apart when tossed with a brown butter sage sauce. Which leads me to the rookie mistake: For reasons unbeknownst to me (laziness?...

So, it's January, 2009, and my first post of the new year. I really hope to be more consistent with the posting...just like I hope to be more consistent with running and less consistent with beer drinking. Seriously. I promise...really gonna try to get it together. First, I must show off the newest member of my household--the Series 600 Professional Mixer from KitchenAid. (see above) It was the best Christmas present a girl could get. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, DF!) Below is the first thing(s) I made with it--a honey-wheat bread braid and a herb-garlic boule. They turned out quite well (I just used the basic bread recipe in the book that came with the mixer and then tweaked the ingredients), and are yet another step on my road to mastering bread baking. Also, a quick recap of Christmas (for posterity's sake). I made the black cherry and chocolate macaroons pictured below. The recipe is from epicurious--it's here , but since I couldn't find raspberry extract, I...