Pappardelle with Morel Cream Sauce

One of our favorite things about spring is that morel mushrooms taunt us and force us to tromp through the woods in search of them. The are amazingly good. Normally, we aren't as fortunate as we were this year, and we just get a couple of morels that we bread with cracker crumbs and pan fry. This year, however, we found quite a few our first time out, so we tried our hand at a Morel Cream sauce.




Here's what you need:
About 1/2 lb fresh morel mushrooms (you can use dried too, you just have to re-hydrate them)
3 Tbsp butter, divided
1 shallot
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup white wine
2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt & pepper to taste
1 package pappardelle pasta


Here's what you do:
If you found fresh morels, soak them in water when you get home to remove the dirt. It should all float to the bottom. If the base of the stems look dirty still, feel free to slice them off.

Remove the morels from the water and slice.

While you have a knife in your hand, mince up the shallot.

And finally, mince up the garlic.

Put a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter.

Put the shallots and garlic in the pan.

Let those saute for a couple of minutes, then add the morels in. Toss it all together to coat it in the butter.

Let the morels soften for another couple of minutes, then add the white wine.

And add the balsamic vinegar. Also, season with salt and pepper.

Let that reduce until it is almost completely dry.

Pour in 3/4 cup of water. Let that reduce until there is only about 2 tablespoons of liquid left.

Reduce the heat to medium to medium low and add the cream. You don't want your cream to burn. Let this simmer and stir frequently, making sure to get all the way into the corners of the pan. You'll also want to start boiling your water for the pasta at this point.

Let the cream sauce reduce by half and thicken. 

Once the sauce has thickened, add a tablespoon of butter. Taste and add more salt and pepper to your liking.

If your cream sauce reduces before your pasta is ready, drop the heat to low and stir occasionally. Don't let your sauce boil, or it will separate. You don't want that.


Drain the pasta and add it directly into the sauce, and mix it up to coat it.

This meal was rich and delicious and amazingly tasty. Though, anything with morel mushrooms in it is amazingly tasty to us.

Enjoy!

Homemade Salsa

Even with the sweltering heat this summer, Zack's dad's garden did pretty well. We had enough fresh veggies to mix up a batch of salsa. We decided to cook our salsa this time. In the past, we had just made a pico de gallo style salsa. This was our best salsa yet.


Here's what you'll need: 
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 red onion
1 sweet bell pepper (we used an orange pepper)
2 cloves garlic
3-4 tomatoes
1 jalapeno
1 poblano pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp cilantro
1/2 dried ancho chili pepper
chili powder
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt (Kosher salt will work as well)


Here's what you do:

Dice the onion and pepper.

Mince the garlic.

Seed the tomatoes and set the seeds aside. Then dice the tomatoes.

Remove the seeds and inside membrane from the jalapeno and poblano. If you want to kick up the heat in your salsa, add some of the seeds from the jalapeno in as well. Now, dice that up too.

Chop your cilantro.

Using kitchen shears, cut up Ancho chili into small pieces. In case you're wondering what this chili looks like, here it is:

Heat the oil over medium heat in a high walled sauce pan or small pot. Add in the onions and cook until they are slightly opaque.

Next, add the rest of your veggies (reserving the tomato seeds for a bit).

Now, add your spices.

Let that cook down a bit. Meanwhile, mash up your tomato seeds.

Add the now mashed tomato seeds in small increments until you get the consistency of salsa you like. (We like ours thick). Keep in mind, it will thicken as it cooks. Drop the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Let cool and consume.

Enjoy!

Homemade Barbecue Sauce

We are busy cooking away this weekend, so look forward to lots of posts coming up. The grilled pork loin we're making has a lot of description, so we decided to do a separate blog for just the BBQ Sauce.


We started with another recipe, but put our own twist on it.


Here's what you'll need:
1 cup ketchup
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup and 2 Tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 cup and 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
2 tsp mesquite flavored liquid smoke (or your favorite flavor)
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/8 tsp cinnamon (ground)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 shot bourbon (Zack's bourbon of choice is Buffalo Trace)

Combine all of the ingredients in a cold, large sauce pan. Place on medium heat and bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth.


Reduce heat to low and let simmer for about a half an hour.


Remove from heat and let it cool. 


Enjoy!

Homemade Pasta Sauce

Zack has become the "Sauce Master" in our house. When we have time to make homemade sauce, I willingly take the role of sous chef. If you could taste it, you'd do the same.

We had the luxury of a couple hours of cooking this weekend and I really wanted to use the spinach pasta that we found a few days before, so I talked Zack into working his magic on a sauce. Here's the thing, we never have the same sauce twice. Mostly because we never measure anything, just season, taste, season, taste, and then let it simmer, then taste and season again. Zack also switches up the ingredients depending on how he's feeling that day. This weekend, we had a red sauce with white wine and mushrooms. I licked the plate.

Here's how it went down. The measurements aren't exact - you really have to trust your taste buds. You'll need:

1/2 medium red onion
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 cup white wine
1 giant can of whole peeled tomatoes
Red pepper flake
Dried oregano
Fresh basil
4 large (or 6 small) baby portabella mushrooms
Salt & pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan
Pasta of your choice (we chose spinach fettuccini)

Start by chopping half a red onion and 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, depending on their size:

Now add a bit of olive oil and just the onion to a pot over medium-low heat. Toss the onion around in the oil to coat it.

Add some salt and pepper. Let the onions cook down and soften, then add the garlic. Continue cooking - your nose will tell you when it's ready, but the onions will turn slightly opaque. Now, add some white wine (You can add red if you prefer). We used somewhere between a quarter and half cup of Chardonnay because it's what we had on hand. Basically, you want enough wine to almost submerge the onions.

Now, bring the wine/onion/garlic mixture up to a boil and stir occasionally. Boil until wine is reduced and the onions have absorbed most of the wine. 

Next, drop the pan back to low heat and add the tomatoes. This time we used "no salt added" whole plum tomatoes, to which we added salt, pepper, a dash of red pepper flake, and dried oregano.

Now for Zack's favorite part - mash the tomatoes with a potato masher until they look like a chunky salsa. Then add a sprig of basil. Add the whole thing, you're going to puree it up later. Once you get everything mashed up, bring the heat back up to get a low boil going for about 8-10 minutes. Pay attention to your sauce and stir it a LOT so that you don't burn it. If it seems like you've got too much heat going on, back the heat down to medium before the 10 minutes is up. You want it bubbling softly, not splattering all over your kitchen.

Now, turn the heat way down and let your sauce simmer for at least an hour. You can go a bit longer if you want, just remember to stir occasionally.

For the mushrooms, I used 4 large baby bellas. Clean them up using a damp cloth. I personally just use a damp paper towel. Don't scrub them, just wipe gently, then slice 'em up.

When you are about fifteen minutes from serving, start your pasta water (throw a lid on it to bring it to a boil quicker), saute your mushrooms in some olive oil and puree your sauce. If you're doing this operation alone,saute the mushrooms first and set them aside, then puree the sauce. We transfer our sauce to a separate bowl because our kitchen is tiny and there isn't room for this operation at the stove while mushrooms are being sauted simultaneously.

Add the sauce back to the pot on the stove, and add the mushrooms. We reserve about 1/4 for topping the pasta at the end, but you can definitely throw them all in now if you want. Continue to let the sauce simmer until your pasta is ready. Strain the pasta, but remember to reserve some of the water, we always use a little to loosen the sauce up. In fact, Zack adds a one or two tablespoons of pasta water directly to the sauce at this point.

Important Note on thinning your sauce: A little pasta water goes a long way! Start small and build until you get the consistency you desire.

Zack likes to do individual portions, so he prepares each serving in a different pan with some sauce, one portion of pasta, a little bit of butter (no more than a tablespoon), freshly grated parmesan and possibly some more pasta water if needed. If you want to skip that step, just add your pasta to the pot with the sauce. Add pasta water as necessary. 

Plate it up, add your mushroom garnish and top with freshly grated Parmesan.

Enjoy!