I’ve barely got one blog down and already suppressing the idea for another. Julie had Julia (who hated her), but I have Kevin and John (who like me, apparently). No, they aren’t chefs, but they are neighbors who dutifully, thoughtfully and now it seems, regularly, bring me their left-over garden produce. It began with a big bag of John’s tomatoes and peppers, which gave us gazpacho, Insalata Caprese and bruschetta variations for a week. Next came kale (tossed in olive oil, roasted and showered in salt). But yesterday, Kevin raised the bar with today’s secret ingredient:
At first glance, I thought Kevin gave me a bag of dead rats to cook.
A bag of beets (the least of which are displayed here) from his brother’s farm on the Eastern Shore. I almost defaulted to the ubiquitous beet and goat cheese salad with citrus vinaigrette, but I had a lot of beets, one pedestrian recipe and gag-reflex whenever I thought about eating that meal four nights in a row (especially since we wouldn’t be home four nights in a row and throwing out food is unconscionable—and avoidable if cooks think and plan ahead). To make a long, internet-searching story short, I decided on ravioli.
The need to knead: machine or not, work this for 10 minutes and then rest on parchment beneath a bowl for 30 minutes.
I was going to make an egg pasta and simply stuff it with a beet concoction, but then I saw that Martha had used the beats to make a magenta dough. The link will get you the recipe—as you’ll see, worked like a charm (although I didn’t get that same deep hue). Note: Since it’s hot out, I wouldn’t bother roasting the beets for an hour in a 400 degree oven (like I did); I think you can save time and energy nuking these.
Make a filling with whatever you want. Cheese is a good binder (in more ways than one).
Martha stuffed her ravioli with a mixture of ricotta, goat cheese and mint; but this is where we part ways. Naturally, I had to add even more beets and everything else I love: lots of salt, lemon zest, rosemary (in lieu of mint), parsley, oregano (because the garden’s overrun with it), nutmeg, scallions (because I didn’t have chives), etc. In addition to goat and a bit of ricotta, I added a bit of Gorgonzola. I like beets paired with blue cheese, so it made sense to me (albeit a bit of an afterthought). As always, in your own kitchen, go with God, go what you have, go with what you like and go with what’s in season. If you screw up—go commiserate with the blogging folks at Endless Simmers; they have a great feature called Friday Fuck Ups. Face it, we all have them.
Mario would have slapped my for making my ravioli too big and not respecting the need for balance (so sue me).
Basking in my own culinary coolness, I realized I had no sughi o condimenti (ma Dio). Why do I always forget that last little bit of sauce for the top? I started this process at 4:30 and now I can here Gwen Ifill compete with my stomach. The ravioli’s down and I can hear Alton Brown tell me: “one minute.” Back to the fridge for a shallot, butter, salt/pepper, pepperoncini, more Gorgonzola, a ladle of pasta water (parsley at the end). Luckily it worked out (no big surprise there: to fat add fat and serve).
Low-light/high-ISO does not give the final plating its due, but you get the idea.
So why am I blogging about this? It was intended to serve as an homage to my neighbors for sharing their stash (Kevin, no worries—I’m freezing your ravioli so you won’t be tempted), then it became a metaphor for how we should take care of one another (and pass a single payer health care bill), but in the end it’s really all about me and my dumb luck with a lot of beets.
Today, thanks to the generosity of Liam and Renee, I picked up their CSA allocation (they’re on vacation); now I have a new challenge—corn, sweet potatoes, carrots, onion, tons of peppers, sage, Bartlett pears, a melon…ideas welcome!
