For my daughter’s 6th birthday party, we decided to host 10 girls at our house to a pretend slumber party. In the past we have rented a space to host the party, which has always been very expensive. I can’t believe my type-A personality didn’t realize having a winter baby would make outdoor (free space) birthday parties impossible!! Our apartment is a nice size, but certainly doesn’t have an extra room like a rumpus room that a house might have. We knew that  having the party here would be intense, so we decided to embrace that.

Neil made a huge blanket fort that took up most of our living room. It had two “rooms” and Lindsay decorated the back part. It looked a little like Jeannie’s bottle from I dream of Jeannie. Neil also set up a video camera to our tv, so the kids could dance to the music and see themselves on tv. Our friend Courtenay came and helped us make cootie catchers and paint fingernails. We played Light As a Feather, Stiff As a Board, which was new to all of the kids. In case you didn’t play that as a kid, here’s how it works. One kid lays on her back and keeps her body stiff. All the other kids kneel around her. They place two fingers from each hand under the stiff kid. Then they all lift their hands up at the same time (we chanted Light As a Feather, Stiff As a Board in a spooky voice) and lift the kid in the air. You wouldn’t think it would work, but it does. And nobody got dropped. They even picked me up.

I think the girls had a great time and loved the cake. I made that crazy cake using marshmallow fondant. The girl on the left is Lindsay and the others vaguely look like some of her friends. The cake was a chocolate buttermilk cake that I got from Epicurious and have made in the past.

Neil and I were pretty much exhausted for the rest of the weekend, but Lindsay and all her friends had a blast.

This is a recipe that my father used to make for cocktail parties and was usually one of the first things to disappear. My sister and I seem to often be on the same wavelength and just as I was deciding on making these for Neil’s birthday party, she emailed me to ask for the recipe. She confirmed that hers disappeared immediately, so I thought I would post the recipe with directions on how to make them.

The first batch I rolled out to about 1/4″ thickness, which was *way* too thick. You can see from the photos below that they kind of shrink up sideways and puff upwards. The first batch were freakishly high, so I rolled the subsequent batches thinner (and poked them with fork tines).

Pogacsa (sometimes seen as Pogatcha)

Equal weights of:

flour

butter

cream cheese or feta cheese. I used feta cheese for these. I used 8oz (1/2 lb) measures of each and got a nice sized basket of crackers. Several dozen.

I love Hungarian recipes! They are usually quite simple. Okay, so I mixed the butter and cheese together until it was well-blended. Then I added the flour and mixed it with the dough-hook on my stand mixer. The dough is very thick. You can see the bits of feta in my dough.

Generously flour a surface and roll the dough out as seen below. You will fold each edge to the center until you have 4 flaps folded in. Repeat this several times and keep it well-floured. The rolling part is very important, otherwise the crackers won’t puff.

Wrap in plastic and let rest in the fridge for about 1/2 hour.

Roll out thinner than 1/4″ (I have photos of the overly puffy crackers. Don’t let this happen to you!) and cut with a small drinking glass or other cutter. I used a canapé cutter, which I think was too small. So about 1 1/2-2″ across. I also suggest poking them with the tines of a fork to keep the puff factor down.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown. You can put them directly on the cookie sheet. There’s enough butter in these that they won’t stick to anything!

They are best warm, but are still delicious room temp. If you have any left over you can always warm them up and have with lunch. I only had extras because I had an insane amount of food at the party where I served them.

I had a bunch of spinach in the fridge that was looking a bit limp, so I decided to make some fresh pasta. I have a pasta roller/cutter attachment for my stand mixer, but you could use manual rollers.

Fresh Spinach Pasta

1 bunch of spinach steamed, or 1 package of frozen spinach thawed. Either way, chop up the spinach finely. I tried using a food mill, which wasn’t a huge success. A blender or food processor or determined knife wielder would work great.

3 eggs

2 1/2 cups of flour

I mixed the three ingredients together and added some of the spinach liquid to make the dough form a ball. I kneaded it by machine for 2 minutes and then by hand for another 1 minute. Let the dough rest for about 15 minutes.

Roll it and cut it. Divide the dough in 4 equal parts. Flatten one piece and feed it through the widest opening on the pasta roller and then fold in half and feed through again. Repeat this several times until the dough is nice and supple. I dust it with flour so it isn’t sticky at all. This helps prevent the pasta from sticking together when you cut it. I put each piece of dough through this and then set the roller to a thinner setting. I made fettucini, so I ended up on setting 5 of my kitchen aid roller. It’s a medium setting, which gives it a nice heft when you are eating it. You don’t have to fold the dough in half for the thinner settings – that’s just on the first setting.

I’m going to get some crushed tomatoes and make a simple tomato and garlic sauce. With a little grated parmesan it should be simple and pretty. Ever notice that Italian food and the Italian flag are the same colors? Coincidence? Nah.

I had many green cherry tomatoes left on the vine, which I didn’t want to go to waste. I did some searching online and found a few pickle recipes. I decided to make a recipe that didn’t use water-bath canning techniques, which just means that I need to eat them up sooner.

Adapted from John Kessler’s Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes (or tomolives)

1 quart green cherry tomatoes or quartered large green tomatoes

1/2 bunch of dill (about 6-8 stems)

1/2 c. apple cider vinegar

2 t salt

1 t freshly cracked pepper

5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and thickly sliced

Optional: 1-2 hot peppers. I chose not to put them in because of my daughter, but I think it really would help the flavor.

Pierce the tomatoes all the way through with a skewer and then place in a clean quart-sized Mason jar. Add the dill sprigs and pepper.

Bring 1 1/2 c. water to boil with the remaining ingredients. Pour liquid into the jars and cover the tomatoes. Stir the dill and garlic into the tomatoes. Cover and bring to room temperature. Let the tomatoes absorb the flavor overnight in the fridge.

What I would do differently: The original recipe just said to pierce the tomatoes in the stem end. This made 1/2 of the tomato taste pickled and 1/2 taste like a sour un-ripe tomato. After piercing them all the way through, I let them sit another day. I think the longer they sit, the better. These aren’t “officially” canned, so they will go bad. Don’t let them sit around too long. I also thought they could use a little more flavor, so will experiment with the hot pepper next time. I thought they were interesting and definitely a good use for what would have just gone to waste. There are also recipes for friend green cherry tomatoes (cut in 1/2, dip them in some sort of flour or corn meal and then fry), but it seemed as though the breading just wanted to slip off the smooth tomato skins.

Actually I’m really getting jazzed to learn about canning, pickling and fermenting, so I think I’ll try some different pickling techniques next time.

I really love baking, so I’ve been having fun kneading bread dough and mixing batter for cupcakes. We decided to get a pasta rolling/cutting attachment, which has turned out to be a lot of fun. There is something so satisfying about feeding dough into a machine and having flattened sheets come out. Then you feed the sheets in and long strings drip out. I pretend I’m very sophisticated making pasta, but the reality is that I’m just playing with the grown-up version of a playdoh extruder.

Although I’ve been really swamped with work for the past 2 weeks getting ready for a photo shoot, I decided that I absolutely had to make ravioli. We had some extra ground beef/ground turkey mix from dinner, so I flipped through my book The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles for a recipe. I chose to make meat and ricotta with basil filling.

Meat and Ricotta with Basil Filling based on recipe from The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles by The Editors of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine.

1 T olive oil (evoo)

2 minced garlic cloves

1/2 lb of ground meat. You can use different combos such as ground beef with pork. I had beef/turkey mix on hand.

1 c. ricotta

1/3 c. grated parmesan cheese

1 large egg yolk

1/2 c. minced basil leaves (I used the last basil I had growing in a pot)

1/2 t salt

freshly ground pepper

Heat the garlic in olive oil until fragrant. Add the meat and cook on med-high until the meat browns and the liquid evaporates. Break up the pieces as it cooks. Drain off the fat and let cool a bit.

In a medium mixing bowl, add the cooled meat and the rest of the ingredients. You can keep the mixture in the fridge overnight if you like.

I made a basic pasta dough of 3 large eggs mixed into 2 cups of flour. I always try and sneak some whole wheat flour into my cooking. I only added about 1/4 cup because I didn’t want the dough to get too heavy. You can  mix your dough in a food processor, by hand, or with the dough hook of your stand mixer. If the dough looks crumbly, add water 1 T at a time until it comes together. You don’t want to add too much in case it gets sticky. I made the dough before the filling because it needs to rest for about 1/2 hour before you start rolling it out.

Now comes the fun part. When the dough is ready, you roll it out in thin sheets. Drop teaspoonfuls of the filling about an 1-1 1/4″ apart on the dough, fold over and seal. It took me a couple of tries to get my technique down. At first I was getting a lot of air trapped in with the filling, but then figured out how to press it out before I completely sealed the raviolis. I trimmed them into squares using a pizza wheel. I’m pretty darn happy with how they turned out. I’m going to experiment with different fillings, because really, how can anything surrounded by dough be anything but tasty and satisfying?

I bought some organic garlic and am going to plant some this fall. I’ve never planted garlic before, so don’t know whether to believe or ignore the hype about buying seed garlic. I’m choosing to ignore the hype and just got plain old regular organic garlic. I think I need to wait a little longer to plant it, so it’s in the fridge right now. I’ll probably put it in after I chop down and prune my plants. Goodbye tomatoes. How I loved you!

I also saved some tomato seeds from my plants. I didn’t really research the proper way to do that. I just put a bunch of seeds on a paper towel to absorb the pulp. Now they are a part of the paper towel, so I’m not sure if I should pry them off, or just cut up the paper towel and plant it along with the seeds in the spring.

With the cooler weather has come more baking and knitting. I just made nutty oatmeal cookies from Mark Bittman’s book Food Matters. I didn’t use the vegan options and used butter and eggs. The book is interesting (think Omnivore’s Dilemma lite) and offers weekly menus and recipes. I seem incapable of menu planning, so I’ve decided to try some of his menus. The book emphasizes healthy, mostly plant-based dishes, so I wasn’t sure if the cookies would be good or taste like particle board. I was pleasantly surprised. They had chopped up dried apples in them instead of the usual raisins that my family doesn’t like.

As for the knitting, I am making a raglan sweater for Neil from wool I spun ages ago. I’m crossing my fingers that I have enough wool to finish it. This weekend we are joining our friends for a weekend in Woodstock, NY and a visit to the NY Sheep and Wool festival on Saturday.