Bits Of Dust

Okay, so I go away for a little over a week, and all hell breaks lose.

Oh sure, for you it might not be such a big deal, but while I was gone, Chef John revealed the secret to getting the seeds out of my favorite fruit, pomegranates. I first fell in love with pomegranates when I was a small child. My grandmother had a huge pomegranate tree in her backyard, and I would gorge myself every chance I got…

Chef John isn’t the only one with big things happening while I was gone either.

It seems Chef Tom has gone and totally re-designed his site. WOW. I hardly recognized the place. Not only that, but he has a cookbook coming out. Oh yeah, and at his other site, The Secret Recipe Blog, he has a copycat recipe for Cracker Jacks. Yum!

You’d think I had been gone a month or more with all the stuff going on…

Although I did a lot of sitting and relaxing on my vacation, I also did a lot of cooking. In fact, on Saturday, I made a double batch of roasted garlic, ham, potato, and cheese perogies with a spinach dough. They were delicious (and I have a whole bunch in the freezer for the next time we want them).

I also made some “Naked Ravioli”, which I saw on a local Atlanta cooking show. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 lbs fresh spinach (steamed)
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups parmigiano reggiano
black pepper (grated)
nutmeg (grated)
2 eggs
30 g. Flour

roasted garlic
butter

Preparation:

After steaming the spinach, drain as much water from it as possible (I use a towel to squeeze out as much as I can).
Mix the spinach, ricotta, parmigiano reggiano, black pepper, nutmeg, eggs and flour.
Refrigerate mixture for an hour or so.
Roll mixture in small batches, much like you would roll out gnocchi, and cut into small pieces.
Bring a large pot of “salty as the sea” water to a boil, and boil the pieces until they float.
Drain.

In a small saucepan, heat roasted garlic and butter, and serve the naked ravioli in the garlic butter sauce.

The show I watched rolled the pieces into small balls, but we just cut them and “swooshed” them with a fork like we do when we make regular gnocchi, since this dish is basically a spinach gnocchi.

I think that’s it. I watched it, and made it the same day, then sat here and tried to remember it all to share it with you.

So, did you cook anything interesting while I was gone? If so, what was it? I want some!