Recipe for Ziti with wilted kale, collards and chili

Recipe for Ziti with wilted kale, collards and chili paired with Mastro Scheidt 2017 Zinfandel

This is a rift on classic orecchiette with rapini and chili from Puglia. The collards give a slightly bitter edge to the dish and the chili I used is actually a Japanese style chili rather than standard red chili flakes from the grocery store. I’ve also used Aleppo pepper for this dish. I picked my 2017 Zinfandel as another rift on Puglian/Manduria Primitivo common in the south of Italy. This is a classic pairing

4 handfuls of Ziti pasta
½ cup of fully cooked collard greens and kale
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon dried chili
Pecorino Cheese, grated
Olive oil both for a quick sauté of the garlic and chili and for dressing the finished pasta

Fully cooked collards and kale...basically put the greens in a pot with a little water, olive oil, garlic, salt, cover it for an hour on low. Done, it's not rocket science.

As the collards and kale are already fully cooked; it will take longer to cook the pasta than the sauce. About 3 minutes before your pasta is fully cooked, heat the sauté pan and add 3 tablespoons of olive oil, the garlic, chili flake to the pan and let cook for about 30 seconds; then add all your collards and kale and toss everything through and keep the pan hot

When your pasta is cooked, drain quickly and add all the pasta to the saute pan with your greens and toss everything through. Shut off the heat and garnish with a couple more splashes of uncooked olive oil and your pecorino cheese and toss through again quickly. The dish is ready to serve

Bucatini all’amatriciana

Bucatini all’amatriciana with Mastro Scheidt 2017 Sangiovese Vecchio

1 slice double thick bacon cut into small chunks (yes, I know it’s should be Guanciale or Pancetta, but it’s a crisis and it’s what I’ve got in the kitchen)
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon dried Aleppo pepper (or a regular red pepper flake is fine)
1 cup of tomato sauce (my previously made sauce included several whole sausages, yellow onions, garlic and black pepper – I removed the whole sausages from the sauce for this recipe)
Half a pound of bucatini
Grated Parmigiano or Romano Cheese, whichever you prefer
Small handful of chopped parsley

Get your pasta boiling, bucatini can take longer than you think

Cook your bacon in a sauté pan until cooked thoroughly and crispy. There should be just enough bacon drippings to complete the sauce. Add the three crushed garlic cloves and Aleppo pepper and cook for a minute. Then add all of your tomato sauce and warm everything through. It takes longer to cook the bacon than the actual sauce

When the bucatini is ready, drain the pasta quickly and drop all the pasta in the sauce (yes, I want a little of the pasta water in the sauce) Toss through the pasta and the sauce off heat until the pasta is thoroughly coated. Add some of your grated Parmigiano or Romano, all of the chopped parsley and serve

Tortellini in Tomato Cream

Recipe for Tortellini in Tomato Cream with a green salad, served with the Jug. Another Shelter in Place meal

¼ cup Tomato sauce + ¼ cup chicken broth
¼ cup of Heavy Whipping Cream (use it at the end)
Finely chopped parsley (toss in with the cream)
Salt and Pepper
Parmigiano cheese (a little is good, a lot wouldn’t be very Italian)

If you raided the grocery store for some pre-made sauce, now’s the time to use it. If you made your sauce from scratch like I did, then you already know how to make tomato sauce/gravy and you don’t need me to tell you the recipe

Heat up your tomato sauce in a sauté pan. You can use fresh tortellini or a frozen one (lots of people are right now). Boil your pasta until al dente (drain water) and toss the pasta in the sauté pan with the Heavy Cream and parsley. Toss all the pasta through the sauce and allow to thicken for about a minute or so. You should notice the sauce get thick, so cook it until it does. If you like more sauce, add more tomato or cream sauce, that’s fine, especially if you’re eating some bread with this dish. Don’t add the extra sauce at the end, at it at the beginning or you’ll overcook your pasta

I chose the Jug on this one because this is an easy-going meal that I had complete in about 12 minutes. I’m not fussing with a cork and just want a good glass of Sonoma County’s finest Jug

Green Salad
Handful of Mixed Greens
Sliced tomato
Tablespoon of Parmigiano cheese
Fresh ground Black Pepper
Drizzle of Balsamic Vinegar
Drizzle of Olive oil

Seriously, if you don’t know how to make a green salad, you’ve got problems

Pasta with Artichokes and Bacon recipe

As many of us are experiencing during the time of crisis around the world of the global pandemic of Covid-19, we are reminded that we can actually cook at home. To that end, I’m a fan of pasta.

Pasta with Artichokes and Bacon recipe

Pasta, enough for two people, the shape should pick up stuff, like Fusilli, Bowties, Big Shells

2 strips of bacon, rough chopped (not a sweet style)

1 can of artichokes, with artichokes cut in half and drained of any excess water/oil

1 garlic clove, minced

3 solid pinches of a generalized dry Italian seasoning

3 pinches of rough cut parsley

1 tablespoon of butter (to finish)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Grated Parmigiano Reggiano to taste

Cook the bacon in a hot sauté pan until almost fully cooked. Pour off any excess bacon fat (don’t worry, you’ll use it for another dish) Add your artichokes flat side down and slow cook with the remaining bacon in the pan until artichokes develop a caramelization on the bottom. Turn the pan heat down to mid-low and add the garlic, pepper, Italian seasoning, parsley and toss everything through.

When your pasta is done, drain it and add all the pasta to the sauté pan and the extra butter and toss all the items over and over to incorporate all the flavors together. Check for salt and pepper and make additions as necessary. Add some of the grated Parmigiano and serve.

I recommend the 2019 Mastro Scheidt Hunter Bordeaux inspired white wine blend.

Fast Meals and Home Meals

A few pictures of travel meals, quick breakfast items, and the use of cold cuts that needed to be cleared out of the refrigerator before leaving the apartment. It's amazing what you can do with three different salumi and dry pasta.

It is now TRADITION since my first visit overseas, to eat exactly one McDonald’s hamburger.  I thoroughly enjoyed it for 1eu while transitioning through Florence.

Florence Train Station...1 McDonald's Hamburger please.

Pathetic Chicken Sandwich. I needed a fix frankly. Something quick, something to remind me of the gas station complex in Ripon off Highway 99 in California. The picture below was from one of the bar places in Lucca on the way to the train station. I wouldn’t do it again, go find Caffe Monica for a take-away.

Caffe Monica in Lucca just inside the gate wins for best sandwiches so far. Bread was outstanding and the meat and cheese quality were high. 2.50eu (look for the darker bread sandwich from the train station)

Truffled Eggs, Truffled mortadella. My mortadella sandwich aka bologna sandwich for my 8+ hour train ride to Puglia was all I needed.

Fusilli with truffle butter, sage and prosciutto. Nearing the end of what's in the refrigerator things get more simple. Version 2.0 was Fusilli with artichokes and sage. I think more representative of what might be seen in a restaurant.

Lots of prosciutto, cheese, and bread for dinner at the apartment in Bologna. Breakfast tended to be eggs, toast, juice, coffee. Although my eggs with truffle butter took top marks in Lucca.

Il Brindisi, Ferrara

Il Brindisi has been in the Gambero Rosso Guide for many years. It's old. Real old. Plenty of dusty stuff all over the walls. Even has a squat for a toilet. Yea, that old.

Il Brindisi seems touristy, from the moment you walk up to the door, with every global guidebook sticker you can think of, some certification on table, and some other certificate on a eisle. But, it’s Sunday in Ferrara, so choices are extremely limited.

Walk in and there are plenty of visual clues telling you about the history of the place (besides the dusty stuff), from pictures to ancient bottles of wine to somehow make you love the place just because it's old. I can almost see my Mom watching Rick Steves on PBS telling me about Il Brindisi in the heart of Ferrara, (dub in Rick’s voice) "legend has it this is the oldest continually operated restaurant in town"...blah blah blah.

I started off with pasta in brodo or broth, a classic and hard to screw up. The dish was warm, filling, and salty. Belly filling. But there isn't that much to it. I've made this dish and had it in other places, it's a classic regional dish served here with irreverence and disrespect. In most cases, the simplest dishes can be the hardest to get right. 

Boring broth with salty pasta lurking underneath the surface

Moving on to the second course, cotechino with mashed potato was exactly as billed, no frills and cooked like it has been for the last 500 years.

500 year old cotechino sausage

My friend ordered the pot roast with mashed potato. This dish could have been cooked by my mother. One doesn’t come 6000 miles to eat a pot roast that can be duplicated by your mother.

Hey look, Mom's Pot Roast 10,000km away from Fresno

The wine? It tasted like the stuff they served at the Fresno Basque Hotel in 1989. The wine was 3eu a glass. If it wasn’t served chilled, it might not have been palatable.

Was it bad food? No. Was it knock your socks off? No. It was home cooked comfort food, nothing more...but it was open on a Sunday and saved me from having to get a sandwich or bad pizza.

Ferrara has three reasons to go back to: 1 Rizzati Gelato. 2. A walk around its ancient wall. 3. Find a better restaurant to eat in (don’t go on a Sunday).

December Feasting

Fresh sea urchin in Santa Barbara, right off the boat. Whole roasted, bone in rib-eye cooked by yours truly only to be followed up by braising the bones and pulling the meat for Bolognese the following night. Lobster tails on Christmas Eve. Hand-made pasta at Cousin Vince's house paired with one of the first wines I ever made, a 2007 Dry Creek Cabernet Sauvignon. Freshly made cannoli by Mom.

I lost track of how many times I had rib-eye over the month of December. House to house, night to night, city by city it seemed rib-eye was being served. The only break in the rib-eye action was on Christmas Day when Cousin Jeff brought over some antelope (outstanding) and wild duck breasts from three different types of ducks, canvasback being one of them. Delicious (please ignore the unceremonious plating job). Wild ducks are not what most people are used to being served in restaurants, there isn't much fat on these, but the breast meat has a depth of flavor that rivals almost any beef. Cabernet is still too harsh for duck, but Pinot shines with duck, and I've always got some Pinot on hand.

From the Cellar a 2007 Dry Creek Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

It was a fantastic December of family, friends, food and drink. A great way to end 2016.

Pasta Party (with wine)

Gnocchi and Linguine were on the menu Saturday night. Fresh, hand-made and demonstrated by the bald guy in the center picture (me).

The gnocchi were sauced two different ways:

Gnocchi #1 - browned butter with sage and black pepper
Gnocchi #2 - crispy pancetta with basil and garlic topped with fresh Parmigiano Reggiano

The Linguine was sauced with a Bolognese of lamb, beef and pork.

Wines poured that evening:

2014 Mastro Scheidt Sangiovese
2013 Mastro Scheidt Bordeaux Blend
2013 Denner Syrah
2012 Mastro Scheidt Superstrada
La Marca Prosecco

Most of the photos are courtesy of our hosts, John and Falina Marihart. Thanks for letting everyone get flour on your floor!

David rolls out the pasta dough with friend Trisha

The Maestro...

Baked potato for gnocchi

Farm eggs and the Pasta well

Gnocchi in the pan with butter and sage

Gnocchi version 1.0

Gnocchi version 2.0

Freshly made potato gnocchi

Linguine Bolognese

Osteria del 36, Parma

Upon entry, I didn't see anyone at the front desk. So I made a little cough noise. I can only assume it was the owner that heard me, he clapped twice, loudly, as if to summon someone from the back to help. That's exactly what happened. The summons clap, something you won't ever hear in an American restaurant.

Incredible wine list here. Pages of stuff. Lots of big names and verticals from Tuscany. This is where traveling solo has a disadvantage, missing some great wines at reasonable prices. This is probably the reason this restaurant is on the Michelin list as an up and comer.

It's pasta, it's soup, it's good. 

This is the first place that I noticed non-Italian music in the background.  Club beats in English no less, from Pitbull. Truly Mr. International.

To start, tortellini con brodo. It was pure. I added 2 spoonfuls of Parmigiano. There's not much to say here, it's broth, it's pasta (some meat filled, some only cheese), it's good. Look at the picture.

Time for your close-up Ms. Pasta

Wild board with pears

For my second plate, wild boar. The cut is a loin chop, bone in, with pear in a red wine reduction finished with what are small enough to be huckleberries and  a ton of butter. A true pan sauce style. The boar is gamey and wildish in texture and flavor like wild ducks. Frankly, a bit tough and chewy. The rare part near the bone is where it's at. The Italians can cook a steak perfectly rare, but pork or boar, always cooked through. The pan sauce is the bomb. I actually took bread to soak it up. If it weren't for the sauce, I would have been disappointed.

A first, Parmigiano with honey

Parmigiano with honey. A first. The pairing doesn't clash with the pitcher of wine. No problem. Never seen honey served with Parmigiano, only w Gorgonzola. 

This is basically what I drank at Osteria 36

My pitcher of red wine is a drinker, plain and simple. It's my Jug wine. It's red, Sangiovese based and an easy going bouquet that will pair with everything I eat. This is why I made the Jug wine.

Grappa generally has a couple choices, morbide or dolce and then bianco or the caramel colored variety that has been aged in oak. The Italian purists believe that anything other than bianco is not one should drink. Basically, the oak adds color, some sweetness and mellows out the flavor. That oak treatment is something I've seen in many an American restaurant for sure. We do love oak, sweetness and mellowing. I tend to get bianco and morbide.

Grappa and the end of another meal

Was this my best dining experience in Parma? No. However, there was one very positive take-away, chunks of 24 month or older Parmigiano pair very well with wild honey and dry red wine and for that alone, I'm glad I dined here.

Christmas Feast

Tradition is the theme for Christmas at Mastro Scheidt, with emphasis on the MASTRO (Translation:Italian Tradition). 

Ravioli are traditionally made each year specifically for Christmas. Sure ravioli could be made any time of year, but the holiday requires that a very specific type of ravioli be made...the little ones. The filling (pictured below) is a combination of veal, beef, and spinach with onions pulsed separately in the Cuisinart and then blended together by hand.

Most ravioli you see in restaurants these days are larger, one ravioli can be roughly half the size of a new iPhone. But to my Southern Italian relatives, "those big ravioli have too much dough and not enough filling". 

Without question, the smaller ravioli are a little more difficult to make, using only a rolling pin, a ravioli form roller, and traditional cutter, every step of the process is hand-made. No machines, no fancy pasta roller, nothing but shoulder and tricep power rolling.

The results?

Merry Christmas! Yes, I was drinking my Dry Creek Cabernet Sauvignon with my Christmas meal.