Waiting for Spring

First, I would like to apologize for the hiatus I didn't tell anyone I was taking.  I've been busy being lazy and melting into the TV.  I've also been having some grievances with winter.  While my cute skirts and sandals are packed away in the recesses of my attic, I've been piling on layer after layer to maintain some warmth, ready for the snow to stop falling.
And when it's not  snowing incessantly, everything is the color of cold steel.  Even the open blue sky has a desperate gray chill to it. And I am nearly done hibernating.  I am tired of waking up on Sunday to hang out in my living room with a blanket around my shoulders and woolly socks covering my toes.  Or going out just to go back inside.

However, for all my complaining towards this seemingly unfriendly season, there is, I've found, a calm beauty in the solitude of winter.  The hibernation of all that is green leaves room for the quiet stillness of a soft (if unending) snowfall.  And there is something steadfast and certain about a chilled afternoon--the ever-present, pervasive, and steady greyness that wraps the trees and covers the lakes and rivers in a blanket of rest.
 I'm not saying I'm all for it, just that, even in the midst of cold wet slush, there is always something beautiful.

Heaven Can be Devilish

"Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (First Edition) by Julia Child (and Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholld).

This is a beautiful cookbook.  I watched "Julie and Julia" with my parents the day after Christmas and fell in love with french cooking via Hollywood and a beautiful blogger.  Filled with inspiration, I recently made the Chocolate and Almond Cake on page 677.  Oh my.  I have never made a cake from scratch and previously looked down upon chocolate cake as they came out dry more often than not.  But this was not the case.  After a morning excursion to Shop Rite and the local liquor store to buy some quality rum with the help of a lovely gentleman, I returned home to participate in my own personal bake-off.  I preheated, whipped, beat, folded, sifted, and folded some more until I had concocted the most delicious chocolate cake batter this side of the Atlantic.  Of course I licked the extra batter from the spatula and emptied mixing bowl like a jumpy seven-year-old with a delighted grin on my face.  And after impatiently waiting for my lovely baked delight to cool for at least an hour after it came happily out of the oven, I iced it with the best damn chocolate icing ever. 

Then, I ate some.

 Oh.

 Heavenly.

What I did not consider when making this divinely scrumptious dessert was that it was meant to be shared, and while I do have a lovely housemate that gladly eats whatever I cook, there is a limit to his intake on heart-stopping cakes.  I do not have this limiting gene and thus have now eaten the majority of my irresistible creation.  This is not good.  I am now on the prowl for a gym membership.

New Year's Resolution:  Bake what you will, but be sure you have someone (or some five) to share it with.

Pasta con Nussa

As requested, here is the "recipe" for Christmas Pastas.  Please note that, because I have only seen this made one time, there could be errors in my recollection and explanation:

What You Need

Equipment:

Two large pots

Blender

Food processor or grinding attachment for your mixer

Garlic Press (or a good mincing hand)

A large mixing bowl

Spatula

Lasagna dish

Ingredients:

1 box of lasagna noodles

1 large container of shredded Parmesan

A bulb or two of garlic.  Or three.

1 loaf of white sandwich bread

Walnuts (at least a bag, probably more.  I am unclear on the quantity.  Eventually you will need something like 4 cups of ground walnuts.)

Salt and Pepper

What You Do

In a rather large pot, boil lasagna noodles.  In another pot of slightly smaller size, fill it about three quarters of the way with water and simmer.  In either a food processor or a fancy nut crushing attachment to your blender, finely grind walnuts so that your processed nuts are the consistency of a damp crumbly pate.  Open a bag of sliced white sandwich bread.  Grab a handful and put it in the pot of simmering water.  (Yes, really.  Do this.  Do not ask questions.)  When your bread is mush, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and plop it in a blender with your mushy ground nuts.  Blend with minced garlic.  Your blender should produce a smooth pale, grayish brown sauce that is not runny but not too thick.  (I realize that this is very vague.  I am sorry.)  Pour this saucy mixture into a large mixing bowl.  Add Parmesan, salt and pepper.  Taste it.  Smile or question what you have made.  If there is some ingredient that you need more of, put in more.  This might require you to put the sauce back in the blender.  That is fine.  If it is to your liking, rejoice.  Grab your cooked noodles (you may want to LIGHTLY oil these while they are awaiting their embrace with the sauce as they tend to stick and you do not want this.  Or leave them sitting in cold water, so they are not still cooking and wipe off the excess water from each noodle when you use them).  In a lasagna dish (I may have made this term up.  I don't really care.  Grab a dish you would bake lasagna in.  It should be about 13" long, 9" or so wide, and about 3" high.)  put a generous layer of sauce in the bottom.  Place down a layer of noodles.  Then some sauce.  Then some Parmesan. Then noodles.  And sauce and Parmesan and noodles and sauce and Parmesan.  You can make a little song while you layer.  When you are done layering (when you run out of noodles), sauce up the top and sprinkle with more Parmesan.  Cover and put it in your fridge.  It is meant to be served cold. 

In an hour or two, or twenty minutes if you throw patience to the wind, take out your Pasta con Nussa, sigh with delight, cut in, and enjoy.