shortbread: the 3 ingredient cookiegasm

These are a hit during the holidays. i love their simplicity, and the fact that these cookies are comprised of only three ingredients (save the part where you add a dash of this, or a splash of that to change the flavor, or decide to dip in jams/chocolate and make epic shortbread cookie sandwiches...buuut i'll leave that up to the reader to exercise such creativity.)

these are my sunday night "ok fine i'll do something besides laundry" treats. get creative with cutters, and you're good to go.

::gathering my raw materials::

ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened

1/2 (heaping) cup brown sugar--light or dark, don't matta

2 and 1/2 cups flour --and some for dusting/rolling out.

and that's basically it!

for interesting flavor, i decided to scrape a bit of vanilla bean in the mix and thrown that in. but totally optional. lemon zest, cinnamon, chocolate chips, or toasted nuts also make great additions to these treats.




a slew of cookie cutters help jog creativity. or keep it simple, circular, and flip your favorite pint glass upside down and use that.

directions:

in a large bowl, beat softened butter and brown sugar until fluffy. at this point, i added a bit of scraped vanilla bean innards to toy with the flavor a bit.







add your flour in a little at a time and continue to mix until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.






remove the dough from the bowl and pat into a disk. wrap with plastic wrap, and pop in the fridge for an hour or so.



heat oven to 350. remove dough from fridge and begin kneading. it'll be as hard as clay, so really work it with your hands. once the dough is pliable, sprinkle flour on a flat surface and go to town with a rolling pin. i'll leave the thickness up to you.

cut several patterns with your favorite cookie cutter. put on a cookie sheet and bake for about 13-15 minutes.




remove from oven and wait about 3 minutes before enjoying. =)

Holy hellooooooo it's been a while - scratch pasta 4 cheese ravioli =)

First of all, this page was in dire need of updating. i guess i can remedy that with a slew of easy recipes. =)

Secondly, I had a craving for ravioli yesterday. I've done ravioli on this blog in the past, but i think i really nailed it (finally). Pasta is super easy to make, but i wasn't sure if i really wanted to put the time/effort into making it. Off to the farmer's market i went. i got even more motivated hopping off the little italy trolley station and moseying over to mona lisa's and buying a tiny container of ricotta.

after coming home, i lightly prowled google for a ravioli recipe and wiped my pasta press clean. gave my pastry wheel a good spin and went to town.

i found a 4 cheese ravioli recipe that i tinkered with and success! i finally made ravioli which didn't explode when boiled.

ALSO NOTE, THIS BLOG DID NOT CONTAIN MY USUAL PHOTOGRAPHIC FINESSE THAT WOULD NORMALLY BE PRESENT BEHIND MY 60MM MACRO LENS. But visuals are still a must, albeit not as pretty...



::gathering my raw materials::

(adapted from a recipe i found on allrecipes.com)

the pasta dough:

1 cup flour

1 egg

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp water

dash of salt

directions:

mix all ingredients together. switch to kneading it on a floured surface. dough will be stretchy. set aside.


the filling:

4 oz ricotta

1 tbsp cream cheese

1 oz crumbled feta

1 oz shredded asiago

1/2 egg

1/2 tsp parsley

dash of garlic

dash of pepper

directions: mix everything in a bowl until all ingredients have come together. set aside.




assembly:


roll out your pasta dough with a rollin pin and set your pasta press (the lasagna/flat side) to the thickest setting. roll a sheet through again and drop the setting a bit thinner. repeat until you end up at the thinnest setting.

lay out your pasta sheet and starting from one end, cut a 2" x 4 " rectangle out of the dough (it doesn't have to be a perfect rectangle, but roughly that size). put a 1/2 tsp dollop of filling on the rectangle, towards the center. make an egg wash (with the other half of the egg you didn't use for the filling, just add a bit of water and beat) and brush on all the edges of the pasta rectangle. fold it over shut on the 3 sides. then get a pastry wheel and flute the 3 edges, thus sealing your pillow shut.



repeat until you run out of dough. if you have leftover filling, add it to your favorite pasta sauce. it adds a nice cheesy element.



cooking:

after you finish each ravioli, put it on a flat surface (i would recommend coating the bottom with some kind of semolina; i made the mistake and didn't do this and some stuck to the sheet).




set water to boil in a 6 quart pot. once water comes to a boil, carefully drop in each ravioli. they cook FAST. they should be done in 5-7 min if not sooner. they will definitely puff up double their size so do not put too many in otherwise you'll end up with an almost overflowing pot (as seen in picture).




once done, use a slotted spoon and arrange on a plate or bowl. top with your favorite sauce and additional cheese. enjoy!