December 23
Retrieving Nanny & Gramps
Menu
- Pasta with Escarole and Beans [View Recipe]
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Ingredients
- .25 pound pasta
- 3 cloves garlic
- salt & pepper
- 2 tablespoons oil
- .5 pound escarole (washed thoroughly <howto label="salad"/>)
- 14.5 ounces cannellini (drained and rinsed)
- cheese (freshly grated)
- red pepper flakes
Instructions
We start by bringing a large pot of water to a boil to cook pasta.
Meanwhile, we get started on our sauce. We smash our cloves of garlic with the side of our knife, carefully, and remove their peels. We mince the garlic with a pinch of salt and add to a large pan with the olive oil. We heat over medium-low while we coarsely shred the escarole.
We add the escarole to the pan when the garlic is fragrant, tossing with tongs. We add 2 tablespoons of water, cover the pan, and cook for a few minutes. Next, we remove the cover and add the beans, reserving 2 tablespoons of the beans for later, and some freshly ground black pepper. We continue to cook, partially covered, while the pasta water is coming to a boil.
We add the pasta and a pinch of salt to the water and cook for a few minutes according to the package directions. When the pasta is almost al dente, we take out ¾ cup of the pasta water. We add a ¼ cup of the water to the beans in a narrow container and puree with our immersion blender. We add this to the sauce along with the remaining ½ cup of reserved pasta liquid. We taste for seasoning.
We drain the pasta when it is cooked and mix in with the sauce. We serve with cheese and red pepper flakes.
- Caputo's Bread
- Cold-Cut Sandwiches
Chris was happy to drive to Brooklyn to drive them down. He left Baltimore at 5am. The drive was not particularly pleasant with the weather getting progressively worse during the day. Towards the end of the trip, it was raining so hard that visibility was no more than a few cars. Fortunately, everyone made it just fine—Chris even got several compliments from both Nanny and Gramps for being such a good driver. Go figure.
Gramps was very excited about dinner ("Hey! Escarole!"). He was slightly disappointed, however, that the "sauce was dry" and that the pasta was so long. Nanny and Gramps will typically have similar dishes almost as a soup. Still, it had "a good taste".
After dinner, we take advantage of Nanny's presence by double checking some of her recipes. As we have added her recipes to our cookbook, we have always done our best to capture the spirit of her recipes. As memories fade, that is not always an easy task.
A good example of that is Nanny's traditional strufoli. Several years ago, she gave us two recipe cards along with verbal instructions. The only significant difference between the two recipes was that one called for orange and lemon zest, which we used in our recipe last year. Nanny was dismayed to see us adding zest—even after we showed her the source of the recipe. Ultimately, both Nanny and Gramps gave their approval of the strufoli, though Nanny did so grudgingly.
Despite the problems with the zest, Nanny had a good time cooking with us. Chris really impressed with his strufoli rolling technique. Robin and Nanny also did prep work for stuffed mushrooms.
While this cooking was taking place, Gramps was sleeping in front of the laptop. We had recorded Gunga Din on MythTV a while back. When we started the movie for him, he exclaimed happily, "I'm going to enjoy this!" He promptly fell asleep—just like at home.
It is so very nice to have them both here.