Good Food and Good Friends...

Last weekend we had my friend Robin and her husband over for dinner. It was more of a working dinner for me and Robin than anything. We had discussed getting together on a weekend and cooking dinner together for a while but never got around to doing it until recently. It was a lot of fun—and the food was amazing if I do say so myself!
While our darling husbands were playing X-Box, me and Robin were in the kitchen busy, busy! On the menu for the evening was French bread, fettuccini alfredo with homemade fettuccini, and roast asparagus wrapped in prosciutto.
I had suggested French bread to Robin because of her fear of yeast—yes, that is correct. Robin has Phobia of Yeast. As a recovering yeastphobic I wanted to show her how easy it really is to work with yeast, and how gratifying the results can be. I was really loving the results that I saw in Shawnda of Confections of a Foodie Bride’s blog, but I will even admit, I was intimidated by the 10-hour bread that the Daring Bakers made. I went in search of a recipe that was more time friendly, and a bit easier to start off with—after all I am still a bread making novice myself. We settled on a fairly straight forward recipe from Epicurious.com.
The dough came together easily. I made sure to follow my own tips from my Easter bread making adventure and measured the temperature of the water and also timed the stages with our kitchen timer. In little over an hour, we had two lovely loaves of crusty French bread. They had a beautiful golden color, and their texture was light and fluffy, with a wonderful crunch on the exterior. What I liked about this recipe was that it hit upon the idea of how important adding steam to the cooking process was to achieving the crunchy exterior skin of the bread—this was a key point in the Daring Baker challenge bread in Shawanda’s blog.
Another key element for our meal—the main event, was the fettuccini alfredo. With neither of us having ever made pasta before, and not even owning a pasta machine, we knew this would be interesting. With a recipe from epicruious.com in hand, we set out on our task. We were hopeful when we made the well, and had the eggs sit in it nicely, but we knew we were in for some fun when the wall of our well couldn’t hold back the egg—it took four hands to get the egg and the flour incorporated…not to mention the addition of 2 more eggs over and above those indicated in the recipe due to the extreme dryness of dough. Oh, did I mention the fact that it was insanely hard to roll out? Even when we did get it thin (about 1/8” thick), it still puffed up a lot in the cooking process. The flavor wasn’t bad—it was nice and firm, very different from the dried pasta I’m used to, but it could have been thinner. The process of making our own pasta was pretty easy—even with needing four hands to reel in the egg after it breached the flour wall. I think I’d do it again, but if I did I would invest in a pasta roller!
The sauce recipe was Giada’s and was delicious—she used nutmeg (I used fresh ground thanks to my handy dandy microplaner) and lemon juice. Those really made the sauce pop in a way that restaurant sauces don’t seem to. Finally as a side dish we served prosciutto wrapped roast asparagus—super easy and really quite tasty. After trimming the ends of the asparagus, we steamed them for about 3-4 minutes—just long enough for the color to really develop into a nice, vibrant green. After letting them cool for a minute or two we simply wrapped a slice of prosciutto around the stalks and placed them under the broiler for approximately 5-minutes.
I think it’s safe to say that both me and Robin had a great time cooking dinner, and our husbands had a great time consuming it! We’re planning on another date in the future—next time it will be at Robin’s place. Thanks for a very enjoyable afternoon Robin—we’re damned good chefs ha ha! If I do say so myself!

French Bread
Recipe by epicurious.com
Originally printed in Gourmet, Aug. 2006

Ingredients:

• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast (from a 1/4-oz package)
• 1 2/3 cups warm water (105-115°F)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Special equipment: 2 (17-inch-long) French bread pans (preferably dark nonstick); a razor blade or very sharp knife –Note: I free formed mine and baked them on a baking stone with corn meal to prevent sticking

Preparations:
Pulse flour, salt, and vinegar in a food processor to combine.

Stir together yeast and 1/3 cup water in a small bowl until yeast is dissolved, then let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn't foam, discard and start over with new yeast.) With motor running, pour yeast mixture and remaining 1 1/3 cups warm water into flour mixture in processor, blending until dough forms a ball and pulls away from side of processor bowl, about 1 minute.

Cover processor feed tube and let dough rise until it fills bowl, about 1 hour. Pulse several times to deflate dough.

Generously oil bread pans with olive oil.

Turn out dough onto a work surface and divide in half (dough will be very soft). Press 1 half into a 10- by 8-inch rectangle and fold in the 2 short outer sides to meet in the middle, pinching edges together. Turn over (seam side down), then roll and stretch into a 15-inch-long irregular loaf. Put loaf, seam side up, in bread pan and turn to coat with oil, leaving loaf seam side down.

Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Let loaves rise, uncovered, in a warm draft-free place 30 minutes.

Put oven rack in upper third of oven, then put a large roasting pan with 1 inch of water in it on bottom of gas oven or on lowest rack of electric oven. Preheat oven to 450°F.

Make 3 shallow diagonal slashes down length of each loaf with razor. Bake loaves 30 minutes, then carefully remove pan of water from oven. Remove bread from pans and turn upside down on upper oven rack, then bake until golden and crusty all over, about 5 minutes more. Cool loaves on a rack.

Piedmont Style Pasta Dough
Recipe from epicruious.com
Originally printed in Gourmet, Oct. 2006

Ingredients:

• 4 cups Italian "00" flour
• 4 whole large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• Scant 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (optional)
• Special equipment: a pastry or bench scraper

Preparations:
Mound flour on a work surface and make a large well in center. Crack whole eggs into center of well and add yolks, salt, and oil (if using). Beat egg mixture with a fork until well blended, then continue to beat egg mixture, incorporating flour a little at a time, starting with the inside wall of well and keeping wall intact by supporting outside with other hand.

When you have a thick paste, begin to mix flour with your hands. When dough begins to take shape but is still quite soft and moist, transfer it to a clean area of work surface. Using pastry scraper, scrape up remaining flour and transfer it to a sieve, then sift flour over dough, discarding any bits of dough. Knead enough of flour into dough to allow it to form a soft ball.

Brush remaining flour on work surface to the side and knead dough, flouring surface as needed to keep dough from sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Lightly dust dough with flour, then wrap in plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature 1 hour.

Fettuccine Alfredo
Recipe courtesy Giada DeLaurentiis

Ingredients:

• 18 ounces fresh fettuccine
• 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 cups grated Parmesan
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
• Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
• Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Preparations:
Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Drain.

Stir 2 cups of the cream and the lemon juice in a heavy large skillet to blend. Add the butter and cook over medium heat just until the butter melts, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Add the pasta and toss. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of cream, and Parmesan to the cream sauce in the skillet. Add the lemon zest, nutmeg, salt, and white pepper. Toss the pasta mixture over low heat until the sauce thickens slightly, about 1 minute.