rebranding

the weekend ended up going out with a whimper - family stuff during the day and then at night maximum schluffiness on the couch with the dotytron. i'm doggedly trying to finish my now-horrifically backlogged xmas knitting, with no hope for resolution in sight. since i'm sure my nephew doesn't read my blurg, i can spoiler-alert and say that i'm knitting him a sweater that he BETTER LOVE AND CHERISH WITH EVERY ATOM IN HIS WEE LITTLE DOOSIER BODY. it's probably the biggest garment i've ever knit - mind you: i've been working in baby scale for my whole knitting career (2 years?) so moving up to small child scale is daunting. i also have something in mind for my niece but no hope in hell of having it done in time.

anyway, we ended up putting the kibosh on the dotytron's birthday dinner out for the time being, to be rescheduled at a later date. there was a storm coming in and we didn't feel like trekking out in the snow and we were super-full and stuffed from our 3 plates of food (or maybe that was just me) at the annual doty family christmas brunch thing, this year held at the weston golf and country club. the food was pretty awesome...big juicy breakfast sausages, a succulent ham, eggs benny, pancakes, waffles, scrambled eggs. probably one of the best doty family christmas brunch showings in a couple of years.  this is a pic of us at the brunch:

this is us with (from the left): beryl (pronounced - inexplicably - "burl"), nany and poppa. they're kind of the best. even if poppa is a staunch conservative. whatever i say or do, nany is unremittingly positive and supportive and thinks it's great.

this is us with (from left): uncle mert (short for merlin) aunt debbie, and mert's wife pat. mert and pat and nany and poppa are thick as thieves. mert and poppa are brothers but those four do everything together. they've traveled together, dine together frequently, and finish each other's sentences. uncle mert is very stylin' in a hep cat kind of way. he's a graphic designer who came up with inspector smartie. i've never actually seen inspector smartie, but he purportedly exists. however, a thorough search (read: google) does not retrieve any evidence. so inspector smartie's internet footprint is pretty minuscule (read: non existent, seemingly.) beryl has lead a crazy life too...she's sang on records and she's a fire cracker...i think she's 90? check out that outfit! she's sharp as a tack and really picante.

so we had a faux-celebratory dinner of popeye's - which is rapidly becoming the preferred caterer for all of me and the dotytron's major life moments. lol! but popeye's is rebranding! it's weird! now they're called popeye's louisiana kitchen - i was a bit disturbed, but it seems they've kept the core menu that we know and love (deep fried apple pie, spicy fried chicken, mashed po' with cajun gravy) and supplemented it with a knock-off of the kfc bowl (can't wait to try it!) and some wraps and stuff. as long as they don't mess with the chicken recipe, i'm perfectly happy.

so "the house bunny" was pretty decent, but i have this weird affinity for anna faris (the same way i have a weird affinity for james franco) - i find her so cute! and that movie poster cracks me up, as do lines such as: "the eyes...are the nipples of the face" lol! it was very insubstantial and formulaic but i find her very endearing.

now we're slogging through season 2 of "dexter." we don't love it, but we don't hate it, and we obviously like it enough to see it through. the addition of lila (pictured below) has done a lot to keep us interested as we both find her ferociously sexy and she adds a welcome note of raciness (especially when compared to dexter's primary love interest - the boring rita and her shrill kids.)

the dotytron also took it upon himself to download THE ENTIRE SERIES OF "HOUSE" which he tried to make me watch. we sat through one episode with me shooting daggers out of my eyes and the dotytron getting increasingly nervous and mouthing "sorry" to me as we sat through one of the BORINGEST shows of ALL TIME. it's SO SO SO boring! the worst! i kind of hate procedurals...so maybe dr. house and i aren't meant to get along, but even at that, i found it mind-numbing.

tonight is a pretty low-key night...i have to do some baking and some prep for my family's xmas trifle dessert. we're eating our way through the leftovers in the fridge slowly but surely (there's no point in cooking anything new!) i made two loaves of olive-thyme bread yesterday, the dotytron baked them off. here is how they turned out - no shots of the mie as they've been ear-marked for the farm next week and for the dotytron's family as part of their annual xmas food basket. tonight i'm also going to start two new loaves of the rosemary olive oil bread for the dotytron to bake off tomorrow. the dotytron make a booboo and didn't score the olive loaves. lest you think that such forgetfulness goes unpunished, i filled his shoes with sourdough starter. he's gotta learn!

anyway, i'm getting pretty amped for the holidays. 1.5 days to go!

fin.

tonkatsu don! tonkatsu don!

last night was a total pisser of an evening.  wet, rainy, cold, miserable and definitely not conducive to mustering the energy to go and see a bond movie that's getting middling reviews.  C & C music factory opted to stay home, so it was just me, the dotytron, the roomie and l'army.  we spent the night listening to music and talking...it was really enjoyable.

dinner was scrumptious.  i love me some tonkatsu and tonkatsu don is even better. mine wasn't strictly "authentic" per se, but it was still really tasty and the brown rice was pretty good in the dish...chewy but not aggressively so:


the banana caramel pecan upside down cake got rave reviews and a groveled-for second helping from the dotytron:


the last time i made this recipe, i used walnuts instead of pecans. i'm starting to realize that i'm not the biggest fan of walnuts...i find them a little too tannic and bitter for most sweet preparations. pecans are always a winner in my books.

today for sunday breakkie we just had a simple eggs over easy, toast, and peameal bacon affair:

i re-formed my loaf and have it going for the final proofing. it didn't rise as much as i would have liked to see in the fridge for 24 hours...it was still pretty tense. i think the next time i make it, i'm going to let it sit out at cool room temperature. i'm not optimistic about the prospects for this iteration...i might let the final proofing go longer than the suggested 4-5 hours. i just checked the breadtopia site again...it looks like a lot of people have problems with having the first rise go in the fridge. next time i'll let it sit out on my counter for sure. flexibility is definitely necessary in the bread baking process...there's too many variables beyond your control and you're dealing with living, unpredictable matter.

today i'm going to do some paperwork, go to some open houses with the dotytron, go to dodgeball, have dinner chez dr. rei and hanbo with her cousin S and S's boyfriend B...we met and hung out with S a bunch when we were in florence...she's a crazy, kooky, dear bat. dr. rei is making shepherd's pie! i'm excited! and i'm glad my pineapple upside down cake turned out to be one of the finest, comeliest specimens i've ever laid eyes on.

i made some good progress on my fingerless mitts last night...making cables is actually SUPER easy! it's basically just knitting out of order and you're physically twisting the yarn to make the bumpy shape. it's cool and i feel like a pro star for learning a new skill. it's going to come in handy for my sibling secret santa gift. i'm using berocco ultra alpaca yarn...it gives pretty good stitch definition but there's a bit of a fuzzy halo to the yarn that doesn't give a really crisp finish. it's super soft and easy to work with though and very cozy and warm.

the more i think about "into the wild" the stupider i think it. i read up on the dude in wikipedia...apparently he didn't even have a compass, and he probably could have saved himself if he'd had a half-decent map (at one point he tries crossing this river that he walked through on his way in, but by late summer it's this rushing, crashing, vicious thing. according to wikipedia, there was a hand cranked tram 1/4 mile from where he tried to cross back). i don't really get why he bothered going all the way to alaska. he could have just picked up a rock and bashed himself in the head with it to the same effect. there's testing yourself against nature and then there's just being foolhardy and ignorant.

i totally got busted trying to sneakily bust the dotytron's balls for an imagined infraction on friday night. as i've mentioned, we've been vacuuming almost every day upstairs where the cats are still hanging out to try to get rid of the fleas. every website i've checked says that the vacuum is your number 1 weapon and that you HAVE to discard the contents of the vacuum (we have one of those clear containers you pull out) in a plastic bag and put it outside your house, right away. so the dotytron has been home and has been vacuuming. so i came home on friday and i put something out in the rubbermaid garbage bin we keep just outside our front door and i noticed there weren't any bags of vacuum stuff in there. so, i go into the house and call the dotytron's cell phone. i kept it really casual at first, "this is what i'm making for dinner, what do you think about doing x this weekend, i bought you a treat from the popcorn store" etc. feeling like i had safely lulled the dotytron into a state of coddled guilelessness, i oh-so-casually asked, "ummm, just before you go, where have you been dumping the garbage from the vacuum?" and without even missing a beat, he responded, "i've been throwing it in the big bin at the front of the house." then, wise to my attempt at ambushing him, he added, "YOU GARBAGE PICKER. why don't you stop rooting through the garbage. now everyone on the bus [he was on the ttc home from work] knows you're a garbage picker. GARBAGE PICKER." lol!!! so busted!!!

i've put in the "recipe" for the chili at the end here.

fin.

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vegan chili with tvp and beans

this recipe is pretty flexible...you increase it and decrease it as you see fit and sub in whatever beans you like/have on hand.

2 lb. onion, chopped (about 1-2 large spanish onions)

2 big heaping T. of chopped garlic

fresh chilies (i generally use 1-2 thai birds, or 1 habenero, or 3 jalepenos - depending onf what i have on hand and how hot i want it to be - take out the seeds and veins if you don't want it super spicy and DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES AFTER HANDLING!!!!!!!) chopped

1/4 c. of chili powder

1 T. cocoa powder (my secret ingredient.  adds a nice, slightly bitter, rich undernote to the chili - serves the same purpose as coffee [another popular secret ingredient])

1 t. of mexican oregano

1 28oz can tomato puree or tomato sauce

1 bottle of beer

1-2 c. of tvp

1 can of beans, drained and rinsed (i generally stick to black beans or kidney beans)

2-3 dried ancho or guajillo peppers (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

- saute the onion, garlic, and chilies in some canola oil until softened.  

- add the chili powder, cocoa, oregano and cook it out (these are just suggested amounts of the spices...as the  chili cooks, you may want to add more of any of the above)
- add the bottle of beer and the tomato sauce and the tvp.

- at this point, you can let it simmer on low heat on the stove for an hour or two (keep checking the liquid amounts and add some water or more beer to thin it to the desired consistency)

- or, dump it all into the slowcooker and let it rip on low all day
- if you're using the dried chilies, cover them with boiling water and let them soften.  when they're soft, puree in a blender with about 1 c. of the reconstituting liquid.  add this to the chili.  if the chili is too thin, you can also add more tvp or more beans.

- i add the beans in the last 1/2 hour of cooking (last 1 hour of slow cooker time)

- season with salt and pepper

- you can add cilantro if you swing that way

- serve with diced avocado mixed with lime, tomatillo salsa (or the salsa of your choice), sour cream or cream, tortilla chips, sliced green onion.

puttering

it's the essence of november out there today, in all its abysmal, dreary, grey, novembery-ness, without any of the fecund promise of spring rain.  it's like the whole world has seized up - curled in on itself and seething with a slow simmering sullenness.  this makes being at home puttering very cozy and enjoyable.  

here's a picture of last night's dinner:

the soup was very yum...maybe a touch heavy on the apple perhaps, but i liked the crisp tartness against the smooth, round, velvety butternut squash. i couldn't love that toasted cheese and onion sandwich anymore if i tried. it's the essence of easy, farm food. you absolutely HAVE to toast it in the oven (or a toaster oven). don't think of doing it in a panini press or in a pan...the focaccia like this keeps a nice, airy crunch and the onions get gently coddled by the warm cheese so that they're almost cooked, leaving just the slightest bit of astringent crunch in the gooey middle.

we watched "into the wild" last night, the sean penn penned and directored film based on john krakauer's story about the real life run of christopher mccandless, who turned his back on society and went looking for salvation in nature and ultimately might have found it in his death in the wilds of alaska. if we were to plot the susceptibility to such a story of each of casa de lagerfeld's residents, the roomie would probably be most susceptible, me, with my disdain for anyone who renounces babylon would be the least susceptible, and the dotytron would fall somewhere in the middle. we all really disliked it. the cinematography is quite beautiful but penn is extremely heavy-handed (bordering on immature and amateurish) with its clumsy attempts at drawing the viewers attention to themes and the kind of petulant ranting against "society" and "consumerism" that only the very privileged, college-educated, juvenile knuckleheads can muster.

i can't fault the performances, the acting is evocative and restrained and emile hirsch gives a solid go at making his mccandless a winning, charming, lost boy, capable of engaging with the people he meets and then just as easily turning around and shedding them without a backward glance. i think the movie's failure is in making you feel sympathy or empathy for his experience. you end up really disliking the guy for being a self-indulgent, stupid little brat on an obvious suicide mission and it's jarring because sean penn obviously romanticizes and aligns himself with the character's underlying motivations and sensibilities. it's also over-long and a little meandering. in the end, a story about a rich, wealthy white kid who wants to selfishly test himself against nature because he's tired of being coddled isn't a story that i feel merits telling. the movie is also interspersed with quotes from thoreau and byron and well, we also know how i'm the least susceptible person when it comes to anything to do with the romantics (except for blake). honestly, it's just like, SHUT UP byron you simpering, mooning cad. ease up on the opium and laudanum and DO something instead of waxing poetic about mountains and trees and whatnot and fainting in shelley's arms (this is all speculation but i'm sure we can all agree that i'm 90% right)

anyway, i communed with nature and got myself in touch with my own corporeal sublime today in my own way. i woke up and started day 2 of the 3 day process to make a whole grain sourdough loaf (that's supposed to mimic the famed poilane bread of paris - the dotytron and i had it when we were there...it was pretty fantastic) as per breadtopia. i read through my "breads from labrea bakery" again and it looks like any time you're working with sourdough and you want a good product, you're looking at a 3 day process. active time tends to be around 30 minutes or so, spread out over the three days with the bulk of the time being rising and proofing time.

i really really really want proofing baskets! i've put them on my xmas wish list and the dotytron is on the case (i think, i hope) this is what they look like:

you can get them either lined with linen or unlined (either way you have to flour them...i'm not sure what kind i want yet)...they also come in round and more oblong shapes. i also would like some baguette pans, but those are lower on the priority list:

and i've been hearing about dough whisks for a while now but i was kind of skeptical about how useful they were. after seeing the breadtopia guy use one, i think i'm sold. the wire is sturdy enough to mix things thoroughly, but thin enough so that the dough comes off it and doesn't get caught up in the middle (like in a whisk) or all gummy (like a wooden spoon):

i made a batch of espresso shortbread cookie dough and formed them and froze them. they're supposed to be shaped like coffee beans. i'm either going to bake them and dip them in tempered chocolate and then freeze them, or just freeze them as is and bake them off to put in gift cookie tins this year. pretty handy and they taste good with or without the chocolate coating (chocolate makes them look more like coffee beans, though):

i also made a pineapple upside down cake which turned out GORGEOUS for my contribution to dinner at dr. rei and hanbo's place tomorrow. isn't it lovely?


AND i made a banana pecan upside down cake for our dessert tonight.

i made a bit of a mistake because i didn't let the caramel cool and harden sufficiently before pouring the banana cake batter in. so instead of the topping forming a caramel lid on the top of the cake, i've got caramel ringing the cake...it looks semi-deliberate so i'm okay with it.

anyway, i've been a busy bee. tonight for dinner we're having pork tonkatsu don. basically it's just pork tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet, fried) with a sweet soy sauce and an egg that you top some cooked rice with. i'm using brown rice (that's what we have) and beefing up the sauce with some sauteed onions, garlic, ginger, snow peas and dried shitakes. should be pretty tasty!

now i'm going to do some online holiday shopping...maybe order my cards and some online gifty stuff and then head out and do some errands on the danny. then yoga, knitting, making dinner and there's a slight possibility that we might go see the new bond movie with either some of my dodgeball peeps or C & C music factory.

peeps on the facebook have been asking for the recipe for the tvp and black bean chili and the roasted squash pasta. i'll do one today and the other tomorrow.

fin.

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butternut squash, sage, and brown butter pasta
serves 4-6

this can be made in 30 minutes to 1 hour start to finish (depending on how comfortable you are in the kitchen)

1 medium or large butternut squash, peeled, de-seeded, cut into 1" chunks

olive oil

1/2 c. of hazelnuts

1/2 bunch of sage (i like a lot of sage)

1/2 c. of butter

1 lb. of pasta (i used gemelli, but you can use penne...something similar to those two)

salt and pepper

parmesan cheese

- take your squash chunks and toss them with 2 T. olive oil and salt and pepper.  put them in a roasting pan and put them in a preheated 450F oven for about 30 minutes (until golden brown and cooked through)

- get a pot of boiling salted water going for the pasta.

- take your hazelnuts, stick them in another oven-save pie plate or pan, and roast them for about 10 minutes (don't burn!)

- take the hazelnuts, dump them into a towel and draw up the corners of the towel around them so you have a little sack (like as if you were going to beat someone with a towel filled with quarters, or you were making yourself a little hobo bag).  when they've cooled down a bit but are still warm, rub the hazelnuts in the towel until most of the skins come off.  take the nuts and coarsely chop - discard the skins.

- in a big pan, melt the butter and cook it over medium heat until it starts to foam and brown...when the butter smells nutty, remove it from the heat and throw in your sage leaves (these can be rough chopped if you like).  make sure to turn the heat off when the butter is caramely/nutty smelling and take the pan off the heat...brown butter tends to burn easily. 

- cook the pasta, drain, and reserve some of the pasta cooking water.

- toss the cooked squash with the pasta, the brown butter sage mixture, and the hazelnuts.  loosen with approximately 1/2 c. of the pasta cooking water.  season with salt and pepper.  top with grated parmesan cheese.

let there be warmth!

so my gentle but scatterbrained and perenially overworked and hen-pecked landlord finally came and changed the furnace filters.  so i finally consented to turn on the heat.  i almost roasted in my bed last night.  holy criminy...it was HOT.  since we sleep in the basement and the furnace is in the best, we're the first stop on the - "so you think you can dance" reference alert - hot tamale train.  now the stupid weather is warming up.  you can't win.  and by "you" i mean me, captain thermostat nazi.

yesterday when i was filling up the giant recycling bin the city of toronto is insisting you use now, i caught our skeezy next door neighbour (she of the second floor apartment drum kit and the s****y sense of rhythm and dubious percussive skill) trying to sneak something in ours.  she saw me giving her the evil eye and was all like, "is it okay if i put this in there" and i was like, "why aren't you using your own" and she goes, "it's around the corner"  i was on my way to work and she was wearing her black and pink skull kitten tank top and pajama bottom set from like, claire's so i didn't have time to get into it with her.  

i KNEW someone had been using our gear.  i KNEW IT!  i'm pretty maniacal about maintaining the green bin so i wash it out every week and try to avoid getting the inside all gross and disgusting and garbage juice-y.  lately it's been EXTRA garbage juice-y.  gross!  NOT ON MY WATCH, SISTER.  i also have this freakish ability to like, x-ray scan garbage/recycling/compost with my eyes and know when stuff is in there that's not ours (well, 99% of the food that passes through our household i have been directly involved in the procurement/preparation of) and there's been suspect bags of garbage in our bin the morning after we put it out (we tend to put it out in the evening).  AND one day i came home and our garbage bin had been dragged out front of her place.  she better not mess with me.  i'm not above taking her stuff out of our bin and just dumping it on her front lawn.  nothing gets my machiavellian inspiration flowing like a neighbour feud.  

i've started feeding my grape starter twice a day and it seems to be responding well.  but wasting all the flour from discarding half at a time is making me feel bad.  i'm keeping the discarded starter in another jar in the fridge (apparently you can use it to make pizza dough and stuff) but i'm rapidly running out of room.  i put both starters down in the basement where it's warmer to see if that'll speed things along and help them grow strong and hearty.  

in other news: we still have fleas.  smudge seems to be okay, but el stupido boddington showed signs of minor flea excrement.  the dotytron doesn't believe me that you have to take a multi-pronged, super-diligent approach to "breaking the flea life cycle" by vacuuming every day (probably because he's in charge of the vacuuming).  we're going to go over the house tonight and saturday.  i felt bad for the poor little guys and relented and let them into our room...so we have to wash all the sheets and vacuum the bed again and have to go back to quarantining them away from our bedrooms (ours and the roomies) which definitely puts a crimp on their available space. i'm also going to buy a flea collar to stick IN the vacuum.  i'm convinced i have at least one new bite.  if i emerge from this ordeal without typhoid, it'll be a miracle because the stupid fleas definitely favour me.  

i hope that doesn't deter people from wanting to come over.  lots of cats have fleas!!  it's fairly common!!!  i keep a clean house for crissakes!!!  (to wit: my obsessive weekly scrub downs of the green bin).  

tonight is leftover night.  we have tonnes.  i'm probably going to my yoga class.  i also may or may not carve another pumpkin but i don't know if i have time because going over the house is taking priority because we're entertaining on friday AND saturday.  i have a wikked template for pumpkin number 3 so i don't want to sit on it, but at the same time...there are only so many hours in th evening.  and i have to somehow lug the pumpkin home and degut it and then carve it and then do the whole photoshoot thing.  i might just give it a rest with the two i've already done. 

fin.

tgi motherf**kin' f

i was so so soooo looking forward to about 7pm tonight when my night of autumnal/pre-winter bunkering down could begin in earnest.

the only thing getting me through an epic friday was being able to fully anticipate being in my flannel pjs, with warm soft-centred chocolate pudding cakes baking away in the oven, eating a giant bowl of tagliatelle with sauteed radicchio and bagna cauda, topped with a fried egg.

then we're going to watch "the wild chef" on the food network...which is becoming something of a friday night tradition 'round these parts. it's martin picard's (of montreal's wildly celebrated au pied du cochon) show, which sees him off in the wilds of quebec hunting and eating random game and fowl prepared a la campagne with rough chopped natural herbs and liberal doses of fat in a makeshift kitchen hauled from the city, or over a wood fire. it's not the best...his halting command of english really hampers the flow of the show and you can tell that he would be a much more genial and tv-worthy host in his native tongue, but there's something inexplicably alluring about cooking in the wild and it tugs at my culinary heartstrings.

while we're doing that, i'm going to finish working up my costume and perhaps start on the dotytron's or finish my stupid giant mittens so i can start a new knitting project and get a leg up on holiday knitting for gifts. i've lost my drive to knit recently...i'm uninspired by how giant and unwieldy the mittens are going to be and i'm disinclined to finish them...but since i'm such a dogged finisher, i won't let myself start something new til they're done...so the conflict between my OCD and my perfectionism is gumming up my motivation. the costume is turning out pretty cute though, if i do say so myself. handmade costumes really are the best.

the pasta tonight is one of my absolute favorites, and is based on a recipe from nancy silverton (i loves me some silverton). i pulled it from her book, "a twist of the wrist" (it's actually the cover recipe though mine won't be as pretty) which is about using some of the high quality canned and jarred and prepared goods available today to make fast and easy dinners. we all know how much i loves me some bagna cauda too. it's great to have some of it kicking around in the fridge to drizzle as a warm dressing on salads, or dress up a sandwich, protein, or simple steamed veggies. she provides a recipe for it, but i don't bother...it's so simple it's really to taste...i'll give my rough approximation at the end of the post.

here's a pic of my glorious panzerotto from last night to make your stomach growl:

here's a pic of tonight's dinner:



the dotytron made the warm chocolate pudding cakes (really easy, one bowl recipe). i topped it with a scoop of this mint ice cream i made in the summer with some of our bumper (accidental) mint crop.

there's also going to be a new installment 'round these parts. i call it: "a tale of two starters." i'm going to give a scaled-back version of nancy silverton's grape starter a try. the original version in "breads from la brea bakery" has you feeding that thing THREE TIMES A DAY for A MONTH. THREE TIMES A DAY!!! that's like having a biga baby! completely not feasible and way too labor intensive. i'm going to try daily feedings instead and i scaled back the proportions. she had you making almost 2lbs of starter, half of which was discarded each time you fed it. kind of wasteful.

here are the pics. this is day 1. tepid water, unbleached organic white bread flour, organic grapes smushed up in a cheesecloth bag.



the only thing i have to do for the next few days is make sure it's warm enough and just monitor it and let the microbial action and naturally occurring yeasts on the grapes and in the flour to ferment.


to hedge my bets, i made a more standard, restrained starter using just tepid water and whole wheat organic flour. this one should come along a little faster than the grape one. whole grains tend to have a little bit more microbes on 'em than white flour (so i've read).


with any luck, the next batch of no-knead bread will have some sourdough flavour and i can start expanding my bread horizons.

fin.
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bagna cauda

1/2 stick unsalted butter

1/2 c. olive oil

1 T. (or thereabouts) oil-packed anchovies...i usually use about 6-10

10-12 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 lemon

black pepper

chop the anchovies and garlic pretty fine. add to a small pot or pan with the butter and the olive oil and heat on low heat until the garlic smells slightly fragrant and mixture is hot and bubbling. turn off the heat, add the zest of 1 lemon and squeeze in the juice of the lemon. season liberally with cracked black pepper.

- i store leftover of this in the fridge in a ramekin of glass container with a lid and re-warm and use as necessary.

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pasta with bagna cauda, radicchio, fried egg

adapted from nancy silverton's "a twist of the wrist"

- serves about 4

3 heads radicchio

chili paste or dried chilies (to taste)

1 lb. egg tagliatelle

1/4-1/2 c. prepared bagna cauda

4 eggs

pecorino romano or parmesan cheese for grating on top

- thinly slice radicchio and saute in a bit of olive oil and chili flakes/paste until wilted

- meanwhile, cook tagliatelle in a pot of boiling salted water

- when the pasta is cooked, toss with the wilted radicchio and bagna cauda and a little bit of the pasta cooking water to loosen. season with salt and black pepper to taste

- fry 4 eggs in olive oil (sunny side up)

- divide pasta between bowls, top with fried egg and grated cheese.

see! so easy!!!