I purchased this cookbook, "Enoteca" by Joyce Goldstein, last week-end. It's a beautiful book full of wonderful, simple Italian dishes. I love that with each recipe she includes wine recommendations. I was itching to try out some of the recipes, so in our usual Sunday fashion, the hubby and I set about to find a good dish to make for dinner. Some people play golf or engage in some other hobby,not us. Sunday afternoons are when we like to find something we've never made before, usually something Italian, and try making it for dinner. Well, I usually come up with some ideas and run them by the hubby and judging by his responses, narrow down the list. An "um well if that's what you want" translates to "I'm not very excited about it but I'll eat it". I try to find something that elicits a response somewhere between "ooh that sounds great", or "Oh make that!!!" If our meal involves making pasta my husband always volunteers for the job. It's somehow manly. Maybe because he gets to use a machine? Anyway, the rest of the prep falls to me which is fine because this way we don't argue on the best method to chop an onion, saute etc...
So this week-end I was excited to try a recipe in our new cookbook. We decided on Cannelloni with spinach, ricotta and prosciutto filling in a rich tomato sauce. I was a little surprised when this met with much enthusiasm from hubby as the recipe contains very little in the way of meat content. Which is the usual standard by which dinner (and all other meal) decisions are made. He may have been distracted by the pasta making opportunity and missed the fact that meat was not really involved. Whatever the case the pasta turned out beautifully and lack of meat was barely noticed. Hubby said it was a very good "vegetarian dish." I pointed out that I don't think vegetarian's eat prosciutto, but the meat/vegetable ratio still makes this a vegetarian dish in his eyes.
The sauce components
Sauce!
Beautiful sheets of homemade pasta made by wonderful husband
The finished product!
Dinner is served
Pasta dishes are one of those magical dishes. You start with such simple ingredients then, suddenly, it is elevated to this scrumptious thing. Just like your dish!
ReplyDeleteCheers!
That looks fantastic! But what wine did you drink with it, or what wine did she recommend? Funny, my husband always likes to be involved with the pasta making, too. Maybe it is the machine!
ReplyDeleteJoyce Goldstein recommended almost any wine that wasn't too big or oaky. The Italian wines she recommended were: Ghemme or Spanna (Piedmont), Chianti Classico
ReplyDeleteOther wines: Cabernet Franc,or Shiraz.
We had a Chianti: Caposaldo 2005 that I had recently tried at a local wine tasting. It was great with the dish.