Blue Cheese Pasta Sauce (Warning: Highly Addictive)

 Look. What. We. Got.

A pasta maker! YES

Our friends Marcella and Chris sent us a box of goodies a few weeks ago, and what was inside but this very cool device for rolling out linguine and spaghetti, and a stand to dry the pasta on.

Thanks, guys. High-fives.

 The pasta maker has two functions. First, after your dough is ready to flatten, you can roll it through the machine while turning the hand crank and out it comes, as flat as you want. The knob shown above has seven thickness settings for rolling out your dough. I found with my whole wheat dough, that I had to make it a bit on the thick side (5) so that it wouldn't fall apart.

After you have all of your dough rolled out and have let it dry out for 10 or 15 minutes, you can put the linguine/spaghetti attachment onto the machine and get to work.

 As you can see, I split my dough up between linguine and spaghetti pretty evenly. All you do is run the flattened sheets of dough back through the attachment while turning the crank and it cuts the dough for you.

Totally. Awesome.

Mr. Pfeiffer eagerly awaiting any dropped pasta shrapnel.

Just like before, you want to lay your wet pasta out to dry overnight so that it will keep.

 Blue Cheese Pasta Sauce

• 2 T EVOO
• 2 C. chopped tomatoes
• Half an onion, chopped
• 3 or 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 C mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 C crumbled blue cheese
• 3 or 4 handfuls of fresh spinach
• red pepper flakes (I use 2 T, for alot of kick)

1. In a skillet, saute up the onion and garlic in the olive oil until tender
2. add mushrooms, saute until tender
3. add tomatoes, bring to a simmer
4. add blue cheese, stir until melted
5. add pepper flakes, lemon juice, pinch of sugar and salt
6. just before serving, add spinach and mix gently until barely wilted (3-4 minutes)
7. serve over some home made pasta!

 Optional

• 2 T lemon juice
• salt
• basil or whatever spices you love

 Dont' be jealous of my new rooster dish cloth.

YUM-OH

Reality Check

Well.
The night before last something happened to one of our hens, and we have no idea what. Maybe an animal attack, maybe not. When I went down to feed them yesterday morning, I noticed a huge gaping gash on the front of her neck, and promptly took her out of the coop and into the house. With no running water, we flushed her wounds with saline solution and antibiotic spray. Since yesterday she has been isolated in a dog crate, under a heat lamp in our mudroom.
The injured bird seizured to death about 20 minutes ago as I looked on helplessly.
I had just cooked her up a scrambled egg which she was busy scarfing down, still warm, when she went.
My suspicion is that whatever caused her injury, crushed her esophagus/throat, causing her to choke to death while eating. Very sad. She was one of my good, young, small, black star layers. Just 8 months young.
Rest in Peace, our good girl.
This post is a reminder to all that think of life up here in Jack Creek as purely warm fires, bluebird ski days, and endless giggles.
It isn't so.
Our winters are long and harsh, our roads are icy, and the nearest store is half an hour of dangerous driving away.
The last two nights we have had temperatures well below negative 20, and frozen water pipes.
It's one thing to deal with two people living in a home with no water, but it's quite another to deal with two people, two large dogs, four goats (many more in womb), and 11....errr.....10 chickens.
Our water lines run below ground between a pump house, at the bottom of our driveway, and our basement.
A few months ago the pump house froze in the night, when a breaker tripped, turning off its' tiny pump house heaters. This time, we don't even know where the freeze was...nor how deep our water lines run.
Having moved here only nine months ago, we don't quite know all of the in's and out's of our own home yet, which can be scary during a Montana winter.
When things go wrong in Jack Creek, there isn't a friendly neighbor to turn to or a nearby repairman to stop by on the hour. It is a small town, miles away from us, with not alot of options to rely on. We have to try to fix things ourselves as best we can.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
But, alas, the water has returned, the sun is shining, and ten chickens, two dogs, four goats, and two people are well for now.
And that is all we can ask for on a Wednesday in February in Jack Creek.

Rockin' the Ravioli

Hi there. Me again, the noodle girl.

Thought I'd lay down the latest ravioli recipes in print in case anyone out there feels like givin' it a try.

If you can remember back to my Egg Noodle Recipe, making noodle dough is super simple.

Eggs, salt, flour...although to this dough I also added a swig of EVOO and a coupla' melted flat leaf parsley cubes.

Confused?

Well...at the end of summer, we had so much parsley in the garden, that I clipped it down to about 3 inches from the dirt. I took the bowls (and BOWLS) of freshly harvested herbs, dumped it all into my food processor (with a few drops of water for more consistency), and then froze the concoction into ice cube trays.

Once frozen, I bagged the cubes and I use them in recipes whenever I'm feeling we need a green boost.

To this dough, I added two cubes.

Ok then.
ANYWHO. For ravioli, roll your noodle dough out flat with a rolling pin.

Today I experimented with two different types of ravioli filling: Roasted Butternut Squash and Sage, and Rosemary Mushroom. They both turned out really good, but the photos of the mushroom concoction all came out blurry, booo hisssss.

For the Roasted Butternut Squash and Sage filling, you are going to split and gut your squash (give the innards and eventually the skins, once cooked, to your hens..they freak out with happiness) then roast it in about a half inch of water in a roasting pan for an hour at 400 degrees.

While the squash is roasting, chop up an onion and a few cloves of garlic. Saute those bad boys in some EVOO until tender, and throw about a tablespoon and a half of dried sage into the pan and mix. *(I know, it seems like alot of kick, but you are going to add the squash to this mixture, so don't be such a worrywart. Plus sage is good for you, you clown.)
If you have pepper-loving taste buds, you can also throw a whole bunch of fresh ground pepper in there.

Once roasted, remove skins from squash (bok bok bok...the hens), drain away the water, and smash up the squash with the onion mixture in a bowl. I used a potato smasher, but a fork would work just as well.

Use a pizza cutter to cut your flattened dough into rectangles. Whatever size you're into is fine.
Mine were generally 3inches by 4inches....generally. Sort of.

Use a spoon and put about a teaspoon of filling onto one side of the rectangle. Fold the dough over the top of the filling and carefully squeeze your ravioli edges shut with your fingers or a fork.

Or both.

*Reminder: Use alot of flour on your work surface or there will be alot of swear words flying around your kitchen. Trust me.

Once your ravioli are stuffed and the edges are secured, lay them to rest on a floured cookie sheet. I allowed mine to sit for about 30 minutes, then I popped the cookie sheet in the freezer for an hour or so. Once they were solid, I dropped my frozen ravioli into labeled freezer bags.

The rest at room temperature gives the ravioli some time to dry out. Otherwise you could be lookin' at some freezer burn type of action later on down the road.

Remember that frozen pasta, including ravioli, can be put directly into boiling water to cook. No need to THAW, not DE-THAW.

**DE-THAW IS NOT A WORD.**

Cook ravioli for 15-20 minutes, checking for doneness by taste-testing whenever you feel hungry. Or bored.

Okay, here's the other recipe for the Rosemary Mushroom Ravioli Filling.

• one pound fresh mushies, or two small cans of them, chopped
• 3 shallots, chopped (onion will work just as well)
• 1 t. chopped dried rosemary (or 1 T. fresh)
• 1/2 C grated Swiss cheese
• 2 T. grated Parmesan cheese

Saute the onions and mushrooms in a little EVOO. Add the spice. Heck, throw some salt and pepper in there if you want. Remove from heat. Mix in the cheeses.

You're ready for action.

Also in Coyle news: we offed one of our Black Star Roosters yesterday. He was mean. There is a calm Zen-like vibe in the hen house this Martin Luther King Day.

Hugs, and dog hair, The Coyles