Weekend Projects

We've been absent for a while, but we haven't stopped cooking or eating. To catch you up… Chris started a diet, which is a complete joke, in response to one of his friends who bet him he couldn't lose 20 pounds in a month and a half. He can't. He's also been preparing for the NFL combine and waiting to get his call. Emily has been working on her school projects, teaching America's youth about nutrition and taking care of the dog, Rambo. She has been working on her lifelong goal of becoming an Olympic curler, performing a training regimen consisting of sweeping the floor and yelling at people.

Super Bowl weekend was a big weekend for us, as we busted out the deep fryer for the first time. It has always been a tradition to cook an insane amount of food for the Super Bowl and then eat like a hungry Viking. We had experimented with foods like turduckens, Chinese spare ribs, nachos and 7 layer dip but this year we decided to try chicken wings. We took a little trip to one of the greatest places on Earth, the West Side Market in Cleveland. It is the only place where you can buy escarole, two pounds of beef jerky and a ten pound bag of chicken wings all at the same place. All are incredibly fresh and incredibly delicious. We took the bag, split it into two and decided that our Super Bowl meal would consist of making a traditional Buffalo style chicken wing feast.

Five pounds of chicken wings is roughly equivalent to 40 wings. Between four people, Chris did not anticipate that would be enough food but Emily insisted it would. When it was all said and done, the breakdown went something like this…. Emily-8 wings, Ms. Mary-5 wings, Mr. Bob-12 wings, Chris-15 wings. It was plenty. For the sauce, we used "Frank's Hot Sauce", butter, chili seasoning and lemon juice. For the breading of the wings, we used flour, cumin, salt and pepper. We breaded the chicken wings and threw them into the deep fryer 10 at a time. When they came out we coated them with the sauce and threw them into the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes so the chicken soaked up the sauce.

The wings were good and they fell off the bone as you ate them. The mixture of the sauce with the blue cheese dressing made a delicious combination of hot and cold.

A few weeks later, we decided to try to make homemade raviolis. For those that have never done this, just do it. Stop being lazy, bust out the pasta machine and make your own raviolis. It's easy, it tastes great and it is so much better than the frozen stuff out of a box. We made the pasta dough by mixing flour, salt, olive oil and eggs. We placed it into the refrigerator for thirty minutes, took it out and put it through the pasta machine, making a thin dough that we used as the base of the ravioli.

We used three different mixtures for the inside of the raviolis. The first was a ricotta, egg and spinach mixture, the second was a ricotta, egg and roasted red pepper mixture and the third was a ricotta, egg and nduja mixture. What the hell is nduja? Good question. It is a spreadable salami that comes from southern Italy that has to be specially ordered. Chris had found out about this incredible invention in a magazine and Emily had bought it for him for Christmas. Are you kidding me? Spreadable meat? Tremendous.

After we put together the raviolis like legos, attaching them with egg wash, we put them in boiling water until they floated. We covered them with homemade gravy (sauce) and ate them with good, crunchy Italian bread. As an aside, gravy is easy to make and if you use the shit that comes in a jar you should have your head examined. Buy San Marzano tomatoes, blend them, cut up some basil, garlic and parsley and season it as you like. If you cook it on a Sunday, save what you don't use and you can use it at any time. Don't ever buy the stuff in a jar. Not under any circumstance.