A night with Mr. Batali part 2

After a long night of cooking, many good things were made that will provide my family some good food for the week, or at least most of it.

The first thing made was the stuffed celery, which was basically turkey, bread crumbs, parsley, salt and pepper and then made into meatball sized balls. Then they were stuffed into and between two pieces of celery, dredged in flour, then egg, then flour again and fried in a pan until all sides were done. Then they were all put into a pan again and had olive oil, tomatoes, parsley and garlic sprinkled on top and around and cooked, covered for 30 minutes. They were awesome like a great 3 & 1/2 star meal prepared by me.

The next one was the butternut squash pasta which required me to make my own basic pasta dough, then roll it thin in my pasta machine.

I then cut the strips into squares and dabbed a bit of stuffing into each one. The stuffing was two butternut squashes that were cooked in the oven, then mashed together with some parmigiano reggiano cheese, freshly grated nutmeg, salt, pepper and then that was it.

That was cooked in a pot of water and then placed in a pan with fresh sage leaves and butter, where they were coated with the sauce. That dish was good, considering that I think I gave The Stable a 3 or 3 & 1/2 stars for the same item, only mine tasted as good, so that is what I would give myself.


Making foods like this not only helps me learn how to cook new things, but also gives me a better idea of how food should be cooked and taste, when I go to other places.

Mr. Batali is joining us for dinner all week...

Well, not really. What I meant, is that I have all of the week's worth of food for home dinner and work lunch all picked out of Mr. Batali's book:

Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home

Which is a big title on a book, but what is big about it, is the food. 327 recipes is a lot of recipes and while I admit that some of them are as simple as some lightly cooked asparagus in a citrus and lemon garlic sauce, some are also slightly more complicated like recipes asking you to make your own sausage and then your own pasta and combine the two of them together.

With some recipes like a ground beef mixture stuffed into tender cuts of celery or my personal favorite which is cut pieces of veal scallopini with a whole sage leave inside as you fold them over and then bread and fry each piece. Everything in the book, looks good, even the seafood and I don't eat seafood, that much nor like most of it that I have tasted. But, what I can do is try to add a picture on to here as to each recipe I do, from stuffed celery to butternut squash tortelini.