To warm you up: a Butternut Squash, Sage, and Amaretti Risotto

No matter how cold it is outside, this butternut squash, sage, and amaretti risotto will literally warm you through and through.

And when I say 'literally', I mean it: this risotto is designed to be extra-warm. Enter:
Yes, a cinnamon stick and a dried chili pepper are the key ingredients to this (Jamie Oliver!) recipe (although the butternut squash, sage, and amaretti might have something to say about that!). These two ingredients bring very different, but complimentary kinds of warmth to the table. The cinnamon gives you something a little bit more earthy, while the chili gives you an ever so slight amount of heat. And the two together? A multi-layered warmth that is rich, subtle, and gorgeous.

But, the amazing thing is that as you have a bite, you won't be able to detect the cinnamon or chili. All you will feel is... warm. The cinnamon and chili just manage to bring out all those comforting things in the butternut squash. A perfect risotto for winter.

Not only are the flavors perfect for winter, but I also love making risotto in the winter. All that stirring and time spent over the stove. It just seems to fit.

Here's how I made this one:

First things first, get out your pestle and mortar and pound up a cinnamon stick, chilli, and salt, until you have a lovely, fragrant powder.

Now, brush your quartered squash with olive oil and rub that powder all over it. Just looking at it, you know it is going to be unbelievable.
Roast that for about 45 minutes until it is soft and smelling like heaven.
When the squash is cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh out and chop it up. If you want to be fancy, finely chop some of it and roughly chop some of it to give the risotto more texture.
For the risotto part of the recipe, there are a few things to keep in mind. The key to a good risotto is taking your time with it. You want to add the liquid to the rice a little bit at a time, so the rice absorbs the liquid and becomes rich and creamy. If you add the liquid all at once, you won't develop that wonderful creaminess that is the hallmark of risotto. And if you cook the rice too quickly, then the rice will be mush on the outside and hard on the inside. So, pour yourself a glass of wine, give the rice some love, and you will get excellent results.

Before you start on your rice, get your chicken stock simmering in in a pan. If your stock is warm, it will make it easier for the rice to absorb it. In another pot, get working on your risotto. The base of almost any risotto is onion and celery. So, over low heat, add some olive oil to your pan, and toss in onion and celery. Once this is gently cooked through, add your rice and increase the heat. But, be sure to stir it so nothing sticks.
As soon as the rice is translucent, add in either white wine or vermouth. And get ready for it to sizzle and steam! I only recently learned that you could add in vermouth. This is a wonderful piece of news as I always have a bottle of vermouth around, and sometimes I don't want to open up an entire bottle of white wine for 1/2 cup of cooking liquid (although if you do, and don't want to drink the rest of the wine, try freezing it (thank you, Mark Bittman).

After the alcohol evaporates, you are ready to start adding in the stock, a ladle at a time. Add in one ladle, stir, wait until it has been absorbed, and repeat. This can take up to 20 minutes, but it is worth it. When it is ready, it will be soft, but slightly al dente.
Remove the pan from the heat and add in the squash and salt and pepper to taste.
Once that is incorporated, add in your Parmesan and butter.
And here is the absolutely crucial step: cover it and let it sit, ooze, and make itself delicious for about 2 minutes. In the meantime, fry up some sage leaves.

To serve this glorious dish, sprinkle the crispy sage leaves and some crushed amaretti cookies over top. The amaretti cookies may sound a bit strange, but I promise you this is traditional, and delicious! And, think about it, we often add brown sugar or maple syrup to squash to bring out the sweet side of it. The amaretti cookies are performing the same job, but with a little bit more flair. Once the sage and amaretti are in place, it is time to enjoy this gorgeous dish.
How could this not warm you up?

Squash, sage, and amaretti risotto (adapted from Cook with Jamie & a nytimes.com recipe by Jamie Oliver)

Ingredients:
1 2 1/2 pound butternut squash, quartered and seeded
1 cinnamon stick
1 dried red chili pepper
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth
a little less than 1/2 a cup of grated Parmesan, plus more for serving
8-10 sage leaves (a handful)
3 or so amaretti cookies (a handful)

Preheat your oven to 400. In a pestle and mortar, pound the cinnamon stick, chili, and salt, until your have a coarse powder. Rub the pieces of squash all over with olive oil and then rub the smashed spices all over them. Put them in an ovenproof dish and cook for 45 minutes, until soft and caramelized. When cool enough to handle, scoop out the flesh. Finely chop about half the pumpkin. Chop other half so that it is slightly chunky. Set to the side.

Place chicken stock in a small pan over medium-low heat. Bring to a simmer, then reduce to very low to keep warm. Place a large saucepan over medium heat, and add a tablespoon of olive oil, onion, celery, and a pinch of salt. Stir, cover, and cook for three minutes. Increase heat to medium-high and add rice. Stir constantly until rice is translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in wine until it is absorbed, 1 to 2 minutes.

Begin adding broth to rice, a ladleful at a time, stirring constantly. Allow each ladleful to be absorbed before adding next; process will take about 20 minutes. When ready, rice will be soft with a slight bite. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Remove rice from heat. Add chopped squash, and stir vigorously until mixed; fold in squash chunks. Mix in butter and Parmesan. Place a lid over the saucepan, and let sit for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium-sized frying pan, heat a generous glug of olive oil. Fry the sage leaves for a minute, until crispy. Then remove with a slotted spoon onto some paper towels.

Serve with a sprinkling of sage leaves and crushed amaretti cookies (and a little extra Parmesan, if you like).

The Bicoastal Chefs present... Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli

Looking for a good challenge during our reunion, the Bicoastal Chefs decided to combine their skills and tackle homemade pasta.
And if ever there was a dish requiring all four hands, making pasta is it. It turns out kneading and rolling pasta dough is way tougher than you think. But, side by side, the Bicoastal Chefs are unstoppable.

We settled on making a pumpkin ravioli topped with a balsamic-sage brown butter. We started cooking around 7:30, figuring we would be done by 8:30. We did not eat until 11. But it did not matter at all: the fresh made pasta was absolutely delicious. Store bought pasta doesn't even compare. So, yes, fresh made pasta requires a lot of work, but it is well worth it.

So, here's how we made. We decided to use Jamie Oliver's recipe from 'Cook with Jamie', because there were step by step directions and pictures (always a bonus when taking on an epic dish).

The dough itself is very simple: flour and eggs. That's it. So, first pour your flour onto your counter.
Make a well in the middle of the flour.
Then, crack 6 eggs into that well.
Next, whisk up the eggs.
Now, for one of the first challenges. You are, slowly but surely, going to mix the flour into the eggs. You can't mix all the flour in at once; you just mix the edges in bit by bit.
The dough is incredibly sticky, but it eventually comes together.
Once you have a ball of dough, you have to knead that dough until it is smooth and silky. Warning: this takes a long time and is incredibly difficult. It will make you wish you lifted weights. We took turns for about 20 minutes, stretching, punching (not recommended), rolling, and folding. Once it is silky-smooth, pop it into the frig for 30 minutes to rest.
After 30 minutes, it is time to roll it out. This also takes a surprising amount of effort. Since we were making ravioli, we rolled out two large sheets of pasta. You know if it thin enough when you can see through it (when it has that 'window-pane' effect).
But, what about the filling, you ask? We settled on pumpkin.
So, cut the pumpkin in half, seed it, and brush it with olive oil.

Roast the pumpkin for an hour.
Once the pumpkin is done, scoop out the flesh into a cheese or terry cloth.
Then squeeze all the liquid out. You will be amazed at how much comes out.
For the filling, you are supposed to add amaretti cookies, which we could not find, so we substituted some almonds and brown sugar. It came out just fine.
For the rest of the filling, add in shallots, nutmeg, salt, pepper, the pumpkin, egg, ricotta, and parmesan.
And, voila, absolutely gorgeous pumpkin filling.
Now, to make the ravioli, place about 1 tablespoon of filling 3 inches apart on the sheets. Note that if we had to do this again, we would place the filling a little closer together (maybe every 2 inches?) to increase the filling to pasta ratio...
Brush water around the filling.
And place the other sheet on top. Press around the filling, to seal the ravioli.
In order to avoid air bubbles, it's better to start sealing the pasta from the middle - out. We learned the hard way: Time to cut it up!
And, at long last, the ravioli is ready to be cooked.
Once your water is boiling, plop the ravioli in.
And, at the same time, get your brown butter going.
Once the butter is brown, you add in the sage, take it off the heat, and stir in some balsamic.
When that is done, toss it with your drained ravioli. Be sure to do this in the pan your cooked the ravioli or brown butter in because the heat will help the ravioli absorb the sauce. We tried it in the saute pan first, but it was too small, so we threw everything in the pot we boiled the ravioli in.
Once the ravioli are coated, plate it up.
Grate some parmesan over it. And there you have it, Bicoastal-Chefs-made ravioli.
Buon Appetito!

Fresh Egg Pasta Dough (from Cooking with Jamie)
serves 4

5 cups (1 lb 6 oz) tipo OO or pasta flour (we just used all-purpose flour)
6 large free-range or organic eggs or 12 yolks (we used 6 eggs)

Place the flour on a board or in a bowl. Make a well in the center and crack the eggs into it. Beat the eggs with a fork until smooth. Using the tips of your fingers, mix the eggs with the flour, incorporating a little at a time, until everything is combined. Knead the pieces of dough together- with a bit of work and some love and attention they'll all bind together to give you one big, smooth lump of dough!

You can also make your dough in a food processor if you've got one. Just bung everything in, whiz until the flour looks like breadcrumbs, then tip the mixture on to your work surface and bring the dough together into one lump, using your hands.

Once you've made your dough you need to knead and work it with your hands to develop the gluten in the flour, otherwise your pasta will be flabby and soft when you cook it, instead of springy and al dente.

There's no secret to kneading. You just have to bash the dough about a bit with your hands, squashing it into the table, reshaping it, pulling it, stretching it, squashing it again. It's quite hard work, and after a few minutes it's easy to see why the average Italian grandmother has arms like Frank Bruno! You'll know when to stop- it's when your pasta starts to feel smooth and silk instead of rough and floury. Then all you need to do it wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour before you use it. Make sure the plastic wrap covers it well or it will dry out and go crust around the edges (this will give you crust lumps through your pasta when you roll it out, and nobody likes crusty lumps!)

How to roll your pasta:
First of all, if you haven't got a pasta machine it's not the end of the world! All the mammas I met while traveling round Italy rolled pasta with their trusty rolling pins and they wouldn't even consider having a pasta machine in the house! When it comes to rolling, the main problem you'll have is getting the pasta thin enough to work with. It's quite difficult to get a big lump of dough rolled out into one piece, and you need a very long rolling pin to do the job properly. The way around this is to roll lots of small pieces of pasta rather than a few big ones.

Dust your work surface with some flour, take a lump of pasta dough the size of a large orange and press it with your fingertips.

Then... roll.

Whether you're rolling by hand or by machine you'll need to know when to stop. If you're making a pasta like tagliatelli, lasagne, or stracchi, you'll need to roll the pasta down to between the thickness of a beer may and a playing card; if you're making a stuffed pasta like ravioli or tortellini, you'll need to roll it down slightly thinner or to the point where you can clearly see your hand or lines of newspaper print through it.

Once you've rolled your pasta the way you want it, you need to shape or cut it right away. Pasta dried much quicker than you think, so whatever recipe you're doing, don't leave it more than a minute or two before cutting and shaping it. You can lay over it a damp clean tea towel which will stop it from drying.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter (adapted from a marthastewart.com recipe)

1 3-pound sugar pumpkin or butternut squash
4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup Locatelli cheese*
3 large or 6 small amaretti cookies, curshed**
2 tablespoons fresh ricotta cheese
1 tsp shallots, chopped
Pinch of nutmeg
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
Fresh pasta
1 tablespoon semolina flour***
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 tablespoon freshly chopped sage
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a work surface, cut pumpkin in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds (save to roast!). Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil evenly over insides of pumpkin halves; rub 1/2 tsp brown sugar into each. Roast, cut-side down, until pumpkin is easily pierced with a knife, about 1 hour. Let cool.

When cool enough to handle, scoop out flesh with a spoon. You'll need 1 1/2 cups of puree. Transfer flesh to a clean kitchen towel or cheesecloth; wring excess liquid into a bowl. Place flesh in the bowl of a food processor, along with eggs, Locatelli, amaretti, ricotta, shallot, and nutmeg. Process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

Lay 1 pasta sheet on work surface. Place 1 tablespoon filling every 3 inches. Brush water around filling. Place another sheet on top, pressing around filling to seal.**** Using a fluted pastry wheel (knife, or pizza cutter), cut each ravioli into a 3-by-3 inch square. Repeat with remaining pasta sheets and filling. Transfer ravioli to a parchment-lined baking sheet sprinkle with semolina; freeze for at least 30 minutes.*****

Bring a large pot of water to boil; season with salt. Add ravioli. Cook until it just floats, 3 to 4 minutes.

In a large saute pan, melt butter over high heat. Add sage; cook until butter begin to brown and sizzle, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat; whisk in balsamic. Using a slotted spoon, transfer ravioli to pan, tossing to combine. Serve immediately with Parmesan cheese.

*We used Parmesan
**Although amaretti cookies may seem strange to us, they are a traditional ingredient. We substituted almonds and 2 tbs of brown sugar
***We used all-purpose
****Start pressing from the middle and working outwards, to try and avoid air bubbles. If you do have air bubbles, just work them out.
*****We skipped this step because we let the dough rest in the frig.

I love Jamie Oliver and his Butternut Squash Soup

Let me be clear about one thing. It is not that I am in love with Jamie Oliver, the man himself. His wife can have him. But, I am absolutely crazy about his food. Anything that man makes, I want to devour.

And, what better way to celebrate this kind of love than investing in two new Jamie Oliver cookbooks: Jamie at Home and Cook with Jamie?

Armed with a Jamie Oliver-ese cipher,
I was ready to try my first recipe from Jamie at Home: 'Superb Squash Soup'. And did you look at it? How could anything that gorgeous not be delicious?

One of the things I like most about Mr. Oliver's food is the depth of flavor he incorporates in his recipes. He adds lots of herbs, chillis, oils, and so forth to enhance the basic ingredients. But no flavor is overwheling. They all marry together brilliantly.

Take this soup, for instance. You start by frying sage leaves in oil.
You reserve those sage leaves for garnish and then you use that sage-flavored oil as the base of your soup. Come on now!

And, instead of using just onions, carrots, celery, and garlic as your soup base, he has you add rosemary and a red chilli. Now, neither the rosemary or the chilli really hit you over the head at the end, but they just enrich the overall flavor. And it is this additional flavor that makes this soup 'superb'.
Now onto making this soup. You first soften your base vegetables over medium heat for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, prep your lovely butternut squash. Bonus: you can just leave the skin on since you are simmering it for so long.
Once your vegetables are soft, add your butternut squash to the pot.
Also add the stock.
Bring that to a simmer and simmer for about 30 minutes, until everything is tender. Pull it off the heat, pull out your immersion blender, and as Mr. Oliver says "whiz it up."
And, you are left with this absolutely stunning pot of soup.
Ladle the soup into a bowl.
Remember these fried sage leaves?
Use them as a garnish, along with a little Parmesan. To remind you how gorgeous this is:
Warning: at the end, you may want to lick the bowl.
Again, to quote Mr. Oliver, "Happy Days"!

Super squash soup (from Jamie at Home)
serves 8

Ingredients
Olive oil
16 fresh sage leaves*
2 red onions, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, trimmed and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 1/4 pounds butternut squash, onion squash, or musque de Provence, halved, deseeded, and cut into chunks
2 quarts low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
Put a very large sauce pan on a medium heat and pour in a couple of glugs of olive oil.** Add the sage leaves and fry for around 30 seconds or until dark green and crisp. Quickly remove them with a slotted spoon to a bowl lined with paper towels-- you will use these for garnish. In the pan you'll be left with a beautifully flavored oil (yes, the recipe actually says this), so put it back on the heat and throw in your onion, celery, carrot, garlic, rosemary, chilli, and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Cook gently for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are sweet and soft. Add the squash and the stock to the pan, bring to a boil and simmer for around half an hour.

When the squash is soft and cooked through, whiz the soup with an immersion blender or pour it into a standard blender and pulse until you have a smooth puree. Most importantly, remember to taste and season until its perfect.

Divide soup between bowls and sprinkle with a few of your crispy sage leaves and drizzle with a swirl of good-quality extra virgin olive oil.

*I only fried 4 leaves because I only need one portion that night.
**1 glug = 2 Tablespoons