Our Friends Are Great and They Cook for Us

This weekend was an AMAZING culinary weekend. Andrew and I had the luxury of people coming over to our house and cooking for us. Have I mentioned our friends are amazing?

On Saturday evening, Meri came over to cook dinner. We first headed up to Wegmans because we heard Giada De Laurentiis was going to be there to do a book signing, and Meri and I can’t resist a good book signing. Unfortunately, by the time we got there the line was out the door with an intricate system that involved buying a book, waiting in line for a number, getting a number, getting called by your number to enter a special closed off room, and then from what we could tell, waiting in line again. So…suffice it to say, we did not get to meet Giada De Laurentiis.

We did however get to plan an pretty awesome meal. Two words.

Homemade pasta.

Meri showed me how to make tortellini from scratch. She has magical cooking powers and started off by making pasta dough. We have a pasta maker attachment for our stand mixer (thanks to Meri and her sister, Melissa!) which made this entire process infinitely easier. After rolling out the dough a bunch of times to the appropriate thickness, we cut it into square-ish pieces. Using our fingers, we then wet two of the dough edges.

Meri made a cheese and spinach filling for our tortellini, which we dropped by the spoonful into the middle of our dough squares. We then folded the dough over to make a triangle.

 Then, we taking the two bottom points of the triangle, we carefully folded them towards each other.

 And using a little bit more water, we glued the two points together. And viola! We have tortellini! 

 It was a bit of a tedious process making dozens of these little babies, but there’s nothing I’m more suited for than doing a tedious task over and over and over again. We ended up with a whole trayful.

 Since it’s fresh pasta, we only had to plop them in boiling water for about three minutes. Meri put them in a few at a time, so as to not crowd the pot, and I’m assuming so they don’t stick together (am I right Meri?). She then dressed them with some olive oil and freshly grated parmesan cheese.

We had our homemade pasta with some roasted brussel sprouts (that Meri made) and some Italian bread (that I bought from the store). It was such a good meal. This pasta was infinitely better than the pasta I made, if only because it wasn’t stuck together in some giant clump. 

 Then, because we hadn’t stuffed ourselves silly enough, I made us Shutterbean’s pear and cornmeal cake with rosemary syrup.

Um…yum.

But. BUT. Our culinary adventure of the weekend was not yet over. Because our friend MC, was up visiting us for the weekend. And MC brought with him a loaf of brioche that was begging to be made into french toast. So this morning (or really afternoon) when I got home from derby practice, MC was finishing up making some amazing french toast that he served with a mixed berry compote (homemade!), homemade whip cream, and fresh berries. Thankyouverymuch.

So, if anyone else would like to come visit and cook us a gourmet meal, we have a guest room!

No seriously, Meri and MC…this was all incredible. Thank you!!