Amsterdam: Pasta alla Norma + Radish and Arugula Salad

(Recipe for two)

Lucas and I spent the morning at Amsterdam's Noordermarkt in Jordaan. I got there with a craving for pasta but I still wasn't entirely sure what kind of sauce to make. When I saw some eggplant at one of the stalls, the answer became obvious. I looooove eggplant and I looooove pasta alla norma. This dish is almost as simple as making tomato sauce, but it includes one extra step - either frying or roasting some eggplant. I usually roast the eggplant, but since we don't have an oven in our apartment here in Amsterdam, I fried up a small-medium sized eggplant (diced) in a little bit of olive oil instead. When the eggplant had softened after about 10-15 minutes, I remove it from the pan. Next, in the same pan, I added in a little more olive oil and 3-4 chopped up garlic cloves along with some chili (as much as you'd like, it really depends on how spicy the chili is to begin with because they can be veeerrry unpredictable).

Before the garlic turns brown, add in either a can of tomatoes or about 8 medium sized diced fresh tomatoes (you can remove the skins if you want by blanching them for about a minute. After blanching, the skins should peel off easily). I used fresh tomatoes but I did not remove the skins because I was lazy and I was not trying to impress anyone. We were drinking some red wine so I poured in about a glass full and let that boil off. I also had a little bit of thyme in the fridge so I threw in a sprig or two. Make sure to season with salt along the way. I let the sauce simmer for about 30-40 minutes and adjusted the acidity with some sugar when it was needed (depends on the tomatoes). When the sauce had reduced to a much thicker consistency, I added in the cooked eggplant and simmered the sauce for another 5-10 minutes. At this point, I removed the thyme stems and added in some fresh basil. I cooked the pasta until al dente and then mixed it in with the sauce.

For the salad - I haven't bought any vinegar here so I've been making salad dressings with lemon and olive oil. This time, I added in a little honey too. I sliced up a few radishes and tossed the salad together with a few handfuls of arugula at the last minute.

Tomato, Eggplant, Basil and Mozarella Panzanella + Plum Crisp

I thought that it would be appropriate to eat panzanella and a plum crisp in honor of the beginning of spring/summer! For the panzanella, I let a loaf of sour dough bread get a little stale for the past few days and then cut it into cubes and toasted it in the oven with a mixture of olive oil, butter, garlic, chili flake, salt and pepper. I cubed up the eggplant and let that drain a little bit in a colander with some salt. After about 30-40 minutes of draining, I roasted the eggplant at about 400 degrees. I chopped up a few tomatoes and added those in with the bread. When the eggplant was done roasting, I threw that in with the bread and tomatoes, along with some chopped up mozarella and some torn up basil. I drizzled in a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tossed everything together. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture when it was actually ready to eat (must have been very hungry) and only have the one from right after I put in the eggplant.

For the plum crisp, I simply mixed up half a stick of butter with about 1/2 cup each of oats, flour and brown sugar, and a bit of salt and cinnamon until it became crumbly. I sliced up the plums and mixed them with some maple syrup, lemon zest and about a tablespoon of lemon juice. I baked the crisp at 375 until the top was golden (about 40 minutes). This plum crisp was a perfect balance of sweet and sour!

Cannelloni Stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta

I like to make cannelloni with fresh pasta sheets from the supermarket because its so much easier than trying to spoon the filling into dried pasta tubes (I don't have a piping bag), but since I have my lovely pasta rolling machine, I figured it would be a lot cheaper to just make it myself! I filled the pasta with a classic mixture of spinach, ricotta, nutmeg, pepper, salt and an egg. I covered the little rolls of stuffed pasta with tomato sauce and baked the whole thing in the oven for about an hour (much easier to bake it for longer than it is to par-boil all the pasta). I had a ton of dough left over so I ended up cutting it into pappardelle and freezing it... turned out that I could have just refrigerated it because Lucas and I ate it with pesto two days later!