Jamieott's Blog

My original idea to make brunch pasta out of homemade tomato pasta (thanks Qin!), eggs and bacon turned into a gourmet dish of scallops, scallions, and roasted bell peppers. I’m ok with this. In fact, I highly recommend the combination of flavors.

1. Roll out your tomato pasta, then roll it up and cut it. (see below)
2. Take 2 slices of bacon chopped in small pieces and render the fat in a cast iron skillet (or whatever frying pan your like)
3. Add chopped scallions to frying pan and watch the bacon to make sure it gets crispy, not burnt. Add roasted peppers to pan to warm up.
Last steps happen in 1-2mins all at the same time…GO.
4. Drop the scallops in the iron skillet with all that bacon fat, Drop the pasta in boiling, heavily salted water, Crack an egg into a small frying pan and make an over easy egg…keep that egg yolk wet!
5. Once the pasta floats to the water’s surface, remove/drain/add to bowl. Push the yummy bacon bits, scallions and scallops onto the pasta. (No need to pour all the bacon fat into the dish unless you adore low density lipoproteins (LDLs)…or bad cholesterol) Add the egg on top and sprinkle chopped dill and lemon juice over the top.

In the future I may skip adding the scallops as they did not ‘make’ the dish and add more lemon juice as the bright acidity cuts the fat well. Also, I was craving some hot peppers in the dish to wake me up this morning. Roasted jalapenos should work next time. Enjoy!

Roll and cut

A pile of yum.

The soup was originally enlisted for leek and potatoes only. Then, I had hydrated some black-eyed peas and shucked three ears of corn on a whim and found them both in need of a purpose. Why not, leek, black-eyed peas, potato, corn soup… It had an herb, cumin/coriander seasoning and a french (butter/wine/chicken broth/cream) finish. With my trusty immersion blender, I fated all my vegetables for comforting anonymity and then added some heavy cream. A daub of yogurt and a topping of roasted peppers completed the kodak moment. The hearty soup was rich and appropriate for the cool September weather.

Better than baby food, I promise.

I can no longer make excuses, it’s time I made my own pasta at home. My friend, Qin, demonstrated how easy it is to mix flour, eggs, an optional filling, into a mound, knead it, then roll it out super thin. After flattening into 1/8″ thickness, fold the dough several times (or roll it up like a fruit roll-up) and slice it thinly for angel hair pasta, or thicker for fettuccine. I personally loved the thin slices as it maximized surface area for sticky sauces. While I was served both tomato and spinach pastas, I think I preferred the spinach pasta. All purpose flour is typically used but I may experiment with wheat flour in the future. Qin was generous enough to leave me with two portions of tomato pasta dough and I may make one into a breakfast pasta with bacon sauce and a sunny-side egg on top.

Tomato pasta with grated aged gouda

Healthy, colorful and most importantly, delicious