Beef short rib ragu

The furnace has been running lately. So has the living room fireplace.

It's braising season.

Not a lot of things are better for braising than short ribs. They're terrific served whole, of course, but I was in the mood for a hearty ragu the other evening, and so that's the direction I went in.

Nobody complained.

I started out with 3 pounds of beef short ribs. After liberally seasoning the ribs with kosher salt and black pepper I dredged them in all-purpose flour and then tossed them into a dutch oven with plenty of olive oil.

After the ribs have browned on all sides, remove and set aside.

Add one large chopped carrot, two celery stalks, one medium onion, one leek, four garlic cloves, and some thyme. Saute until the vegetables have softened.

Return the ribs to the dutch oven and add one quart of stock (beef here), 2 cups of red wine, and one can of tomatoes. Let the liquid come to a boil, then cover the pot and place in an oven preheated to 375 degrees F.

After around two hours check that the meat is tender. If it isn't tender continue to cook until it is. Once tender remove from the oven and allow things to cool.

Once cool enough to handle, remove the ribs from the sauce and pick away all the meat from the bones.

All that's left to do now is add the meat back into the sauce, reheat and serve.

As you can see by the picture up top I served the ragu over polenta the first night. The next night I went with cavatelli.

It feels like winter tonight. I only wish there was still some of the stuff left.

You gotta break some eggs...

See this? It's a classic French omelet. Made by an authentic French chef.

The real deal. Both of them.

I was hoping to present to you my version of the venerable classic but a funny thing happened on the way to the stovetop: I discovered just how lacking in kitchen skills I am. Manufacturing the classic French omelet, it turns out, only looks easy.

The man who did create the four-egg-and-chive masterpiece that you see here is none other than Jacques Pepin. "If I have to judge how good technically a chef is," explains the célèbre chef français in a video that I highly recommend you watch, "I probably would ask him to do an omelet."

Luckily Chef Pepin asked no such thing of my Italian-American mother's middle son. I have attempted making a perfect French omelet on several occasions this past week and, well, you don't see any pictures of them around here, now do you?

What got me started on this Perfect French Omelet Quest was a recent trip to Paris. For lunch one day I'd ordered a simple omelette au fromage and a plate of beautifully cured (and nicely fatty) jamon. The omelet, in the classic not country style, wasn't the finest that I have had but still it was excellent, super light both in appearance and texture, moist in the way that many Americans would find underdone. (Yes, Cousin cook-my-scrambled-eggs-til-they're-like-packing-material Frank, I mean you!)

Mostly what I recall about the omelet is the thought I had as it slowly disappeared from the plate: Why don't I ever make this at home?

Now I know why. 

If your kitchen skills roughly mirror my own then maybe you do too.

Zucchini & eggs

This won't take but a minute. That's the way comfort foods work. Time-wise you're in and you're out in a flash. It's the feelings that linger on.

To my way of thinking few foods provide more comfort than Zucchini & Eggs. It's right up there with Pasta & Peas on the warm-and-fuzzy scale — and precious few things ever make it into that territory.

I am not alone in this. Many of the people that I grew up with in Brooklyn will back me up here, I am sure. Their mothers and grandmothers and aunts sliced many summer zucchini from their family gardens, and even cracked eggs fresh from the chicken coops in their backyards. The olive oils that they lovingly fried the zucchini and the eggs in were fresh and fragrant, the breads accompanying the completed scramble crusty and fresh from the bakeries down the street.

It would be an unprofitable use of time trying to estimate how often I have gone running to zucchini & eggs for nourishment. I wouldn't even try.

What I will try is to get you to give it a go and see how it feels.

Just slice up a zucchini and fry it in olive oil until golden.

Add a couple eggs (three here) and salt and pepper to taste.

Once the eggs start to set, lightly toss into a scramble and then serve.

Feels pretty good, am I right?

Little boxes

This package arrived via overnight express the other day. Wrapped inside the white and brown plastic bag were two very hefty, not to mention delicious, deli sandwiches. I was expecting the package's arrival because one of my oldest friends, a man that I have known and loved since kindergarden, had alerted me both to its contents and whereabouts.

"Enjoy, my brother," Louis had texted from Manhattan's Lower East Side. "Nobody does pastrami the way Katz's does.

"Wish you were HERE!"

Like many wonderful people in my life Louis knows about and takes enormous pleasure in good food. Eating is an important part of the pleasure, but it isn't the biggest part. Sharing is. It's everything, actually.

Lou's carefully packed two-pound box of deli meats (half pastrami, half corned beef) was one old friend's way of showing another how fond of him he is. Katz's Delicatessen holds a special place in Lou's life. Always has. Eating there makes him enormously happy, joyous even. Being 300 miles away from each other on the afternoon he'd gone in for lunch, Lou decided that the next best thing to breaking (rye) bread together was to rush representative samples of his midday meal to my door.

And his plan worked. Splendidly. From the moment I accepted the FedEx package until my very last bite of thickly cut Katz's pastrami late that evening Lou was right there beside me.

He still is. And it's been days.

Boxes like this one are not entirely new to me, as the family and friends that surround me are of a similarly generous mind.

Cousin Josephine, a woman as close to me as any sister would be, has brightened many of my days with surprise packages of her extraordinary baked goods and confections. (Jo's homemade torrone immediately comes to mind. Awesome!)

Only recently a parcel meant to bring me back to my youth turned up in the mailbox. It was a package of Brooklyn chewing gum sent by my very dear cousin John and I still smile—widely—whenever I recall it.

Some 20 years ago now, only weeks after moving from my hometown New York to Maine, a package arrived early one Saturday morning. The box had been shipped from Alleva, a cheese shop in Little Italy that I know well. It was lined with thick hard foam, lots of dry ice—and around ten pounds of fresh mozzarella!

My friend Joe had arranged for the delivery after hearing me bitterly complain of the lack of decent food in my new home. It had been less than a month and already I was heartsick. What had I done? Could I liberate myself from the job I'd accepted and return home to New York where I belonged?

"I don't know how people can live this way," I told my friend when he called to check in on me one afternoon. "If I stay here I'll just wither and die."

Joe's package that Saturday—like Lou's and Josephine's and John's and so many others through the years—lifted me. High. Two decades later and just thinking about it still does.

Zucchini pie

To a gardener there's no better way to use up summer zucchini than having a couple of house guests show up for a few days. And so the day that Lou and Deb arrived from Florida I got to work on some zucchini pies. The idea here is that the pies could hold up in the fridge throughout their four-day visit and be gone to whenever the mood struck, mostly as a snack or for breakfast.

I'm really glad they showed up when they did. My zucchini plants have been so prolific the past few years that I finally decided to cut back to only one of them this year. And yet even with just this single plant I can't seem to keep up. Every other day I harvest another couple of these babies.

I'm guessing that many of you know somebody like me, so I suggest getting your hands on some of their zukes and commencing with the pie-making pronto.

Shred the zucchini like so.

Just one very large zucchini netted six cups' worth of the shredded stuff. This would be just enough to make two pies, and so half all the proportions here to make only one pie. To the shredded zucchini add one large chopped onion, 2 chopped garlic cloves, 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, five to six large eggs, 1/2 cup grated Romano cheese, and salt and pepper.

After thoroughly mixing the ingredients add 2 cups all-purpose flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder, then thoroughly mix again.

Coat two 9-inch pie pans with olive oil (or butter if you prefer) and evenly distribute the mixture into each pan. Place in an oven that's been preheated to 350 degrees F for around 45 minutes.

This batch of pies baked for just a little over 45 minutes.

And, I am told, turned out pretty good.

Lamb & Pine Nut Bolognese

Shyster Jersey Lawyer Friend's birthday, surely a day of meaning and reflection to her, basically boils down to just one thing to me: I've got to cook the woman some lamb.

This is not a negotiable point. Lamb is my friend's very favorite food. She has told me this on many occasions, most frequently around those times that her birth date draws near.

Demanding as she is, the woman highly values experimentation. And so when the thought occurred to me to meld lamb and pine nuts into a pasta sauce, not once did I concern myself about disappointed her.

Or all of you.

Finely chop three carrots, three celery stalks, one medium red onion, one leek, six garlic cloves and some hot pepper (optional), then saute in olive oil under medium heat until softened.

Add 2 pounds of ground lamb and 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, incorporate and cook until browned.

Add one cup of red wine, increase the heat to high and reduce until the wine has evaporated.

Add one cup of milk. Cook until the milk has evaporated.

Add two 28-ounce cans of tomatoes and 1/2 cup loosely packed chopped fresh mint leaves, turn the heat down to low and allow the sauce to simmer very gently for around two hours. (If the sauce reduces too much or becomes too thick you can always add some more milk or even water.)

When the sauce is done cooking add another handful of chopped fresh mint, stir and simmer for a minute or two.

And then serve with the pasta of your choice.

This sauce, like so many others, tastes even better the next day. And so I made sure to send my friend home not only with a big hunk of birthday cake but also a container of what turned out to be a really nice sauce.

Pasta with fresh herbs

I'm not so sure this counts as a real recipe, what with how simple it is. But, hey, it's summer. Things are supposed to be easy.

What's more, the dozen or so herb plants that are growing like weeds around the house are in serious need of being utilized.

There's no science to this dish. All I did was take my scizzors (and glass of wine) out in the backyard and start cutting. Best I can recall this is a mixture (and around a handful) of thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary and mint. But use whatever you want.

Chop the herbs and some garlic and that's it, you're ready to go. (Get your pasta going right away because this sauce is only gonna take a couple minutes to prepare.)

Saute the garlic in plenty of olive oil until it's nice and soft.

Then add in the herbs.

Stir it all up quickly.

Immediately start adding your pasta. (If your pasta isn't ready yet then turn off the heat and wait until it is; you don't want the herbs or the garlic to cook more.)

Once all the pasta is in the pan start adding a bit of the (well-salted) pasta water, turn the heat up to high and incorpate.

Serve immediately with a dusting of grated cheese.

Whether or not that's a real recipe I'll let you decide.