This is another family recipe and it wasn’t Sunday morning if our mom didn’t make these.

In my mind, there are two kinds of great waffles:

-Crispy, Golden Brown: Thinner Waffles, w/ a crunch & smaller grid

OR

-Bigger Belgian Waffles: Taste-Packed, more Cakey w/ bigger grid (This recipe!)

Buttermilk Waffles Recipe

1 cup Flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups buttermilk

1 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

Mix together flour, oats, cornmeal, and baking powder in large bowl.  Ad remaining ingredients and blend well. Let batter stand 15 minutes before baking.  (Spray waffle iron w/ spray oil)  Preheat waffle iron.  Pour batter to cover 2/3 of grid and bake until steam has stopped escaping the iron and waffles are golden brown, 3-4 minutes.

Enjoy with breakfast sausage!

Persimmons are a California seasonal fruit and I always like to include them in salads when they are available.

We had this Sunset Magazine salad on Thanksgiving and the dressing was great!

Continue for recipe ->

Preparation

1. In a medium bowl, whisk lime juice, oil, honey, salt, and cayenne until blended.

2. In another medium bowl, gently mix lettuces with 1 to 2 tbsp. dressing. Add remaining ingredients to first bowl with dressing and mix gently to coat.

3. Divide lettuce among 4 salad plates. Spoon fruit mixture on top.

You have to start your own seasonal traditions and this is our new fall tradition.  For the past few years we have headed to the beautiful Rodoni Farms Pumpkin Patch on HWY 1 just north of Santa Cruz to grab a pumpkin for an “all pumpkin” dinner.

The cute girls that sell the pumpkins at Rodoni Farms eyeball the size of your pumpkins and calculate the price as you walk up to pay.  Not only do they have a way with judging size, but they know a thing or two about their produce and always advise us to buy the Jarrahdale Pumpkin, light green in color, for making any pumpkin foods.  Last year we bought one that was so huge that it took about four Tupperware containers to store all of the puree.  So this year we chose a smaller pumpkin, which made a huge difference in our prep and clean-up time.  We were able to make the entire dish and a batch of chocolate chip pumpkin cookies with the smaller size pumpkin ($4 pumpkin) and still have leftovers for another dish and second batch of cookies.

Recipe after the jump…
Homemade Pasta: Pumpkin Tagliatelle Recipe [eds note: we're calling it Tagliatelle because we made it fresh, it was thick, and it was coarse, all of which define a Tagliatelle as opposed to a Fettuccine]

Serves 6

2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup pumpkin puree:
1/2 cup 1/4” pieces of pumpkin (Green Jarrahdale Pumpkin)
1/8 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg (2 eggs, if smaller)

Boil pumpkin pieces in salted water until tender (another option is to bake as described below).  Place soft pumpkins pieces in food processor and blend until smooth.

Knead flour, spices, pureed pumpkin, salt, and egg in your mixer with a dough hook (or your hands).  Then squeeze the dough into a ball and set aside for 15-20 minutes in a damp towel.

Set up your pasta machine. Sprinkle semolina or all purpose flour on your working surface.  Shape dough into two balls.  With a rolling pin, roll the dough out into 1/4” thick pieces.  Put the first piece of dough through the sheet side of your pasta maker starting on the widest setting and send the sheet through until it thins down to an 1/8” thick sheet. Then run the sheet through the cutting side and hang the sliced pasta on a rack until ready to boil.

Pumpkin & Spicy Sausage Cream Sauce Recipe

Pumpkin:

1 smaller Pumpkin (3-4 lbs), cut into 6-8 pieces for baking

Pre-heat oven to 400F.  Cut pumpkin into 6-8 slices.  Put 1/4-1/2” water in the bottom of a baking dish and place the pumpkin pieces in the water.  Bake the pumpkin for 45 minutes to 1 hour until tender.  Remove from oven, slice off the skin and place the pieces  in the food processor.  Puree the pumpkin.

Sauce:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound mix of Mild and Spicy Italian sausage (the mix depends on your taste, we did 1/3 spicy, 2/3 Mild)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped (can use mandolin for making thin slices)
1 bay leaf
6 sprigs sage leaves, sliced
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup pumpkin puree (Fresh or Canned)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Salt and black pepper
Grated Parmigiano (Parmesan)

Remove the sausages from their casings.  In a large saucepan, cook the sausage over medium to high heat until browned.  Remove the sausage and place on a paper-towel-lined plate and dump the excess fat from the pan.  In the same pan, cook the sliced onions and garlic with 1 tbsp oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes until tender.

Next add the bay leaf, sage leaves, and wine, then simmer until reduced about 2-4 minutes.  Add the chicken broth and pumpkin puree, stir until it boils lightly.  Turn down the heat, add the sausage and stir in the cream.  Add the seasonings, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper and let sauce thicken for about 15-30 minutes without the lid.

While the sauce is cooking down, boil salted water in stock pot over high heat for cooking the pasta.  Once the water boils, add the pasta and let boil 6-8 minutes to desired softness.  Drain pasta and return to the pot.  Add the sausage pumpkin cream sauce.  Mix pasta and sauce and garnish with grated parmigiano.

Serve the pasta with garlic bread and salad.

Lesley: We decided to make a pasta sauce and noodle instead of ravioli in search of a more punchy taste.  Pumpkin can be a bit flavorless without spices to give it a kick.  The sausage really did that for the dish and the pasta itself was an excellent addition.  We agreed that this was the best dish we have made at home in weeks.

John: This pasta dish was just what we needed after a week without power.  Its richness of flavor and heartiness of body was required to boost our soggy, dark spirits.  I also made some cookies, but we’ll talk about that later.

When are too many cooks in the kitchen a good idea?  When you’re making ravioli, of course!

This past weekend, we picked up beets and sage at the Aptos Farmers Market at Cabrillo, and a Pasta Machine from Ross: Dress for Less for $18.  When I attempted to make my own ravioli in the past, it was pretty much a disaster.  This time around, I discovered that making your own pasta is definitely a team effort.  This is one of the only times when you might say that two to four people in your kitchen is actually helpful.

We had six for dinner and all agreed that it was a great dish. The presentation is just beautiful with the juxtaposition of the red beet inside inside the yellow ravioli, and the black poppyseed sauce covering it all.  The poppy seeds were also great because their texture added to the overall eating experience.  My best friend suggested putting fried sage on top of the pasta right before serving.  That was a great idea that added a savory crunch!

Improvements for next time:

Some thought the butter sauce needed salt.  Our pasta was a bit too thick and overpowered the beet filling flavor a bit, so next time we would make the pasta sheets thinner.  Although, thinner pasta sheets may be difficult to keep the filling inside of the raviolis while they are boiling.

Recipe after the jump

Beet & Goat Cheese Ravioli

Adapted from multiple recipes.

3 beets
Fresh sage (for roasting beets & for topping)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
3/4 cup goat cheese
3/4 cup of ricotta
1/4 tsp. Ground nutmeg

Beware: Beets seriously stain!

To Make the filling:

Preheat the oven to 400F.  Wash and dry the beets.  Cut off the end greens (you can cook and serve the beet greens as a side dish, we did).  Wrap the beets in foil and drizzle with olive oil, then add salt and pepper, and fresh sage leaves.  Roast for about 1 hour or until soft.  Remove from oven and let steam in foil.  Let the beets cool completely and then peel off the skin.

Grate the beets into shavings and combine with the ingredients for the filling: goat cheese, ricotta, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  Mash together.

Handmade Pasta

3 cups Semolina Flour*
1 tsp. Salt
4 Eggs
4 Tbsp. Water
4 Tbsp. Olive Oil

Combine Semolina and salt, then add beaten eggs, water, and oil.  Mix by hand or by using a dough hook in mixer.  Then knead the dough for 10 minutes or until dough is elastic.  Wrap the dough in a towel for 20 minutes.  Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a long piece, about 5 inches wide.  Set your pasta machine up to roll out pasta sheets.  The pasta machine step is a two-person job (unless you have more than 2 hands, or an electric pasta maker).  Start to roll it on a wider setting (our widest setting is 1).  Then progress sequentially through the thicknesses putting the pasta sheet back into the machine on all of these settings until the dough is to your desired thickness.

* Semolina Flour makes a pasta strand stretch and not break. We used Bob’s Red Mill Semolina Flour from Whole Foods.

Make the Ravioli:

Place the thin pasta dough sheets on a floured surface and use the top of a glass or a biscuit cutter and cut the rolled out pasta sheets into circles.  Put a small bowl of water on the side of your workspace. Use a teaspoon to place a bit of the beet filling in the middle of each pasta circle.  Dip your finger in the glass of water and dampen the edges of the ravioli.  Close the rounds into a half moon shape.

Boil water with a touch of salt.  After the water is boiling, add the raviolis and boil them until they float, 3-4 minutes.  Drain as with any pasta.

For the Sauce:

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
2 Tbsp. of poppy seeds
Salt to taste
Fresh grated Parmesan

While the pasta is cooking melt the butter.  Add poppyseeds and salt.  Toss the cooked raviolis with the sauce and add the fried sage to the top.

Fried Sage Topping

20-30 large fresh sage leaves
Olive or canola oil
Salt

Heat the oil in a frying pan until it ripples.  Turn to medium heat and add the sage leaves.  Let them fry until the oil stops bubbling.  Then carefully remove with tongs and place them onto a paper towel to absorb the oil.  Add salt and toss.  Place the fried sage on top of the ravioli as a garnish before serving.

Zach: A more subtle in flavor ravioli but very delicious.  I would recommend more cheese in the filling but the subtle butter poppy sauce was a good match for this pasta and the color was nice.  Use bigger ravioli to get more filling.  A good change up on traditional ravioli.

These are just a few tastes of what we had over the weekend at the Ferry Building and farmers market.  There are so many great places to try here on Saturday mornings that you just can’t get them all in one visit.  I always tell out of town folks visiting SF to go the Ferry Building and Farmers Market because of the local foods and produce.  It is hard to go wrong here!

We had:

From Lulu Petite:
This is the cafe option of Lulu located inside of the Ferry Building.  They serve sandwiches and specialty take-home foods.

-Egg Salad Sandwich with tarragon, parsley, chives, and Lulu Truffle Artichoke Tapenade on Roasted Brioche.  It was huge and very tasty with a sweet, challah-like bread.
-Homemade Potato Chips.  These were pretty good but I thought they could benefit from some kind of creative salt (or pepper) kick.
-Crispy Chicken Sandwich.  It was good but I think adding cheese would be a benefit to the overall flavor.
http://www.lulupetite.com/

From Roli Roti, Gourmet Rotisserie:
This is located outside in the market area and had a huge line for the Porchetta.

-Porchetta Sandwich.  This was delicious pork goodness.  Describing it as melting in your mouth would be an understatement.  The little pieces of crispy skin were a great addition.  If you like pork you will want to make love to this sandwich!

-Roasted Potatoes.  The first one exploded with flavor!  These potatoes arecooked below the chicken in their drippings which added a great flavor.  The ones that were cooked until crispy were amazing but the less cooked ones were so so.
http://www.roliroti.com/

From the Farmers Market:
-Huge Carrots that would make a beautiful, simple side dish.
-Truly home grown strawberries that were amazing.

From All Star Organics:
Specialty Cooking Salts: Lavender Salt, Italian Herb Salt, Celery Salt, Garlic Salt. $10
A friend bought a bottle of Truffle Salt from a place in Sonoma when she was out visiting.  She puts it on popcorn.  This started my interest in the creative salts.  What would be good with Lavender Salt?
http://www.allstarorganics.com/

http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/

The Padron Peppers look similar to jalapenos but have a very different flavor.  We picked them up at the SC downtown farmers market on Wednesday from Oso Velloso Farm.  They are pretty cute and great for a bite size accompaniment.  We pan fried them in olive oil to a soft-ish texture, blackening the skin and then sprinkled them with some course sea salt.  You can grab a stem and take a mild-pepper bite.  I have heard that one in ten are hot but I haven’t landed one yet!

http://www.santacruzfarmersmarket.org/

I first heard about these tomatoes from a relative in Santa Cruz.  She said they were the best but expensive, so I had to try them.  Dry farming is a technique that I had not heard of before coming to California.  Basically, the soil is tilled to a sponge-like consistency before the dry season and the soil is rolled over to make a hard layer to lock in the moisture.  The plants are then planted without irrigation to force the roots to grow deep towards the trapped moisture.   This technique is best suited for dry climates.  The process results in smaller crops that are far more concentrated in flavor, have a higher nutrient density and last longer.  I’ve only had the tomatoes but I’m going to seek out other produce to try.  The tomatoes are dense, sweet and delicious.  I’m going to get more from Dirty Girl Produce this Wednesday at the Santa Cruz farmers’ market.  Dirty Girl dry farmed tomatoes are available at other farmers’ markets in the Bay Area so check out their site for more details.  If you are interested in the process check it out here.