A couple of nights ago I started watching the TED lecture videos on food that are now available through Netflix. (That’s a 21st century sentence if I ever read one…)
I watched Mark Bittman and several others talking about being a “weekday vegetarian.” I will never be a complete vegetarian, and in part that’s because I have access here to so much good, sustainable, local meat (lamb, pork, beef, chicken, sausage). However, I do see the benefit for my health and for the planet of eating less meat. I love Michael Pollan’s mantra to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
It also fits my plan of growing more and more of my own food. I’m reading Eliot Coleman’s amazing book, Four Season Harvest, which is as reasonable as it is informative. His advice is to privilege biology over technology, not building greenhouses with insulation and elaborate heating/cooling systems but just growing cold season plants as winter approaches, providing them the protection of a cold frame and harvesting through the winter. He and his wife, living in Maine, don’t even can anymore. They eat what is ripe and available, which in the winter is a lot of greens and root vegetables, the carrots, potatoes and dried beans from storage as well as salad greens from the cold frames. (They do dry tomatoes to have in stews in the winter.)
Today at the food co-op I bought four lovely, large duck eggs. They don’t have a different taste than chicken eggs; they’re just bigger and richer. Looking on the Internet for recipes, I came across this blog. It was the inspiration for tonight’s meal, with homemade fettuccine, homemade ricotta and pesto from the freezer and spinach from the garden. Being a vegetarian could be easy if it tastes like this!
Fettuccine with Onion, Pesto and Duck Egg
1/2 onion thinly sliced and diced
2 cubes frozen pesto (ice-cube tray size)
2 Tbs fresh ricotta
2-3 cups fresh spinach
2 duck eggs
butter and oil
When you’re ready to cut the pasta, start water boiling in a 3 quart pot and saute the onion in a mix of butter and oil in a frying pan for 15 minutes, until browned on the edges and slightly crispy. Meanwhile, thaw the pesto by placing it in a bowl over a bowl of boiling water. (A microwave will separate the pesto from the oil.)
Wash the spinach and when you put the pasta into the pot to cook, put the spinach in the pan with the onions and cook until it wilts, a couple minutes.
Pan-fry the duck eggs in a separate pan with a cover so the yolk gets hot on top, but don’t overcook because the yolk really adds depth to the sauce. (The one above is slightly overcooked!)
Drain the pasta, return to the pot and mix with the pesto and ricotta.
Layer the bowls with the onion/spinach mixture, pasta and then top with the duck egg.
Serve with salt and pepper and grated parmesan.