Making pasta from scratch is a surefire way to boost your confidence in the kitchen. It’s easy, but you feel cool because you MADE pasta. We had people over last night before heading downtown for VDay, and we couldn’t resist slipping the accomplishment into more than one conversation…

Oh hey, are you hungry? Because we made some ravioli from scratch, if you want some. Yeah, no biggie. No, we don’t have a pasta machine, we just rolled out the dough. What’s that? Better than Mario Battali’s? Haha, you’re too kind.

Maybe not quite. But still — homemade pasta tastes delicious, and requires only a few simple steps: Mix eggs and flour, roll and cut. The dough is extremely workable, and there is no waiting time. We found both our dough and filling recipes from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, and prepared the filling in advance. Next time we will probably try to roll the dough a bit thinner, but overall we are proud of a successful first attempt!

Ingredients:
(pasta)
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
6 eggs
water, as needed
(filling)
2 cups baked sweet potato
2 eggs
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp sugar
1/2 grated parmesan cheese

Instructions:
To make filling, mash the baked potato in a small bowl. Add nutmeg, sugar and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk in eggs and cheese, and set aside. To make pasta dough, pile flour in a large bowl, and make a hole in the middle. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring in completely with a fork before adding the next one. Add about a tsp of water at a time until the dough comes together into a ball. Knead for about two minutes, until smooth, then divide dough into 6 equal chunks. On a lightly floured surface, roll out two chunks dough as thinly as possible. Scoop teaspoonfuls of filling onto one of the dough sheets, about 2 inches apart. Brush water in between the filling to make sticky, then place the other dough sheet on top. Press down around filling, and cut ravioli. Repeat until you’ve used up your dough, then cook ravioli in boiling water for about 12 minutes, until pasta is soft and cooked.

As mentioned, we’re not crazy about Valentine’s Day. But if there is one thing that can change our minds about a mediocre holiday, it’s presents. Today, we bought an utterly beautiful and shiny angel food cake pan from Williams Sonoma, and we’re feeling much better about everything.

Two independent factors fueled the decision to bake the cake. Firstly, my dad is on one of his angel food cake/flan kicks, which he enters into approx once every two years. He makes a huge production, separating eggs like crazy and messing up the entire kitchen. Even though I am not at home, I wanted to get in on the fun. The second inspiration came from the heart-shaped sprinkles from our Not-Valentine’s Day muffins. We wanted to create a funfetti effect by throwing them into a batter, and thought that the lightness of an angel food cake would suspend the sprinkles perfectly.

As a huge angel food cake fans, we were thrilled with the results. The sprinkles looked great, and they didn’t discolor the entire cake as we feared they might. It was fluffy and soft, and though I just finished a piece, I’m already planning some for snack tomorrow. You can make it romantically with strawberries and cool whip if you’re celebrating some love, or you can just scarf it down. Either way, it’s fierce.

Ingredients:
12 egg whites
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sprinkles

Instructions:
Let egg whites stand for room temperature for about an hour before beginning. Set oven rack in lower third of oven, and preheat to 350. Sift confectioners sugar, flour and salt together, and set aside. Beat egg whites with a mixture until frothy. Add cream of tartar and beat at medium speed until whites form soft peaks. Gradually add granulated sugar and beat until egg whites form droopy peaks. Beat in extract. Gradually sprinkle sifted mixture into batter, and fold in with a spatula. Fold in sprinkles. Pour batter into an angel food cake pan. Bake about 40 minutes until top is lightly golden. Invert pan and cool completely. To remove, run knife around outer edge of pan. Serve with cool whip, fruit, chocolate sauce, fruit sauce, or anything else.

This is the bread that we always dreamed we would bake.

The dough was beautiful from the start — elastic and soft. It rose like a beast, and sprang back after we punched it down. It hardly clung to the counter, folding easily into a roll. In the oven, it rounded out into a tall and golden loaf. The slices were evenly swirled, fluffy and chewy, and unbelievably delicious. The bread is sweet enough alone, but when you get to the heavily swirled, gooey bits in the middle, it’s something quite special.

We’ve found that it’s best to bake breads when there are several unimportant things to do, but nothing pressing. Today’s bread took about four hours total, but we were able to fit the steps in between loads of laundry and watching Rock of Love II with Brett Michaels. We found the recipe on Cooks Illustrated this morning, and adjusted it for our standing-mixer-less kitchen. It requires some patience and steps, but we’d recommend it in a second.

Given our trouble getting doughs to rise, this (and challah) absolutely mark our most successful bread recipes yet. Like we mentioned, it’s a dream loaf come true.

Ingredients:
(dough)
1/2 cup milk
4 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 package dry active yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1/2 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra

(filling and glaze)
1/4 cup sugar
5 tsp ground cinnamon
milk for brushing
1 large egg
2 tsp milk

Instructions:
Begin with the dough. Heat milk and butter together in a small saucepan until butter melts. Cool to lukewarm. Meanwhile, sprinkle yeast over warm water in a large bowl. Using a wooden spoon, stir slowly in a circular motion while adding sugar, eggs, salt and lukewarm milk mixture. Continue stirring a bit more quickly, and add 2 cups of flour until mixed thoroughly, then add remaining 1 1/4 cups flour until mixed through. Add more flour if dough seems extremely sticky. Remove dough from bowl, and knead on a floured surface for about 10 minutes, adding more flour as necessary, until dough is smooth and elastic. Place in covered, greased bowl to rise for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until doubled in size. Once risen, punch dough down once in the center, and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mix cinnamon and sugar together for filling, and grease 9×5 inch loaf pan. Roll dough into an 8×18 inch rectangle, with the 8 inch side facing toward you. Brush milk over dough, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over it, leaving a 1/2 inch edge on the side farthest away. Beginning with the side closest to you, roll dough into a log shape, pressing ends together to make sure that it does not become more than 8 inches. Pinch dough ends together to form a tight seam, and push ends of dough toward the center. Pinch outside dough edges together to form a seal. Place the dough seam-side down into the loaf pan, and press down evenly. Let the dough rise more until it is about 1 inch above the edge of the pan (30-60 minutes). Preheat oven to 350, and combine milk with egg. Before baking, brush this mixture over the top of the loaf. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown, and let cool for 45 minutes before serving.

We’re not really Valentine’ Day people. It’s not that we’re too cool (though we are), it’s more that we’ve each had so many unsuccesses that we’ve given up. This year, we’re having a Valentine’s Day Massacre bar crawl downtown. But just because we can’t handle the holiday, it doesn’t mean we don’t want the treats. Any excuse for chocolate is fine here, and I’m all for excessive decorations.

We’ve been meaning to make fresh strawberry icing ever since a friend mentioned her killer recipe for it. Strawberries go with chocolate, so double chocolate muffins were a clear choice accompaniment. I love these because though we dosed them with chocolate and icing, they still have that chewy muffin consistency, and they’re not overly sweet.

Note: You may want to start the icing before the muffins since they strawberries and sugar need to be refrigerated. And we recommend refrigerating the muffins once they are frosted as well.

Ingredients (makes 18):
(muffins)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 tbsp butter
1 cup chocolate chips

(icing)
8 oz. strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 cup granulated sugar
4 cups powdered sugar
5 tbsp butter

Instructions:
To make muffins, preheat oven to 400 and line muffin tins with muffin cups. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, cocoa powder and baking soda. Remove about 1/8 cup of this mixture, and use it to coat chocolate chips. In a smaller bowl, combine eggs, milk and butter. Add liquid mixture into dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Scoop batter into tins, filling 4/5 of the way. Bake for about 20 minutes, until well-risen. Cool completely before icing.
To make icing, coat strawberries in the granulated sugar, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. When you are ready, remove excess liquid from strawberries and mash them. Beat butter until fluffy, then add in strawberries and 3 cups powdered sugar. Add more sugar until necessary, until icing feels creamy, or is your desired consistency.

This is my great grandmother’s recipe for vegetable soup with matzo balls. My mom has been making it for as long as I can remember, mostly on holidays and sick days. I think that it is the best soup in the world. It’s far heartier than most matzo ball soups, which consist of a few lumpy balls in clear broth, and the vegetables blend together so subtly and intuitively that its truly harmonious. I’ve only recently begun attempting it on my own (and by that I mean with Alex, who does most of the intensive labor) but I know that I will continue making it for the rest of my life.

There are so many things to love about this soup. It tastes super healthy, and with its strong kick of ginger, it has healing effects on bellyaches, colds, stressed minds or pretty much anything. Plus, the steps are simple: Throw stuff in a pot and let it simmer for two hours before blending. In fact, if you ask my mom for further instructions, she gets very ambiguous. When I was younger, I was convinced that this was because she was hiding a secret ingredient or step that perfected the soup, but now I think that its because no matter what you do, it still tastes delicious.

The vegetable soup is amazing alone, but we always add matzo balls. My favorite brand is Streits, but since my local grocery stores doesn’t carry it, I used Manischewitz. The trick to making perfect matzo balls is to make sure that your hands are very wet, and to only lightly bring the matzo meal together. Try not to pack them; it doesn’t matter if they aren’t perfectly round. I’d take a light and funky-shaped matzo ball over a heavy one any day.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, cut into its parts
5 carrots, peeled and cut into very large chunks
3 parsnips, peeled and cut into very large chunks
top 1/3 of a celery bunch, cut into very large chunks
1 potato, peeled and cut into very large chunks
2 onions, cut into very large chunks
4 garlic cloves
3 inch piece ginger, peeled
1/2 bunch parsley
1/2 bunch dill
1 can stewed tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato sauce

Instructions:
Put all ingredients in a large pot and fill pot with water. Add a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and allow to simmer for two hours. Remove chicken pieces and set aside for later use (makes great chicken salad). Using a strainer, remove remaining solids and separate any leftover chicken from the mass of vegetables. In a blender, puree vegetables in batches with a bit of the broth, and add back into the soup. Adjust seasonings (salt) and add matzo balls, as per instructions on the box.

So I wasn’t going to post these (the other half of Super Bowl Dessert), but I saw the pictures of them when Alex was selecting photos for our Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookie post and they just looked so darn good. Luckily, he and I share the same pickiness about brownies. We like them fudgy and gooey, and nothing like cake. We, like most people in their right minds, like them barely cooked. This time, we took it a bit too far. We took the brownies out early, of course, waited for them to cool, and found out that they were too raw to even cut. Sigh, back into the oven for another 10 minutes, and then they were perfect.

It’s kind of embarrassing, but after picking out a bunch of recipes from the internet and baking books, we decided that we liked the one on the back of the Nestle chocolate box best. It looked simple and precise, and they guaranteed fudginess. They were right. The only problem with this recipe is that the brownies come out a bit flat (though this could have been due to our taking them out too early and returning them to the oven). It calls for a 9×13 inch baking pan, but I would only recommend using this side if you don’t mind your brownies a bit short. The taste was amazing however, and I loved the fudgy consistency.

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 oz. Nestle (or obviously, other) unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped
2 large eggs
2 tbsp water
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Grease 13 x 9-inch baking pan. In a saucepan, combine sugar, water and butter, stirring constantly, until sugar melts. Remove from heat, and stir in chocolate until melted. Stir in eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture into chocolate mixture gradually and stir until combined. Pour batter into baking pan and bake for about 15-20 minutes, until knife inserted into center comes out slightly stickly. Cool completely before cutting into bars and serving.