Trendy Cookies and pasta

As a constant task that I try to do, I’ve been trying to cook at least one new recipe a week. This past Tuesday, I tried Penne with Mushroom Ragu from the Washington Post. It was certainly not a bad recipe, but I think I would have preferred to use red wine instead of white and include garlic and/or shallots instead of just onion. It was also lacking in the protein department, and both Chris and I were pretty hungry a couple hours after eating. I think it would have worked better as a side dish. It might also work better as lunch. While I wasn't incredibly thrilled with this, I did discover a Pinot Grigio that I actually really, really like. I normally dislike whites, but the Kris Pinot Grigio (2006, from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, which really means nothing to me)

The other experiment I did last night was on the cookie side. Some people in my department hold a cookie Friday every week, where 2 people are tasked to bring in cookies. In the past, this has been a good affair where people make cookies. Unfortunately, there has been a recent decline in homemade-ness and more and more store-bought cookies have been infiltrating the event. I think there was one a couple weeks ago where someone’s contribution was those animal crackers that are frosted in white and bright pink. Clearly, people are not bringing their A-games into this. So, in an attempt to school everyone on cookies, I have attempted to make macarons (the French almond-meringue cookies, not macaroons). I used the chocolate macaron recipe on the Seattle Times. And then I basically made up a raspberry-dark chocolate ganache to use as a filling (this was incredible, but I made about 5x more than I needed, so it is currently frozen). For a variety of reasons, the meringues didn’t turn out as beautiful as they should (I overcooked some, almond flour wasn’t fine enough, no piping bag/tips, my ziplock-piping skills are definitely lacking, the mixture was not quite viscous enough in the end). I think they’re probably a bit too meringue, and they all turned out hollow, which I don’t think is right (quick internet search concludes that it was possibly too much air in the batter and is not an uncommon mistake). However, they do taste fine. The ganache is completely amazing and definitely carries the cookie.
They are not the most aesthetically pleasing things in the world, but here are some pictures: