Cooking Archives - Modern Pineapple

The final days of August have been chillier than expected, and catapulted me into a preview of the fall to come. I know should be holding onto the final days of summer, but with no official end to summer a la Labor Day weekend here and an Indian Summer looking like a distant US memory, I’m ready to pull out the cashmere blankets, red wine and snuggle by the fire. My husband is shushing me with every chance he gets when I become giddy with excitement over that autumn smell in the air.

Last night I made the best dish to marry this seasonal dichotomy: freshly-spiralized zoodles with the most delicious ragu (that uses red wine! I’m all for any use of wine in sauces) from Hemsley + Hemsley. Though I’m about two years late to the game on this one, I just became the proud new owner of a spiralizer over the weekend – thank you, Mom! If you know me, I’m not into many extra gadgets in the kitchen. I believe many can actually complicate the process, and much can be done with quality knives, a dutch oven, good cutting boards and a solid set of stainless steel pans. (I also don’t consider our KitchenAid mixer an extra gadget – these are kitchen necessities. We recently also purchased a small food processor for making fresh hummus and sauces and I also might give my left arm for a Vitamix. But compared to all the gadgets available to purchase, I’d say we’re on the small side in the Moore household.) HOWEVER, this has been on my radar for a long time and I’m so glad to have finally joined the spiralizing world.

The recipe can be found here. It’s not much work, but it does take awhile for the sauce to thicken. To break the recipe up a little since time after work is limited these days, I browned the beef on Monday night, and then just warmed it up in the pan before bringing it to a boil with the wine and tomatoes. Ben kept walking past the kitchen and I’d catch him stealing little spoonfuls! We both were eager to see how it would taste and we were up for seconds in what felt like mere minutes after having our first bite. I’d say that’s a success!

For those in the UK, I recommend the Hemsley + Hemsley spiralizer. Mine was purchased at Selfridges – it’s also available from other retailers like Amazon. In the US, there are so many version, so just head to your nearest kitchen wares store to pick one up!

Fresh summer vegetables + hot beef ragu – the perfect cool evening combination x

For one of the dishes my husband and I made together last weekend, we needed fresh basil. When we were at Whole Foods, I saw a basil plant and immediately was drawn to it. Just a few pence more — truly, it was 50 pence more for a whole plant instead of picked basil in a bag — I knew it had to come home with us. I grew up with my mom growing herbs in the backyard, so she used to just send me outdoors to pick the rosemary, cilantro or any of the other ingredients she grew and needed that night.

Urban living has meant my green spaces have mostly been the likes of Hyde Park {and of course, Central and Washington Square when living in New York}. It does always seem like the grass is greener, as despite this incredible city I catch myself longing for a big open yard with much space to grow anything my heart desires and the climate allows. Luckily, we do have some small trees and bushes outside our building, and I sometimes use some of the leaves for centerpieces (!).

There are great options to bring these sweet herbs indoors {plus plants add so much life to any space}. I’m interested in projects like this and this, but for right now I have planted our sweet little plant in a terracotta pot fit for the countertop. With a little water based white paint, I wrote “basil” in script and it dried virtually clear. I went over it a few times and love the way you can read the name of the herb without it shouting at you in a bright paint. A little wrap of some raffia up top in a bow makes it a cute, simple addition to our kitchen.

All you need, plus some scissors to cut the raffia… and your herbs!