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Sunday, March 12, 2006

I have friends who have a lot of children.  Two of my girlfriends each have four, and another one has three.  I don’t know exactly what they regularly feed them for lunch, though I know one of them absolutely despairs when time constraints force her to fall back on the ubiquitous chicken nuggets / frozen pizza routine.      Having one child who happily eats leftovers and whatever odd bits put before him has always made lunch pretty easy around here, but sometimes he and his cousins go out to grandma’s and if she didn’t have an old-time peasant stand-by to fall back on, I’m not sure what they’d do. Quite often Kipp comes home bearing a little plastic margarine container of leftover eggs and noodles that grandma had whipped up for their main meal.   Eggs and noodles.  So simple. Yet it never occurred to me to combine the two (except in spahetti a la carbonara which is a bit rich for lunch.)  So the other day when I was paging through Michael Baruch’s The New Polish Cuisine, I came across a recipe entitled Busia’s Buttered Noodles with Eggs and thought I’d give it a try this noon.  At 11:30 Kipp gave me ample notice that he was getting hungry for lunch so I began the preparations.   What was nice about waiting for the big pot of water to boil, and then cooking the thick Amish egg noodles I had on hand, was that I had about 45 minutes of “double-productive putter time” in the kitchen.  What I mean is that while the meal was cooking, I was able to put away the dishes in the dishwasher, load up the accumulated dirty dishes, clean the counters and sweep the floor.  So often I think I must not start cooking until the kitchen is a clean slate. (So often the cooking that I do does not allow double-productive putter time.)  But today it seemed to me that lunchtime is a perfect time to put on a pot of boiling water, whether for potatoes or noodles, and not clean up the breakfast dishes until then.   All you really have to have on hand for the dish is noodles, eggs, cheese, butter, and salt.  I think the parsley in the recipe would be great, but no sense tearing your hair out if you don't have it. The recipe calls for thin Kluski noodle ribbons, but like I mentioned we used fat ones.  I think you could even use Creamettes.  We didn’t have Parmesan cheese, but used a garlic Asiago-Mozarella Bistro blend we had on hand, so you can really vary the flavors according to your taste.  And the dish can be as virtuous as the quality of the ingredients will allow.   With a little fruit or veggies on the side, that’s what I call a Lunch--that kids will adore.     Buttered Noodles with Eggs   1 pound thin Kluski noodle ribbons 4 large whole eggs 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese 2 Tablespoons parsley, chopped Dash of sea salt ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper 4 Tablspoons unsalted butter   1.  Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil and cook noodles according to directions on the package.   2.  While the pasta is cooking, place the eggs, grated cheese, parsley, salt and pepper into a medium-sized mixing bowl and beat whit a whisk until well combined.   3. When the noodles are almost cooked, melt the butter in a large nonstick skille over medium heat.  Quickly drain the pasta into a colander, add it to the skillet, and toss briefly to cat it with the butter.    4.  Now add the egg mixture to the skillet and using a flat wooden sppoon, mix quicky together for less than a minute until the eggs and noodles become creamy and thick.  (Do not cook the eggs too long or they will scramble and ruin the dish.)  Serve immediately.   Serves 4.   comment []1:18:00 PM

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