A Visit From The Left Coast

We were very excited to have a visit from our dear friends Nina and Kim in mid January. They came out from the Left Coast (Monterey, CA) to spend a week visiting us and also Kim's mom, who lives just north of us (wacky coincidence). Leaving the beautiful, mild, central California coast to come east into old man winter isn't the usual choice for most, but Kim's mom was having a BIG birthday, so here they are. Luckily, our old man winter seems to have gone off to Europe this year, so our winter has been pretty mild. However, just not to disappoint, we did have a little snow and an ice storm while the girls were here. Something they never see in Monterey, so it made their visit more exciting :o)

Jenni, Kim Rowan and Nina

Nina and I have spent many years in the kitchen together cooking up great eats, so no time was lost getting right to what was going to be created this time. Home made pasta (butternut squash tortellini with brown butter sauce) and salad nicoise is what will be on tonight's menu.

Nina, the pasta master, preparing the pasta in the flour bowl on the table. As she beats the eggs they absorb the flour and turn into the pasta dough.

 It was so great to spend time with one of my best friends.

 Rowan was all over the pasta making as she will be the one doing it once The Master leaves.

 Cutting the rolled out pasta dough.
The filling: butternut squash, olive oil, herbs de provence, salt, pepper, shallots, garlic, ricotta cheese, nutmeg

Here is the video of all of us making the tortellini. It was a blast.

The perfect tortellini!

 The brown butter sauce: butter, fresh sage leaves, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries, kosher salt, pepper,  grated parmesan. YUM!

So, that evening while we were enjoying our fabulous meal, we were unaware of the impending doom of an ice storm taking place outside. Luckily, I went to let the cats out just as we finished dinner and noticed the ice at the edge of the porch. Our two guests, Mary & Sally, who drove to our place decided to giddy-up and get on their way. It was fortunate they only live a stones throw from each other so could follow each other home.

Here is what we found when we woke up the next morning: Every inch of everything was covered in ice. Nina and I had to hold on to each other to get the few steps from the porch to their car in the driveway. While Nina started scraping, I went back in the house to get some water boiling so we could get the frozen doors open.

 The windshield was a sheet of solid ice.

Nina did this to all the windows while I chipped the ice off of the concrete around the car so we could even walk around it.

It's so great to have old friends from the Left Coast come to visit. We cherish these times together as they don't happen often enough. Can't wait till our next trip out west.