Rigatoni with vegetable ragout

Sunday was a busy day with a simple dinner. This sauce started out just like minestrone, slow cooked in olive oil, adding each ingredient as I finished chopping them: onions, carrots, green pepper, celery, white mushrooms, garlic, zuchini. Then two cans of italian plum tomatoes chopped up, some pureed Kalamata olives, capers, basil, marjoram, white pepper, bay leaves, and a dried chipotle pepper. I left it simmering for a while while I made bread and dough for sweet potato ravioli and ate it later with some rigatoni and grated parmigano.

White bread with semolina

Last night I made this basic white bread from The Tassajara Bread Book. I've been making a lot of pasta lately, so I thought I would try a semolina flour bread. Semolina has a lot of glutens in it and this was a very sticky dough that took a lot of flour while kneading. There is milk, honey and eggs in it and about 2 cups of semolina to 7 cups of unbleached white flour. I let it rise for extra long ( 7 hours ) while I went bowling and to kung fu class, but my friend nyssa punched it down for me. It really took off on the oven and puffed up a little lopsided, but it is super light and chewy and made for some great breakfast toast with blackcurrant jelly.