We were looking for something quick, local, and mostly veggie for dinner, so my wife came up with the idea of takeout from Holy Cow (3rd and La Cienega - in the minimall with Mishima and Kiwiberry). I’m not the biggest fan of takeout; I like to sit and relax, and I don’t like soggy food from containers, so Indian works pretty well. I can sit and the food can sit and not get soggy. Good combo.

This was our first time at Holy Cow. We’ll definitely go again.

The woman taking the phone order was nice, helpful, and clear. Unfortunately, they were out of several items we wanted, but with a good attitude from the woman, we basically didn’t mind.

We ordered four veggie entrees, plus raita, which was fine but nothing special. Of the four dishes, the weakest, surprisingly, was the dal. I often think of dal as the cheese pizza or the mu shu pork of Indian food - the standard dish that every place serves with their own flavor, and that gives you an idea of the quality and the seasonings of the restaurant. It was a red-herring here. It just wasn’t that great. Having eaten a lot of dal at a lot of restaurants, I’m guessing that theirs changes nightly or at least from time to time, so it may be worth another shot.

The other dishes were, frankly, great. Even from takeout containers. The spinach with garbanzo beans (channa sag) had a very fresh flavor, having likely been made from fresh spinach. Next, the tofu masala was in a wonderful red masala sauce that was reminiscent of a really good pasta sauce, again, with fresh vegetables. And the star of the show was the bharta - and I’m not even really a big fan of eggplant. But this is as must-get.

The nan was, well, nan-like.

Close to home, good service, and fresh, good food. No question, we’ll be back.

Making pasta at home is definitely time-consuming, but just as rewarding. The flavor and texture of the pasta can’t be beat, even by buying fresh pasta from a pasta store, in my opinion. Further, if you want to use quality, healthy ingredients (whole grain flour, organic eggs) you can. And then there’s the volcano aspect . . .

Here’s the (easy) list of ingredients:

Mound the flour on a clean surface and clear out a hole in the middle. Crack the eggs in the hole, add the salt and olive oil to the center, and start beating the egg with a fork. The edges of the volcano of flour will just work their way into the egg mixture. Once the mixture is pretty smooth, you might need to help the flour walls come in a little bit - just be careful to help from the highest peaks first. Once the fork isn’t really doing the trick, start kneading. After about five minutes of kneading, wrap the ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.

Using extra flour, roll out small chunks of the dough into large ovals about 1/4″ thick. Use a piece of dough about the size of a clementine, or a little larger, per oval. Use plenty of extra flour here to keep this from sticking.

Get out your trusty Imperia pasta machine. Roll the ovals through the bottom area starting at level 1 and going to levels 3 then 5, with about three passes through each size with each oval. If any weak spots or holes appear in the dough, just fold it over and keep rolling it through.

Then, flour the sheets again. Finally, you can roll them through the cutting areas, or cut the sheets manually to make other shapes. Tonight we made small rectangles, wet the middle, and folded them into bowties.

I had been wanting to make some good flatbread or crackers to use under various crostini-like toppings. So I dug around and found a recipe by Mark Bittman that was pretty close. I modified it a bit, and I’ve made it several times. Here goes:

Basically, you put the first five ingredients in a food processor. Blend it a bit, adding water as needed. Get it so it sticks together, but in small pieces.

Roll it out very thin with a rolling pin, using extra whole wheat flour to keep it from sticking. Roll it down pretty thin - I try to get it under 1/4″ - even 1/8″. Then sprinkle it with good coarse sea salt (and some cracked pepper too, if you like), roll lightly over that to get the salt part way into the dough.

Use a pizza peel or similar. Once the dough in on the floured peel, score it with a dull knife so that it can break along those lines after it’s baked. Finally, bake on a pizza stone at 400 degrees for about ten minutes.

The best two toppings I made were a white bean purée with balsamic vinegar dribbled on top, and sauteéd greens and onions with chevré on top.

I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture, because they looked great! Next time . . .