Swiss knoepfli in a herb butter sauce

Sorry I haven't posted any stories or photos of Paris yet. Since returning from Paris last Monday night, R and I have been quite busy, doing daytrips to Geneva then Lyon. And on top of that, we've had brilliant weather. Warm enough that I'm wearing skirts, shorts, and my Tevas everyday.

On Friday I spent many hours shaping the garden, planting seeds and transplanting some of the seedlings that had been germinating in the serre, including tomatoes, leeks, salad greens, courgettes, kales and kohlrabis. After a long day of gardening and on my knees, a good warm shower never felt better. As the sage, chives and thyme plants are growing strong, I decided to make something using fresh herbs. And what better then a big plate of Swiss knoepfli or spätzli which is sort of like German spätzle.

KNOEPFLI TOSSED WITH BUTTER and FRESH HERBS

INGREDIENTS (for 3 - 4 people)
Pasta
200g farine pour Knoepfli (from Coop, a Swiss grocer)
1 teaspoon of salt
100 ml of water
100 ml of milk
3 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons fresh thyme
2 tablespoons fresh chives
2 tablespoons fresh sage

Tomato meat sauce
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 can of whole peeled tomatoes
1/4 pound of ground beef
1 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS
Pasta

1. Weigh out 400 g of the knoepfli flour in a big bowl, add a teaspoon of salt. Stir well.
2. Add the milk and water into the flour, incorporating little by little.
3. Then add the beaten eggs and mix well until small bubbles appear in the batter. The batter will resemble runny cake batter and not look like pasta should look like.
4. Let the batter rest for 10 minutes.

 Tomato meat sauce

1. In a large saute pan, add 2 tablespoons olive oil and cook the onions for a few minutes until they are translucent. 
2. Add the ground beef and saute until golden brown.
3. Then add the tomatoes and smash it (carefully!) in the pot, breaking it apart into smaller pieces. Then add oregano, sugar and salt. Simmer for 30 minutes until most of the water had boiled off. 

Cooking pasta

1. In a large pot, boil some water and add a teaspoon of salt to it.
2. Using a large grater or a colander, press the batter through the holes, letting the batter drop into the boiling water.
3. When the little knoepfli float up to the top, they are cooked, so remove them from the boiling pot with a slotted spoon before adding more batter.
4. When all the batter is gone, add butter to a pan (amount depends on how buttery you want it) and then saute the thyme, sage, and chives until the aromas are released. 
5. Lastly add some pasta to the herb sauce and toss it thoroughly.
6. Salt and pepper to taste, and add some of the tomato meat sauce on top. Serve with sauteed French green beans.

Next time I might try it from scratch using Tyler Florence's Spaetzle recipe on Food Network but what I need to do is ask my German friend J for her mother's recipe!

ARTS EXPO UPDATE
If you can remember, last Friday I raised over 60€ worth of cookies to benefit Japan. Friday's sale went so well that I ended up baking about a hundred more for my friend M to sell while R and I were in Paris over the weekend. When we got back on Monday, I learned that M sold out of the cookies early on Sunday and together with the tombola, wrote a 1398€ check (that's almost $2000 USD) to the Croix Rouge Francaise, an amazing amount to have raised over 2 days. Like my friend M, I felt very proud of being part of our community, one that cares.

GARDEN UPDATE
On Wednesday my neighbor P pushed his rototiller up our hill to turn over the soil in our garden. A  small machine the size of a lawnmower, the rototiller is very useful. It aerates the soil, digging a good 1.5 feet below the compacted ground, loosening soil, stones, and weeds that had taken root since last fall. After about 30 minutes, our neighbor was done, so I trampled into the soil to collect the largest of the stones that had been tossed up from the tilling. Each step was fun, as I sunk in a few inches each time. Oh, one cool thing that happened: the neighbor found a morel mushroom about 2 inches in height in the strawberry patch. I had hoped for a dozen or so but this year's harvest is just one (so far at least).