Walter Knoll's "A Musing Florist"

Two of my personal all time favorite flowers!

10-stem bunches of Ranunculus or Anemones available at all Walter Knoll Florist flower shops for $9.99 through February 4.  Various colors and while supplies last – walk in only –

Also on sale at wkf.com is our mono-botanical Ranunculus bouquet.  Order one for delivery today!

Brr it’s cold outside and the streets are a mess – luckily I can work from home today as I have a lot of computer work to do getting all the marketing ready for Valentine’s Day - after about four hours of uploading pics and describing flower arrangements I was ready for some sustenance – and realized I had some homemade tortellini in the freezer and some left over sauce!  Then I remembered I had photographed making the tortellini so aren’t you lucky you stopped by the Amusing Florist blog today!

I use a Marcella Hazan recipe published in a Bon Apetit magazine from the early 80s.  Noodles were one of the first things Gramma taught me how to make – I remember at a very young age standing on a chair and grating noodle dough into a pot of boiling water.  Eventually I got to mix dough and roll it out with a rolling pin over newspaper – the cartoon section – had to be able to read the cartoons through the dough – so anyway, this is easy for me – with some practice you can master noodle dough too.

For the pasta:

10 oz pkg frozen leaf spinach, cooked, cooled, drained and squeezed dry and chopped fine

3 to 4 cups unbleached flower (oops, I mean flour – Valentine’s on the brain today)

4 large eggs

1 tbl extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

pulse the spinach with 3-1/2 cups of the flour in your food processor, add eggs, olive oil and salt and pulse until it comes together – poke it with your finger, if it is sticky add more flour a little at a time until it is a cohesive but slightly crumbly mass.

dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it for a minute or two until smooth – then shape into two disks, wrap in plastic wrap and let the dough rest for about an hour.

When you are ready to roll it out, you can find all kinds of instructions on the internet for rolling and shaping dough.  I use a crank roller and dream of the day I can buy that pasta roller for my KitchenAid mixer!   My roller has 6 settings and I roll my dough out to #5 “thinness” as I like a little “tooth” to my tortellini and I find that #6 sometimes has blowouts when the tortellini cooks.

While your pasta is resting you can prepare your filling.

1/4 to 1/2 pound (Marcella’s the recipe called for pork butt but I like to use a lean cut)

1/4 to 1/2 pound veal shoulder - I could only find ground at the market and it worked out fine

2 tsp butter

1/2 to 3/4 cup fresh ricotta (ricotta salata from Viviano’s is my choice)

2 tbl mortadella, chopped very fine (Viviano’s)

1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese (again Viviano’s)

1 or 2 egg yolks

Freshly grated nutmeg (to taste, I like lots and lots of nutmeg)

salt and black pepper

Cut the pork and veal into thin slices and then into small dice – keep the meats separate.  Cook the pork in the butter for about 5 minutes, browning all sides, then add the veal and cook for only a minute or two - just until the pink is gone.  Add a bit of salt and pepper, stir to coat well, then drain and cool.

When the meat is cool enough to handle, chop the pork and veal together to a grainy, slightly coarse consistency.  Put the chopped meat into a bowl and add the ricotta, grated cheese, egg yolk and at least 1/4 tsp of freshly grated nutmeg.  Add the finely chopped mortadella.

Mix well, then taste and correct for salt and pepper (and nutmeg).

Time to roll out the dough – this recipe is a double batch, only roll out 1/2 a disk of dough at a time or the pasta gets dry and doesn’t stick to itself to form the little Venus’ navels.  Cut 1-1/2 to 2 inch squares, put about a 1/4 tsp of meat filling in the center, top with one pea (my addition, nothing better than the pop of a pea when you bite into a tender tortellini!)

Shape your tortellini by folding opposite corners together to make a triangle, then flip it and pinch the wide ends together, the point will kinda flip on its own.  Set your tortelli on a cookie sheet, freeze until solid then store in zip lock bags in freezer for up to a couple months.

Now for the sauce – and this is the easiest most delicious tomato cream sauce ever.

1/3 cup butter

1/4 cup each onion, carrot, celery, all chopped very fine.

1 large can imported Italian plum tomatoes with their juice

pinch of salt

1/2 cup heavy (high fat) whipping cream, at room temperature or warmed slightly

Lightly saute celery, onion, carrot & salt in butter until onions are translucent.  Add tomatoes and cook for 45 minutes at a low simmer.

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add frozen tortellini – they will only take 3 to 5 minutes to cook.

When carrots are tenderm puree tomato sauce in blender until smooth (or use one of those handy dandy boat motors!) – return to pot, add heavy cream and warm it back up but do not boil.  It is important to use heavy cream at room temp or even warmed up a bit in the microwave, ALL OTHER MILK PRODUCTS curdle – although it will taste fine it looks ugly.

Top your tortellini with the tomato cream sauce and some freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano and dive in.  You’ll want to eat this with a spoon!

Okay, back to work – check out our Valentine’s Line Up – we have some great flowers and gifts for you!

 

 

 

Walter Knoll Florist was selected as this years florist for the 2011 Veiled Prophet Ball.  This year roses in pastels in a display of low and tall vases with light up bases were selected.

 

We are happy to announce that the Walter Knoll Florist Ballwin Store located at 14751 Manchester Rd is open for business.

The store has a fresh new look, been restocked with fresh flowers, plants and merchandise.  The regular employees are back and ready to go.  If you find your self in the area stop by and see what is new.

As usual at this time of the year, we have lots of varieties in many different sizes.  If you have received a poinsettia as a gift and are wondering how to care for it, we have some wonderful information at wkf.com – see bottom of page after clicking here – You can download our Poinsettia Care & Toxicology Pamphlet from a link there.  Basically give your Poinsettia lots of indirect sunlight and don’t let the soil dry out – but don’t drown them either, they need good drainage.  Also, they are not poisonous! Now don’t go eating a poinsettia, it will probably make you feel yucky, but it won’t kill you – same goes for the pets.

We have many styles and sizes to choose from, many are at our web site, but give us a call for more options including a different container or color choice.

I’d also like to recommend for the holidays that your bring your pet to Anmar Photography at 3308 Jamieson Ave in South St Louis and have his/her photo taken with Santa!  We used Anmar for our Open House Santa photos and thought they did a great job!  call Mark for more information at 314 644-1010 or to make an appointment- tell him Di sent you!

Tulips are back and for the next two weeks we are offering them as our bunch special -

10 tulips for $10 – variety of colors – in stores only and while supplies last.

Stop into any one of our locations and ask for the bunch special

We also have special pricing on our “Beguiling Tulips” if you would like to take advantage of our sale for a delivery.

 

Scott Hepper is one of many Master Designers at Walter Knoll Florist and he is one of a handful of award-winning designers to provide a wreath for the annual Missouri Botanical Gardens Christmas Program Wreath Auction.

Last year, Scott’s wreath garnered the highest bids.  Proceeds to go to the garden.

This year’s wreath “Going Green” is a Missouri natural – all local greens and pines that come together to form a beautiful
winter wreath.

This exhibit features unique creations by some of the area’s finest floral designers. Congratulations, Scott, on being chosen again.  All wreaths are sold by silent auction bidding, with proceeds benefiting the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Walter Knoll Florist’s Ballwin store (14751 Manchester Rd) last evening 11/22/2011 had a fire in the store a few minutes after it had closed. The fire apparently started with one of the florescent window signs overheated and ignited. A passerby on Manchester road saw the blaze and called 911.  Ballwin police and West Metro Fire responded and quickly putout the fire.  The west display window and area around it were lost, merchandise and displays on the west end of the store was damaged, there is extensive smoke and water damage inside the store, outside the west windows and entrance doors have been broken out, The fire fighters opened the soffits and fascia to make sure the fire was out.  Knoll family members and Walter Knoll Florist employees started cleaning up and boarded up the broken windows.  The store is open for limited duty during the cleanup and repair.  All will calls (pick orders) are available at the store, design work will be picked up by other Walter Knoll Florist stores, there will be no interruption in products or services provided from Walter Knoll Florist. The Knoll family is thankful no one was injured, thankful for how fast and efficient the fire fighters and police responded, thankful to our electrical contractor Amptron who responded instantly to make sure the electrical of the building was safe,  thankful to the employees and family the came running and started the cleanup.

Our bunch special through November 27 is Rover Chrysanthemums -

Rovers are a special group of mums only available late summer and fall – they

are unique in that they are very long stemmed and have a single flower head per stem.

Get them while they’re hot at any Walter Knoll Florist flower shop!

We also have a Rover bouquet on special and available for delivery through 11/27 here