Squash and Broccoli Lasagna

Squash & Broccoli Lasagna with Béchamel

At the end of my produce share, and after Christmas, I find my refrigerator bursting with odds-and-ends. So, I put out a request for help what to do with a mish-mash of broccoli, heavy cream, butter,  acorn squash, cream cheese, shallots, and garlic. Thanks to my mother-in-law-in-law (is that even a thing? My sister's mother-in-law. Lets just say friend) Mo, she steered me in the lasagna direction. All I can say is- good job, Mo! So I google "squash lasagna" and made this. Wouldn't ya know it- I have no idea where that recipe is anymore. So I am going to have to improvise, although this recipes from the NY Times sounds close enough to me. Hopefully it works!

 

 

What-To-Get

1 acorn squash

3 large minced shallots 

1 minced garlic clove

3 cups broccoli floretts

1/2 package lasagna noodles

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 cups heavy cream  or milk or half-and-half

4 oz cream cheese

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

4 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated (1 cup) 

How-To-Do

1. Roast the squash: Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the squash in half and remove seeds. Brush the insides with olive oil and salt and pepper. Place cut-side down in a rimmed baking dish and fill with 1-inch of water. Roast in oven 45 minutes - 1 hour or until tender when pierced with fork. Allow to cool and remove skin and cut into 1-inch chunks.

2. Make the béchamel: Heat the remaining oil over medium heat in a heavy medium saucepan. Add the shallot and garlic and cook, stirring, until it has softened, about 3 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes, until the mixture is smooth and bubbling, but not browned. It should have the texture of wet sand. Whisk in the cream all at once and bring to a simmer, whisking all the while, until the mixture begins to thicken. Add cream cheese until melted. Turn the heat to very low and simmer, stirring often with a whisk and scraping the bottom and edges of the pan with a rubber spatula, for 10 to 15 minutes, until the sauce is thick. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

3. Boil noodles & broccoli: In a large pot of salted boiling water fitted with a basket steamer, add broccoli and blanch for no more than 3 minutes, until bright green.  remove broccoli and steamer basket. Add lasagna noodles and cook 2 minutes short of package directions. Drain.

4. Assemble & bake lasagna: Spread some of the béchamel in a bottom of a 8x8 baking dish, just until the bottom is covered. Lay noodles across and then add squash and broccoli, top with béchamel and parmeasean cheese. Repeat until you tower of lasagna has reached its peak. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until the cheese is melty and bubbly. (It freezes well- make the lasagna and do not bake it. When ready to eat- take out of freezer hours before and bake at 350, over an hour.)

 

Curried Pumpkin Soup with Mini Grilled Cheese n Apple Sammies

(Originally from September 18, 2012)  
It's that time of year again: my favorite food time- fall! What goes better with chilly weather than soup n sandwiches? For this recipe, I used a pie pumpkin from my produce share for the soup and featured the (small) apples in the grilled cheese. Aw, poor apples. you did not have a good growing season, did you? That's ok, I'll slather you with cheese and eat you anyway.

Curried Pumpkin-Apple Soup, directly from Spoonful.com

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• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 large apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
• 2 teaspoons mild curry powder
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cups solidly packed pumpkin mash or canned pumpkin
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1 whole bay leaf
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 to 3 tablespoons honey

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1. Melt the butter in a medium-size soup pot. Stir in the onion, celery, and apple. Partially cover the pot and sauté the ingredients over medium-high heat until the onion is clear, about 8 minutes. Stir in the curry powder and sauté the mixture for another minute. Stir in 1 cup of chicken broth and cook it for 1 minute more.
2. Pour the contents of the pan into a blender or food processor, add the pumpkin, and puree the soup until it's smooth.
3. Pour it all back into the pot, then stir in the remaining chicken broth, the salt, and the bay leaf. Set the soup over medium-high heat and bring it to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
4. After 5 minutes, stir in the heavy cream and 2 tablespoons of honey. Taste the soup, adding more salt or honey if necessary to get the desired balance of sweet and savory. Simmer it for 2 minutes more, remove the soup from the heat, and serve it hot. For a pretty -- and tasty -- touch, garnish each bowl with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of chopped chives. Makes 6 servings.

 

Apple and Aged Cheddar Grilled Cheese Recipe, directly from chow.com

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INGREDIENTS

•     1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
•     2 (1/2-inch-thick, 4-1/2-by-2-1/2-inch-long) slices walnut bread
•     1 ounce extra-sharp aged cheddar cheese, thinly sliced
•     3 thin slices crisp, tart apple, such as Granny Smith

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat a large frying pan over medium-low heat. Meanwhile, spread butter on one side of each slice of bread.
2. Once the pan is warm, add one slice of bread, buttered side down, then top with half of the cheese, all of the apple slices, and finally the remaining cheese. Close the sandwich with the second slice of bread, buttered side up.
3. Cook until the bread is toasted and the cheese is melted, about 3 minutes per side.

Tortilla Española

Tortilla Española and Pan con Tomate

Catalonian Cuisine

Or, you can call this the best garbage meal. I had a dozen and a half eggs from an over zealous plan to make Christmas cookies, couple pounds of potatoes from my produce share and left over french bread and random veggies from a NYE party. So what other combination could I possibly make! I learned the art of pan con tomate (or simply bread n' tomatoes) from a small restaurant in the small, medieval town of Rupit, Spain. Most modern tapas restaurnts I've been to do a fancy version where the bread is toasted, or the tomatoes are roasted, etc. However, this Catalonian version uses over ripe tomatoes and stale bread and transforms into an amazing tapa. (I highly recommend visiting Rupit if you ever find yourself in the Barcelona/ Pyrenees region with these folks: www.spanish-trails.com/)

I've  always had problems with egg dishes in the past, especially ones that involve flipping, like omelets or the tortilla española. So when I found this recipe that did not involved and flipping, I was excited but also skeptical. I thought all tortilla españolas needed to be flipped. I was wrong. This dish turned out fantastic and no flipping needed. I will never make tortilla española any other way again! This recipe is adapted from "International Cuisine" by Jenny Macveigh (Delmar, Cengage Learning, Clifton, NY, 2009).

Tortilla Española

Ingredients

3 baking potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4" thick (mandoline slicer works great)
2-3 large shallots, thinly sliced
4 oz roasted red bell pepper, sliced thin
7 eggs
2 tsp pimentón (Spanish Paprika, hot)
salt & pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Heat a oven safe saute pan (like the Le Creuset 3 1/2 qt braiser) over medium-high heat with some olive oil (enough to coat the bottom, and then some). Working in batches, pan fry the potato slices until golden brown, each side. Remove the browned potatoes with a slotted spoon, keeping most of the oil in the pan. Add more oil if necessary. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Meanwhile in a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until fluffy and stir in the pimentón and red pepper.
4. After all potatoes are browned, remove the potatoes and deglaze the pan with about 1/4 cup dry white whine and add the shallots. Cook until translucent, about 5 minutes.
5. Turn off the heat from the stove and add shallots to egg mixture.
6. If there still is oil in the pan, do not add more. Layer the potatoes in the pan by overlapping them in concentric circles, starting at the outside of the pan and working your way in. The potatoes should yield about 3 layers.
7. Pour the egg mixture on top of the potatoes and bake for 10 minutes at 350, and then turn the oven down to 325 and finish baking for 25 minutes until the edges are golden brown and the egg mixture is set. Serve with aioli.

 

Pan con Tomate

Ingredients

1 loaf of stale french bread
1 or 2 ripe tomoates
best quality extra virgin olive oil
parmeasean cheese, optional

Method

Slice the bread on the bias. Cut the tomato in half and rub juices on the bread. Sprinkle with olive oil and cheese. Eat it. Voila! Repeat until full.

Town of Rupit, Spain

Roasted Tomatillo Enchiladas

A tomatillo is a sticky little vegetable that makes great sauces! I learned this technique from Chef Michael Staver, while taking a Culture & Food course at UIC. He adapted this recipe from Rick Bayless' Roasted Tomatillo-Serrano Salsa. When I got the sauce home, I decide to dress them up as a sauce for enchiladas. Ready for a fantastic mid-week dinner? Here we go!

Roasted Tomatillo-Serrano Salsa
12 tomatillos, husked
2-5 serrano chiles (I used 2, which was super spicy for me at the beginning, but as the sauce sat for a few hours, the spicy factor dissipated- I recommend at least 3... 5 if you are not afraid of los picantes!)
1 large onion, cut in half then into semi-circle slices
3 cloves garlic, papery skin removed
1 cup cilantro (stems are OK!)
salt to taste

Preheat an oven to 450 degrees. Line a dark-bottom cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Lay the tomatillos and chilies flat on the sheet and pop in the oven. Turn with tongs when one side is blackened, about 5-8 minutes, and continue roasting other side. When both sides are nicely charred (and hopefully before the tomatillos break and ooze all over the place) place in a large bowl.

If the foil has a lot of business on it, line cookie sheet with new foil. Place the onion slices and garlic cloves on a single layer and roast until blackened. (Roasting the onion and garlic will release the natural sugars and really "kick-up the sauce". As Chef Staver told me- "don't short cut this. You will be happy that you took the time to roast everything perfectly")

Place all the vegetables in a blender, along with cilantro and salt and blend into a coarse puree. Done! Try not to east all of it with chips before making the enchiladas- probably the hardest step of this recipe!

Enchiladas (The lazy version, as I did not have time to soak the beans and cook them)
4-6 flour tortillas 
1 15 oz can garbanzo beans
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15 oz can refried beans
1 small onion, chopped
olive oil
1/4 cup queso fresco

Line a pan with olive oil and saute onion until translucent. Rinse the garbanzo and black beans and place into pan with onion and cook until hot. Season with salt & pepper.

Take 1 Tbsp refried beans and smear on each tortilla. place a spoonful or two of the bean mixture in each tortilla and roll. Pick up all the beans that fell on the floor. Continue to not figure out that the beans will spill out of the tortillas and curse at them.

Spoon some of the Tomatillo Salsa on the bottom of a 8x8 casserole dish. Place each tortilla in the pan, nestled closely to one another- make them snug. Place more tomatillo salsa on top of the enchiladas.

Cover the pan loosely with foil and turn oven down to 350 degrees. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Remove foil and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for an additional 10 or so minutes until cheese is nice n' bubbly!

Radishes!

September 27, 2011

Recipe #1 on the blog! It features radishes, both the greens as well as the bulbs! Well, it's actually 2 recipes. One is from Martha Stuart and the other from Food & Wine. 

This summer, I joined a produce share at my local grocery store, The Green Grocer. This is my first time partaking in something like this, so it has been adventurous to say the least. What I enjoy about it is that it allows me to cook things I normally would never before: the leafy part of a root vegetable. In my previous cooking life, I would have just practiced the good old 'merican tradition of chucking that right into the trash, along with disposable plates, napkins, silverware, etc. But, I decided the landfills are making enough money off of me, and that the leafy part might be actually good.

But, how to eat it? Luckily, the Green Grocer sends recipes to go along with the produce. This week featured "Radish Greens Soup," it's very similar to potato leek soup, but with a slight sharp kick from the radish greens.

But, cutting off the greens, I am left with the radishes, as well as a half a bag of potatoes, so I found "Baby Potato Salad with Radishes and Celery" that would use the rest of my ingredients. The potato salad had a very light white wine vinegar dressing, which was perfect for warm, late summer evening (I know the blog date is January 23, but I made this September 27. Yes, apparently it takes me 4 months to write a couple paragraphs)

Finally, before we get to the good part (the actual recipe!) I decided to pair the Raphanus sativus laden meal with a bright and earthy Cava. I had the Argila Cava from Mas Bertran in the Penedès region in Spain.

Radish Greens Soup

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 large yellow onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 2 bunches radish greens (about 2 cups), cleaned
• 3 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and cut into1/2-inch dice
• 4 1/2 cups Vegetable Stock
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
•  3 radishes, thinly sliced

Directions

1. In a medium stockpot, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in onions, and saute until transparent, about 4 minutes. Add radish greens, and cook until wilted, about 4 minutes. Add potatoes and chicken stock, and cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes.
2. Working in batches, pass the mixture through a food mill into a medium bowl. Stir in cream, and season with salt and pepper. Strain the pureed mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into the original pot. Bring soup just to a simmer over medium heat. Serve garnished with radish slices.

Baby Potato Salad with Radishes and Celery

Ingredients

• 3 pounds baby Yukon Gold potatoes or fingerling potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled
• 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1/4 cup
• White wine vinegar
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 celery hearts, thinly sliced (about 4 cups)
• 2 bunches radishes, thinly sliced
• 8 small scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced (1 cup)
  
  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and let cool slightly. Slice the potatoes 1/2 inch thick.
  2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk the olive oil with the vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Gently fold in the potatoes and celery. Let stand at room temperature until cool, about 30 minutes. Just before serving, fold in the radishes and scallions and season with salt and pepper. 
     

  Radish Greens Soup: (http://www.marthastewart.com/315163/radish-greens-soup?czone=food/produce-guide-cnt/spring-produce-recipes&backto=true&backtourl=/photogallery/radish-recipes#slide_21)

  Potato Salad with Radishes: (http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/baby-potato-salad-with-radishes-and-celery)
   

 

That's right. F#*@ You, Tofu

This blog is dedicated to you, tofu. You are awful. Not only do you taste like styrofoam, you also try to be something you're not. You're not chicken (Oh, I'm sorry. I mean "ch'ckn"). You're not fish, you're not any real protein. You're a sad excuse for a soy bean. You try so hard to be in a vegetarian's diet to make them feel like they're still eating meat. But you know what, tofu? If I wanted to eat meat, I'd eat meat! 

You claim to be a nutritious substitute, but really all you do is take away from the awesomeness of fruit, vegetables, grains and beans. You infest cookbook after cookbook. "Hey, check out this vegetarian cookbook," you say. "You'll find a new way to cook without killing a cute curly-tailed swine." And then you give me a recipe for something called "P'rk chops" like the apostrophe is suppose to throw me off. 

False. I know a poser when I see one. I don't want to cook a vegetable that tastes like meat. I want to cook a vegetable that tastes like an awesome vegetable. How do I center a meal around vegetables?

So that's the challenge of this blog. I will search for recipes which feature vegetables and I will post the stand-outs. I encourage anyone reading to also submit kick-ass non-meat, non-fake meat recipes. Double points if the recipe is vegan. Why? Because cheese is the best food ever. So, if you can make a hearty, nutrient-rich meal without dairy, then hats off to you! (I have yet to come across a recipe that would be more awesome without cheese.)

And for anyone that is reading this that is offended because I don't like your spongy friend: I dare you to submit a tofu recipe that doesn't suck. I will try it, but I'm not promising I will like it.

So, enjoy my Oregon Trail to discovering great vegetable recipes!

Oh, and that goes for you too, seitan. F. U.