Broccoli & sausage stuffed shells

Sometimes, I don't want to make lasagna because I don't feel like eating lasagna for, you know 9 meals. While it does freeze very well for a quick, take-to-work lunch option, I'm just not feeling like eating it so often! Or I make lasagna and have just a little bit of ricotta left over. What does one do with just a little bit of ricotta? (I recently tried a ricotta pasta sauce that was a icky, so not that...)

Enter suggestion from my friend Kim: stuffed shells. Alright, so this isn't so different from lasagna but it does scale a little better and it's at least arranged a little differently! I made a tad much this first time so I've scaled it down for you below.

Broccoli & Sausage stuffed shells
1/2 head broccoli, (or about 1 cup chopped)
1 Italian sweet or spicy sausage, cooked (I used turkey sausage and boiled it in advance while I was making breakfast one Sunday)
1 cup of ricotta
15-20 Jumbo pasta shells (or you could use manicotti)
1 small jar of marinara sauce (or half a large jar that might be left over)
1/4 tb of pepper
1/2 tb of garlic salt
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

cooking equipment: small food processor (you might be able to get away with using a blender)

Broccoli, sausage and ricotta mixture

Cook pasta shells according to package directions, rinse and allow to cool slightly. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (I used my new toaster oven!). Grease 11 x 7 in baking pan and spoon small amount of marinara sauce in the bottom, just enough to coat the entire bottom. Place broccoli and sausage in food processor and chop until almost a paste (you can also do them individually). Mix broccoli and sausage with ricotta and using a spatuala or spoon fill each shell and place in pan. Filled shells can touch each other but should not be layered on top of each other. Cover with remaining marinara sauce and bake for 20 minutes. After removing from the oven, top with cheese and serve.
2-3 servings

Note: if you double the recipe you can use a 9 1/2 x 13 in pan

Before going in the oven, you might want to put on a little more sauce than this.

These were pretty good. As I said, my friend Kim makes this with broccoli, I added the sausage (Kim doesn't eat much meat).

Homemade mac & cheese

Cheese. Pasta. Yum.

My friend Abby was having a dinner party for her birthday, she is a serious gourmet. She has made her own ricotta cheese and despite my reservations about eating a homemade dairy product, it was pretty good (I'm told it's actually pretty easy to make ricotta). So what do I take to the party of a fellow experimental chef? For some reason, in the middle of DC summer heat, mac and cheese was the first idea I had. I had never made mac and cheese from scratch, it was a 97 degrees outside with 90% humidity but for whatever reason a casserole dish full of comfort food seemed entirely logical. As I write this, it's starting to sound delicious all over again.

So, how does one make mac and cheese with out a box from Kraft? Good question! Actually, I was surprised how easy it was! The recipe below is something I concocted after spending 30 minutes or so browsing different mac and cheese recipes. It's a little bit Martha, a little bit allrecipes.com and a little bit Lacey.

I read one recipe that called for 'pasteurized cheese product food' - not cheese but cheese product food. Ew. You might as well just buy a box if you aren't going to use actual cheese. There is nothing from that recipe in my version.

Homemade Mac & Cheese
8-10 oz whole grain macaroni - cooked according to package directions and drained
4 oz shredded extra sharp white cheedar
4 oz shredded Gruyere
1 oz grated Romano cheese
1/4 butter
2 cups 1% milk
3 Tb flour

*Note measurements are approximate, I did not measure when I made this but it seems pretty hard to mess it up, so you can play by ear a little bit. Also if you don't want to shred the cheese, or don't own a cheese grater (but really why wouldn't you?), you can cut it up into small pieces.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter in small sauce pan, when it's completely melted mixed in flour. Add milk and stirring frequently, allow to simmer until it begins to thicken. Add cheese one handful at a time, reserving about 1/2 cup total of the cheeses. Mix pasta into cheese mixture and pour into a casserole dish. Top with remaining cheeses and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes.

Aside from possibly needing some paprika and garlic (you know me and my garlic), this was tasty and in spite of inhospitable summer weather, a huge hit at the dinner party, considering all the tasty items Abby served up, I consider that a major accomplishment.

Feta stuffed chicken

I had a little dinner party in the new place and all my friends had to give themselves "the tour" because I was too busy cooking to show anyone around when they arrived. Oops.

What was on the menu? Lots of yummy things. And wine, lots of wine. The main event was feta stuffed chicken (recipe notes below), broiled stuffed tomatoes, roasted lemon broccoli, a very nice pear-walnut salad brought by a friend and apple cake, also brought by a friend.

I had made the cheese stuffed chicken one other time, over a year ago but this time I shook it up a little.
The original recipe is here but instead of butterflying the chicken breasts, I bought thinner chicken cutlets and pounded/rolled them ever flatter (like when making chicken Kiev), put my cheese in the middle and rolled them up, securing with a toothpick. Also instead of stuffing with cheddar & cream cheese, I stuffed it with feta and cream cheese. Feta is always a good idea but I think you do need the cream cheese to get a nice melty center. I also did not put Romano cheese in with my breadcrumbs because I feel that most of the cheese gets wasted that way, instead I sprinkled it on top of the already breadcrumb-ed chicken and I actually used Parmesan and not Romano.

If I make them again, I might skip the butter-garlic-lemon topping. I'm just not sure it adds much to a dish already full of flavors. And fat, did I mention fat? Do I really need to pour butter on top of my cheese stuffed chicken? Probably not. It also makes at least 1 extra dish to wash, the real nail in the coffin. The first time I made this dish, I actually served it with pasta and Alfredo sauce, can you say heavy? Lesson learned. And this time around, went for vegetable focused sides.

The chicken seemed quite popular, though wine was the real attraction of the evening.

Broccoli fish bake

Lately, I've been feeling like I'm in a fish rut and need to be more creative with the seafood, not just putting some lemon pepper on white fish and sticking it under the broiler. The idea of a casserole is something that appeals to me, in a time management sense, though I typically don't like all my food mixed together. I'm that person on Thanksgiving who is trying to keep all their food from touching each other.

However, I decided to give this broccoli-fish-cheese concoction a shot. Overall, a satisfying experience. It cooked much faster than a casserole made with chicken because it has fish and I enjoy just about anything with cheese. I would not say that it makes a good meal solo, which is a shame, because that is the point of a casserole! I decided pretty quickly that it needed some rice and thankfully, has some Uncle Ben's ready rice in the cupboard.

This is a cambell's recipe, which I found on allrecipes.com see it here or pasted below.

1 (10 ounce) package frozen broccoli spears, cooked and drained
1 pound fresh or thawed frozen firm white fish fillets (cod, haddock or halibut)
1 (10.75 ounce) Broccoli cheese soup Soup
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
1 teaspoon butter, melted
1/8 teaspoon paprika

Arrange broccoli in 2-quart shallow baking dish. Top with fish. Mix soup and milk and pour over fish. Sprinkle with cheese. Mix bread crumbs, butter and paprika and sprinkle on top. Bake at 450 degrees F for 20 minutes or until fish is done.

I used fresh broccoli. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would use frozen but if you want to, go for it. Fresh worked just fine, left the broccoli a little crunchy, but I like that. I also used tilapia, and suspect any white fish would do the trick. I would also recommend you to go heavy on the bread crumbs, it made a very nice crispy layer on the top.

Sorry I don't have a photo...I forgot to take one.

Spinach & Broccoli Lasagna

I learned how to make lasagna by watching my mom in the kitchen and it's one of my favorite things to make. It's easy, tastes good leftover (better even sometimes) and you can freeze it. Don't be intimidated by all the layers, it comes together in a snap, most of the time required is to bake the dish. I tend to be impatient when baking lasagna, especially if it's a week night and I'm hungry. The longer you can hold out, the better it tastes, so try to be patient.

Note that the ingredient quantities can be adjusted to make a smaller or larger lasagna. The amounts I list below will make a small lasagna about 6 servings (ie not too much for one person to eat over a few days), I use this IKEA pan when I make lasagna for myself. If you want to make a larger version appropriate for a standard 9X13 pan, you should roughly double what I have listed below.

Ingredients

1 small container of ricotta (I think the small ones are around 10oz but I can't remember)
2 cups shredded Italian cheese (you can use Mozzarella, but a blend of several Italian cheeses is best)
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups fresh spinach
1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli
4-6 pre-cooked lasagna noodles
26oz jar of spaghetti sauce
Garlic (to taste)
Italian Seasoning (to taste)
Black pepper (to taste)

Mix the egg and all the seasonings in with the ricotta in a medium size bowl. Grease a small (approx 11X7) baking pan. Put a small amount of pasta sauce (approx 1/3 cup) in the bottom of the pan, this helps prevent the noodles from burning on. On top of the sauce, layer ingredients in the following order noodles, ricotta, veggies, shredded cheese, sauce and starting over with noodles again, repeating until you run out of ingredients or reach the top of the pan. You should end with noodles topped with shredded cheese on the top. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for 30-60 minutes, removing the foil for the last 10-15 minutes.

As I said above, I'm impatient when waiting for lasagna. It must bake long enough for the cheese to melt but it will taste much better if baked for a full hour. Sometimes I make the double size and put single lunch portions in the freezer and pull them out to take to work when I'm in a rush or don't have anything else handy.

Taste: A
Cost: B+ (no meat!)
Waste: A+

Dusted off the crock pot - squash casserole

Friday morning I awoke bleary-eyed and late. I had neglected to set my alarm the night before. I also had a 9am meeting. Not a good day to get up late.

Furthermore, I had slow cooking aspirations for that day (well the day before I did not so much at 7:30). I had been browsing around the archives of A Year of Slow Cooking to see what gem I could pluck from Stephanie's blog. Since any recipe I've tried from somewhere else have all failed, ok there were only a few attempts but still.

I dusted off my crock pot - literally, it sits out on my counter and it's been so long since I used it, I had to wash it off first. And I began chopping squash to make a kind of crock pot casserole. Did I have time for this? No. I looked at the clock when almost done and had to toss in the rest of the ingredients and run out the door, puffy eyed and makeup-less for work (this was after I got bits of frozen spinach all over my kitchen). So beware, if you're doing this in the morning, it will take 20 minutes of prep-time!

Cheesy Squash Casserole (inspired by no-noodle lasagna)
2-3 yellow squash
15 oz (small container) of ricotta cheese
??? oz jar of pasta sauce
1.5 cups Shredded Italian blend cheese
4 slices provolone cheese
2 cups froze spinach, thawed
Italian seasoning
Garlic

I had intended to mix an egg and the seasoning in with the ricotta, which I do when I make lasagna but when I took the eggs, I've been meaning to use (for a while...) out of the fridge the sell by date was July 31st (and I did not have time).

Layer the ingredients in your crock pot (mine is 5 quarts), starting with sauce on the bottom, squash, ricotta (I smeared this on the squash before I put it in), sprinkle of spinach, seasoning, cheese slice and shredded cheese, until you reach the top or run out of ingredients. Rinse the pasta sauce jar with a small amount of water and pour it in before the final topping of shredded cheese.

See why this took 20 minutes? Well, really I should have thawed my spinach and chopped the squash the night before.

So was my mad dash out of the apartment worth it when dinner time rolled around? It's lovely to walk into the house to dinner. However, do NOT make this if you will not be home in eight hours. By the time my commute time was factored in it was cooking for close to ten hours...not good. I ate it for dinner and it was ok, I think it would be better if it hadn't cooked so long. Also, next time I need to check my eggs. Mixing it with the ricotta help it to have a less chunky texture, it just cooks much nicer. I ended up eating it for dinner that night but when I went to reheat some of it, it was not good and I threw the rest away. The added cooking from reheating was just too much. Finally, I think fresh spinach would be the way to go, might have been worth a trip to the store.

French food regulation

One of the things I did while visiting France was to take a trip to Normandy and watch a presentation about the regional products including camembert cheese and apple cider. I was struck by organized the French are regarding food production! Are you familiar with Geographic Indicators? Internationally, these are applied by the WTO to protect the integrity of food products particular to a specific regional tradition, ie Champagne only comes from Champagne and everything else is a "sparkling wine." In France, there are regulations about where a cow can eat if it's milk will be used to make camembert. If some renegade cow should escape and start eating grass from an area outside the cambembert region, its milk cannot be used to produce this particular cheese because that grass is different, so the milk will be different and change the taste of the cheese. Interesting huh? Camembert cheese is just an example, the same is true for wines, cider and a whole host of other French food products.

While listening to this presentation I was struck by how unorganized US food production seems in comparison, when it comes to producing quality products at least. At the same time, I'm not entirely sure that a cow eating grass a few miles away will really change the taste of the cheese all that much. However, at least you know what you are buying and where it came from. While this would limit the quantity that can be produced, after all only so many grapes can be grown in a season in Champagne, it would ensure that everything was produced at top quality.

Other interesting info on Camembert
*It takes 15 days to produce the cheese, mostly to let it dry.
*It is NOT pasteurized. The presenter took real issue with US food regulations requiring cheese to be pasteurized and in his opinion this is the reason for the lack of quality cheese in the US. I'm not sure this is the reason, but I can't deny that France has way better cheese.
*It takes 2.5 Liters (about 2.5 quarts) of milk to make 1 round of camembert cheese.
*Each ball of cheese must be put into a container individually to drain. Traditionally this was all done by hand but now it is sometimes mechanized.

Interesting notes on Cider ("cidre" in French) from Normandy
*Production is also governed by geographic identifiers and food regulation boards.
*There are 1000 different varieties of apple grown in the region and all can be used for cider.
* The cider is not distilled and about 5% alcohol.
* Distilling the cider once will make Portos (sp?) which is more alcoholic and the one I tried was also sweeter.
* Distilling the cider a second time will make calvados, an apple brandy from the Normandy region. The calvados was very sweet and much more alcoholic than either the cider or Portos. Aged calvados (10, 20, 40 years) is considered to be better but is much more expensive because as it ages it evaporates and you have less and less calvados in the barrel. You can mix two aging calvados' together but if they are not the same age, the final product is all the young age. For example, if you mix a 40 year calvados and a 10 year the final product is all a 10 year calvados.

My favorite was by far the cider. All the different kinds of cider I sampled were good but the best was a blackberry-apple blend.

It would be nice to see the quality artisan producers in the United States to become more organized, like those in France, and promote their products as regional specialties not just nationally, but internationally. While there are brands that do this now, it would nice to see more regulation regarding the quality of production in the US and less that encourages quantity (and overeating).