04.18.09
Posted in American, Baby Food, Cuisines, Dinner, Meats, Pastas, Poultry, Quick Breads, Sausage at 1:17 pm by julie
I obviously do way more cooking than I have time or inclination to write about here. Many posts get put on the back burner so many times that they are out of season before I have a chance to come back to them; others were pretty good meals that I just can’t muster up pithy comments for. So I’ve decided to institute a new periodic series: Leftover Night, my way of cleaning out the virtual fridge from time to time.
Our first Leftover Night dish was nothing really innovative, just a pretty tasty pasta dish that made way more food than we could eat. I raided the freezer for the Italian sausage I had leftover from making last month’s lasagna, and paired it up with some tomatoes, cream and bowties. My only adjustment to the original recipe was deglazing the sausage, onions and garlic with a little white wine to hit some of the alcohol-soluble flavors in the tomato. I cut this recipe down a little in size and we still had two days worth of leftovers, but it reheated pretty well with a splash of cream to freshen it up.
I was looking for something really quick to make with chicken that wasn’t dead boring, and ended up making a Rachael Ray recipe, for heaven’s sake. It’s spinach-ricotta stuffed chicken (sans mushrooms); I simplified the sauce and just did a quick white wine reduction. I can’t look at the picture without recalling that the mashed potatoes, which had a few carrots and some garlic thrown in for interest, were practically a salt lick because my hand slipped while I was seasoning them. It made me wish I’d cooked extra chicken, which turned out well: I wilted baby spinach with the onions for the stuffing, seared off the stuffed breasts, and popped the skillet in the oven at 400F to finish cooking for a few minutes while I was busy hypersalinating the potatoes.
These sweet potato biscuits were the biggest success of the bunch. I had most of a can of organic mashed sweet potatoes open from Nolan’s lunch, and hybridized a Good Enough to Eat recipe with my standard buttermilk biscuit recipe to accompany some roasted cauliflower soup.
Sweet Potato Biscuits
2 C AP flour, plus an additional cup for shaping
1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 T Sucanat
1 stick butter, cold
1 can mashed sweet potatoes
1/4 C buttermilk
Combine all dry ingredients from 2 C flour to Sucanat in a food processor, and pulse to blend. Cut 7 T of the butter into small pieces and add to the dry ingredients; pulse until butter resembles small peas. Add sweet potatoes and buttermilk; pulse again just until dough forms.
Butter a 9″ round cake pan and preheat oven to 350F. Pour about a cup into a shallow baking dish and scoop dough by quarter-cupfuls into the flour (I use a dough/ice cream scoop to make this easier); roll to coat in flour and pat gently to brush off the excess. You should end up with 12 floured biscuits in the cake pan; melt the remaining tablespoon of butter and brush their tops liberally. Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Turn out onto a cooling rack, separate gently, and allow to cool for several minutes before consuming, preferably with butter and honey.
Source: Heavily adapted from The Good Enough to Eat Breakfast Cookbook.
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03.28.09
Posted in Baby Food, Beef, Cuisines, Dinner, Foodblog Events, Italian, Meats, Pastas, Pork and Ham, Sausage at 10:27 pm by julie
I’m a bit late in posting the March 2009 Daring Bakers challenge. I made it with plenty of time to spare, but have been very busy with company this week (more about that in the days to come) and haven’t had a chance to write up a post until now. The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.
I was a little surprised by this choice of recipes, as it didn’t feel so much like a baking challenge as a cooking one to me, but maybe it is connected with the upcoming launch of the Daring Cooks. I’m not complaining—I will take any excuse to make good Italian food, and for that matter, the cannelloni I made last month for Valentine’s Day had a very similar construction. I actually have some leftover ragu bolognese in the freezer from that meal that I had been planning to turn into lasagne with homemade spinach pasta, oddly enough, but in the spirit of the challenge, I made up a fresh batch following the recipe provided.
The first step for making the ragu was tracking down the meats called for. I had to make a few compromises in this department due to availability: I purchased a small chuck pot roast, some veal scalloppine, and a mild Italian sausage, plus prosciutto and sliced pancetta. The chuck, veal and prosciutto went through my trusty grinder while the pancetta and mirepoix sauteed, and soon enough I had a pot of ragu percolating slowly on the stove.
When the ragu was nearly done, I set to work on the pasta. I make quite a bit of fresh pasta, but with several hours already invested into this meal, I decided against kneading and rolling out this pasta by hand. I used fresh baby spinach and chopped it up in my food processor before mixing into the dough. With two extra-large eggs, the dough was much too dry to come together, so I added a third egg and had to compensate with quite a bit of extra flour as well. I mixed it up in my stand mixer, but did a bit of hand-kneading near the end to ensure the correct consistency. The color was astonishingly beautiful, perfect for early spring.
Once the dough had an opportunity to rest, I divided it up and ran it through my pasta roller—over and over again. I rolled it as thinly as possible, which turned out to be setting 5 of 8, as it tended to tear when I went up to a 6. I think the little bits of spinach in the dough were to blame there. Whenever I make pasta, I wish I had a drying rack or even more counter-space for draping the rolled sheets.
I rolled pasta and boiled it all at once to save a bit of time, but it makes for quite the juggling act. I cooked a few sheets at a time, with a colander set in a large bowl next to the stove. While they cook, I roll out the next batch; then I scoop out the cooked pasta into the bowl-nested colander with a spider, quickly fill the bowl with cold water at the sink, drop the next batch of pasta in the hot water, drain the cooked pasta and lay it out on towels, and roll the next few noodles. I tried having an ice bath ready and leaving the noodles in it for a longer time while rolling and cooking more, but I found that the water warmed up too much from the heat of the pasta, and I ended up with squishy noodles that tore if I just breathed too hard on them.
I think I got at least 6 or 7 layers into my casserole dish. It took much more Parmesan than the recipe called for, but I used all the bechamel and had a cup or two of ragu leftover. And I had a ton of extra pasta, which may have in part been because of the additional egg and flour I ended up using. I cooked off all the pasta and used it a few days later to make another dish, which I’ll post about soon.
The finished lasagna was absolutely delicious. We’re so used to lasagnas that are laden down with ricotta and gooey mozzarella cheese—you eat a piece and as tasty as it might be, it sits like a lump in your stomach. This lasagna felt so light in comparison, but it packed a big punch of flavor. It took most of the day to make, but I was lucky enough to have my mom visiting us and she patiently kept the baby entertained while I worked. If not for her, I would definitely have had to split this recipe up over two days to save my sanity. I won’t be making it again anytime soon, but I’m very glad to have tried it, so many thanks to our hosts for their unusual choice. Be sure to look through the Daring Bakers blogroll to see all the other lovingly crafted lasagnas out there.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
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07.01.08
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dinner, Meats, Sausage at 9:47 pm by julie
Now that I am officially a stay-at-home mom, I’ve been watching a lot more television than I used to, particularly when I have an armload of fussy baby who doesn’t want to be put down. That means a lot of Food Network, and sadly, it appears that Nolan particularly finds Emeril Lagasse fascinating. Give me that Louisiana Cookin’ guy
instead any day (anyone else remember that show from PBS?).
All the days of Emeril seems to be sinking in, though, at least a little, because I started craving red beans and rice, even though I’ve never had it before. I picked out a rather basic version of this dish to make and can’t vouch for its authenticity, but it was a delicious and very easy meal made from ingredients I typically have on hand, and gave me several days of leftovers for lunch.
And in a nod to the origins of my interest in red beans and rice, I made up a little bit of Emeril’s own “essence” spice blend (an incredibly poor choice of words, in my opinion) to use as my Creole seasoning.
Red Beans and Rice
2 T olive oil
1 lb kielbasa, sliced into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (14 1/2-oz) can kidney beans
1 C canned low-salt chicken broth
1 tsp Creole or Cajun seasoning or 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 C cooked rice
Heat olive oil in heavy large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add sausage, onion and garlic and sauté until onion is brown, about 15 minutes. Mix in kidney beans with their juices, broth and Creole seasoning. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer until flavors are blended and mixture is very thick, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes.
Divide cooked rice among large shallow soup bowls. Spoon bean mixture over rice and serve.
Source: Slightly adapted from Epicurious.
Essence of Emeril
2 1/2 T paprika
2 T salt
2 T garlic powder
1 T black pepper
1 T onion powder
1 T cayenne pepper
1 T dried oregano
1 T dried thyme
Mix all spices together; makes about 2/3 cup. (I just used vaguely proportional dashes of each spice because I didn’t need so much.)
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05.09.08
Posted in Baby Food, Dinner, Fruits, Meats, Sausage at 4:55 pm by julie
Despite my strictly limited time for cooking these days, I’ve been trying to continue making decent meals, even if they end up being served at odd hours based on Nolan’s ever-changing naptimes. This particular recipe for brats with a creamy compote of apples and onions is one I first made the week before he was born, and again several weeks later because we both liked it so much.
I have to admit I only gave it a try because of Molly’s gorgeous description at Orangette. I’m not generally a fan of sweet-and-meat combinations, but that’s something I’ve been trying to get over, and this recipe is definitely a big step in the right direction: the brats are so deeply savory that they really stand up to the sweetness of the apple compote. Plus, they remind me of the wonderful food descriptions in Farmer Boy, and Almanzo’s favorite fried apples’n'onions. I served them with egg noodles to take care of any remaining creamy sauce, and would definitely add a vegetable side or a salad if I had time to squeeze it in.
Update 7/7/08: I’ve made this dish several times now, and it still doesn’t fail to disappoint. Tonight I used Fuji apples with great success, and accompanied the brats with homemade spaetzle.
Update 2/10/09: I made this for dinner again tonight with homemade spaetzle, and Nolan loved it. He had tastes of everything: finely chopped sausage, onion, apple, and noodles. I saved the apples out of the compote, and have been mushing them up in his oatmeal for the past few days. My oatmeal mix right now is a cup of water to 6T oatmeal and 2 T Bob’s Red Mill buckwheat cereal; it makes enough for about 5 quarter-cup servings, and I dish the extra into my silicone muffin pan and chill until they form congealed discs, then move them to a baggie. They reheat beautifully covered in the microwave for 25 seconds with a little water to steam in. Then I cool it down with some plain yogurt, smashed fruit, and a little maple syrup and cinnamon.
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10.26.07
Posted in Dinner, Meats, Sausage at 9:26 am by julie
I’ve neglected the blog for far too long, but to be honest, not much of note has made its way out of our kitchen of late. The most notable entries would include beef goulash with dumplings (made with leftover roast beef), pork loin braised in milk, and some saucepan mac and cheese with prosciutto, peas, white and yellow cheddar, and some garlicky toasted bread crumbs on top. I guess there were some pretty spectacular bittersweet brownies from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, but we ate those almost before there was time to photograph them.
This is the sort of homey meal that sounds good to me this time of year. And it doesn’t hurt that I had everything on hand already in the house. I’ve made this recipe several times before, but it’s been a few years, I think. I pulled the kielbasa from the freezer to thaw without thinking about the extra hours’ boiling time, and since it was already after 6pm, I decided to skip that step. (I’m actually not sure what it is supposed to accomplish, other than perhaps defatting the meat a bit.) My sausage was light turkey kielbasa, and we didn’t notice any difference in taste or texture from the skipped step.
Sweet Polish Sausage
2 lb kielbasa, cut into 1″ chunks
1/3 C Worcestershire sauce
1 T lemon juice
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 C brown sugar
dash of hot sauce
2/3 C water
Place sausage in a saucepan with water to cover. Simmer on low for 1 hour. Drain and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350F. In the same pan, mix Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, onion, sugar, hot sauce and water. Bring to a boil, stirring. Place sausage in baking dish and cover with sauce. Bake for 1 hour, then serve with mashed potatoes.
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