Setting the World on Fire … well, my steak at least

When I started really cooking, it was kind of a big deal if I made a meal that had nothing to do with boxes. I remember several years ago purchasing a box of roasted potato seasoning mix. Seriously. I cut up potatoes and then sprinkled this box of seasoning over them. What an eye-opener it was for me when I one day realized that I could use the spices in my own cupboard and achieve the same, if not better, results!

But I would do things like spend hours making Chicken Cordon Bleu, and then serve it with Rice-a-Roni and canned green beans on the side. Or make the most delicious and fluffy mashed potatoes from scratch, and then drown them in a packaged gravy mix.

Now, I’m not so snobby as to say that convenience foods don’t have a place. Even as I type this, I must admit that there are cheap, frozen pizzas in my freezer and canned chili in the pantry (that’s for Paul’s chili dogs). But I have gotten to the point where I realize that for the most part, someone with even a moderate amount of experience in the kitchen can make a meal entirely from scratch that will WOW almost anyone.

It sometimes just takes a bit of bravery.

Last month, I got into a conversation with Temperance, one of the founders of Recipes to Rival. I have been particularly lax in participation of the recipes over the last couple of months. Part of that is because of my crazy life. But I was also a little uncertain of some of the recipes that were chosen. Not that I thought they were bad choices…don’t misunderstand me! It was more the fact that I didn’t know if my family would eat them, and it sure seemed like a whole lot of work for something that was such a gamble.

Basically, I was being a wuss.

But during this conversation with Temperance I realized that I really didn’t have a right to complain if I wasn’t prepared to do something about it. And when Temperance told me that her planned co-host for March’s challenge had to back out, I felt compelled to step up and put my money where my mouth was. So I became March’s Recipes to Rival co-host.

Because it was so last minute, we had a very short amount of time in which to choose a recipe. I wanted something that had a classic technique that would challenge, but not frighten (too badly). Temperance wanted something special for her birthday month. After a couple days of debate, inspiration hit.

Flambe’!


Temperance thought it sounded like a great idea, a quick recipe search found a delicious sounding Steak Diane Flambe’ recipe, and we were set. Ready to light the world on fire. Or at least, beef and mushrooms on fire.

It was fun. I had a hard time getting a good picture of the fire, it doused itself out so quickly, but the results were stupendously delicious. A couple weeks later I flambe’d some mushrooms for dinner and it was just as good.

I guess that means I need to make sure there’s always brandy in the house.

Oh, the sacrifices I make.

But, what this showed me is that while flambe’ sounds scary, it’s really pretty approachable and quite fun. I look forward to an opportunity to Flambe’ For Friends. (Sounds like a fundraising event, doesn’t it?)

Here’s the official link to the Recipes to Rival Steak Diane Flambe’ post, recipe included.

Enjoy!

THE FINE PRINT DISCLAIMER: I do not require that you flambé, if you choose to flambé and burn down your kitchen, don’t sue me. If you choose to flambé try and get a picture (I recommend getting someone to help). Remember when playing with fire keep a fire extinguisher close and never use water on a cooking fire.

Layered vegetable and cheese and pasta casserole

My first real job that didn’t involve caring for children was at the just-down-the-street Safeway deli. It wasn’t a bad job for a 19-year-old, and I got to try lots of things I’d never had the chance to before. Things like pastrami (don’t like it) and havarti cheese (love it!) I discovered that there was more than one kind of potato salad (old-fashioned, mustard and German) and that very few of the salads were made in-store. At that Safeway deli I learned the secrets to delicious fried rice (someday I’ll share) and deli trays.

But my favorite discovery in that Safeway deli was the vegetable lasagna. At that point in my sheltered life, I’d only recently discovered that lasagna could be made without cottage cheese – and it totally blew my mind that it could be made without tomatoes or meat also! I fell in love.

The lasagna was layers of pasta separated by carrots, broccoli, cheese, cream sauce, and who knows what else. And it was goooood.

That was way back before I ever became a cook. That was back when I thought Hamburger Helper was gourmet cooking. When I was impressed with my own mad cooking skills because I baked a potato in the microwave. When hot dates were treated to rice-a-roni beside a pre-seasoned frozen chicken breast (don’t worry…I cooked it first). So there was no WAY I even dreamed of trying to make lasagna myself!

But, like all good things, my days of veggie lasagna came to an end. I moved on; the deli in the city I moved to never had veggie lasagna, and although I often heard veggie lasagna mentioned, I always ended up disappointed when I found it made with a marinara sauce.

In the years since discovering that I can cook, I’ve toyed with the idea of recreating that veggie lasagna. The one thing that has held me back, however, is Farmer Paul’s reaction. Apparently, if it doesn’t have meat and tomato sauce, he feels that it can’t be lasagna.

So it has stayed a fond memory.

That is, until I saw February’s Recipes to Rival challenge: Homemade Ricotta cheese. I knew right then and there that I would try my hand at my memory. And it would be cheesy and veggie-y and delicious.

But you know how you remember something from years ago and then you try it again and you wonder why you thought it was so good way back when? Well, my homemade veggie lasagna was NOTHING like that. It was gooood.

But, to appease Paul, I can’t call it lasagna. Instead, it’s layered vegetable and cheese and pasta casserole deliciousness.

And did I mention it’s goooood?

Layered Vegetable and Cheese and Pasta Casserole
(aka Veggie Lasagna)

4 1/2 c thin white sauce (the consistency of cream)

Mix together veggies:
2 cups chopped carrots and broccoli (I used my food processor with the slicer blade), lightly boiled in salted water until crisp-tender then quickly cooled in ice water to retain the color and stop the cooking.
1/2 c cooked spinach, chopped and squeezed dry

Mix together:
2 c ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 large clove garlic, chopped
salt & pepper

Grate:
8 oz fontina cheese
6 oz gruyere cheese
8 oz mozzarella cheese
4 oz parmesan cheese

12 – 15 no boil lasagna noodles (3 per layer…I used 12 for 4 layers)

Assembly:
Spread a little bit of white sauce on bottom of 9×13 baking dish (this keeps the lasagna from sticking)
Lay 3 noodles on top of sauce.
spread 1/3 of ricotta cheese mixture over noodles. Spread 1/3 vegetables over cheese. Sprinkle 1/4 of grated cheese over vegetables. Pour 1/4 white sauce over top.

Repeat layers two more times.

Finish with the last 3 noodles and remaining sauce and grated cheese.

At this point, I covered it in plastic and put it in the fridge for the next night’s dinner.

To bake: Preheat oven to 325. Bake lasagna, uncovered for 1 – 1 1/2 hours until bubbly, golden brown and ooey-gooey delicious.

Cheesy Goodness – Recipes to Rival: February Edition

There are two kinds of food hate. There’s food that you dislike the taste and/or texture of…liver, lima beans, split pea soup. Then there’s the mental-block food hate…or should I say mental-block food “dislike with the passion of a thousand burning suns” (we don’t say “hate” in this house!) For me, this latter category includes bugs (no matter how much chocolate is involved) and cottage cheese.

While I personally haven’t ever met anyone who thinks the first item on that list is strange, I have met many who are surprised at my devout dislike of cottage cheese. I can’t explain it. I just know that the thought of eating it makes me feel violently ill.

When I was little, Mom used to make cottage cheese salad – a mixture of cottage cheese and fruit cocktail. When this so-called “salad” appeared on the dinner table, I immediately started in with the excuses. I wasn’t hungry. I had a big lunch. My stomach hurt. Anything … ANYTHING to avoid cottage cheese! But Mom wasn’t dumb. She saw right through it and always called my bluff. I was eating dinner, including a healthy portion of the dreaded cottage cheese salad and that was that.

Other than that icky concoction, the only thing my enormous cottage cheese dislike affected was lasagna. Mom’s recipe called for cottage cheese. I didn’t (and still don’t) care that you can’t actually taste the cottage cheese. Just like every kind of mental block dislike, the knowledge of its presence made it inedible. Still does.

I was quite old, probably over 18, before I discovered that lasagna could be made with a cheese that wasn’t cottage. Ricotta became my hero. Ricotta made lasagna delicious. I suddenly knew why everyone went cuckoo for lasagna.

So…fast forward to now. The Recipes to Rival challenge for February was a two-parter. #1 – Make my own ricotta cheese and #2 – Use it in a recipe.

Today…Making the ricotta. Tomorrow…the meal.

Here’s the official R2R post for making ricotta. You’ll need 1 gallon of milk and 1 quart of buttermilk. As long as neither one is ultra-pasturized, it should work.

Follow the directions…it takes about 1 – 2 hours, depending on how aggressive you get with the temperature dial on your stove. Mine was done in just under 2 hours. But it was easy time, just stirring occasionally and monitoring the thermometer.

1 gallon of milk and 1 quart of buttermilk yielded about 3 pounds (6 cups) of ricotta.

Recipies to Rival – My First Challenge

Way back in one of my previous lifetimes I worked in a grocery store deli that included a Chinese food take-out area. For several months I was assigned to Chinese take-out duty, meaning that I stood over the deli cases full of Chinese food for eight hours a day. Which did two things. First, it introduced me to some dishes that I might not have tried otherwise, like Kung Pao Chicken and Pot Stickers; and second, it made my hair smell like chow mein. (As a date once told me…boy, did he know how to sweep a girl off her feet!)

I never developed much of a taste for the Kung Pao Chicken, however, I love pot stickers with their soft, chewy dough and wonderful savory meat filling. Mmmmm…

Now, I’m comfortable enough in the kitchen that I don’t shy away from much. Yeast breads of any type? Been making them for years. Totally from-scratch homemade pizza? Almost weekly. Expensive Rib Roast? Every Christmas. But pot stickers? I never even thought about even trying to make them at home!

Pot stickers are one of those things that you just get out , along with Fried Onion “Flowers” and Fajitas. Why pot stickers? Well, first of all, they look so labor intensive. And secondly, they look REALLY labor intensive! C’mon, all those teeny tiny little pleats – really? Who has the time. And how much better could homemade really be? I had no interest in finding out for myself. They could remain a mystery to me.

Until a couple of weeks ago, that is. That’s when I joined a blog group known as Recipes 2 Rival. The R2R group each month takes on a recipe and collectively posts their experiences making it. When I saw that my first challenge recipe was pot stickers, I had mixed feelings of interest and dread. C’mon, all those teeny tiny little pleats! And then, reading further, I saw the real challenge…the dough must be made from scratch! Pleats and rolling a dough I’ve never worked with paper thin? This was going to be interesting.

But it was what it was. And I determined to face the challenge head-on. Pleats, dough and all. Figuring I would make a party out of it, I called my sister Anna (you might remember her from our Curry adventure) and we found a mutually acceptable date for a Chinese Dinner feast.

Armed with the R2R pot sticker recipe and a bag full of ingredients, we headed over to Anna’s. The menu was fabulous. Hot & Sour Soup, Peanut Noodles, Chinese BBQ Pork and of course, Pot Stickers.

The dough came together perfect. I used the Kitchen Aid to mix it up, and after letting it sit for about an hour, it was easy-peasy to work with. The filling was also quick and easy to mix together, though after thinking that it seemed wetter than I expected, I looked closer at my recipe and realized I had added some of the ingredients for the dipping sauce into the filling. Not much to do about it at that point, I’d just have to go with it & hope it was good.

So I rolled and Anna pleated and Sean steamed and fried. And it was good.

If I had read all the comments from my fellow R2R-ers, I would have realized that we shouldn’t have steamed the dumplings before putting them in the frying pan. It made for pot stickers that, well, stuck to the pot and fell apart. But they were delicious! Everyone agreed, even all five kids!

Which may be a first for that group!

For the recipes, go here, and to see what everyone else did, go here.