Sunday, January 21, 2007
Coming Soon
My casual version of Spinach Lasagna/Fine Cooking Style
If you want The Best or a meat lasagna, check out Fine Cooking, December 2006, #82
Grocery list
Butter
Whole Milk
All-purpose flour
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Whole Milk Ricotta (1 ½ pounds)
2 pounds fresh spinach (that’s a lot of bags, folks…check it out) or 2 10 oz. frozen
chopped spinach, thawed
yellow onion
garlic
1½ cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 eggs
olive oil
carrot
celery
flat-leaf parsley
basil
white wine
1 28 oz.can plus 1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes (the recipe calls for plum, which we can’t
get, but I used petite diced
no boil lasagna noodles
If you want The Best or a meat lasagna, check out Fine Cooking, December 2006, #82
Grocery list
Butter
Whole Milk
All-purpose flour
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Whole Milk Ricotta (1 ½ pounds)
2 pounds fresh spinach (that’s a lot of bags, folks…check it out) or 2 10 oz. frozen
chopped spinach, thawed
yellow onion
garlic
1½ cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 eggs
olive oil
carrot
celery
flat-leaf parsley
basil
white wine
1 28 oz.can plus 1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes (the recipe calls for plum, which we can’t
get, but I used petite diced
no boil lasagna noodles
Barbara's Spinach Lasagna
Pretty easy for lasagna. This one always gets rave reviews. The mixture of of cheddar and mozzarella is yum.
Grocery list:
2 bags of baby spinach
no-boil lasagna noodles (I never boil the noodles, but the old kind taste more floury than the no- boil kind...why would I have the boil kind on hand?)
garlic
olive oil
1 short carton cottage cheese
eggs
Italian breadcrumbs
bottled spaghetti sauce (I like the kind without sugar...but use your fave)
Grated parmesan cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Cheddar cheese
Fresh bagged baby spinach…use two bags for a large pan of lasagna…it cooks down to little of nothing. And you can use frozen, but I'm telling you, with spinach FRESH IS SOOO MUCH BETTER THAN FROZEN.
Sauté spinach in olive oil with garlic. (you may add bits of carrots or chopped mushroom, but the spinach and garlic are good on their own.
You may add the sautéed spinach and garlic into the cottage cheese mixture or use it as a separate layer. Barbara uses it as a separate layer.
Mix together ¾ of a short carton of cottage cheese (they have tall cartons and short cartons...I think the short carton is 12 ounces), 2 beaten eggs, ½ to 2/3 cup of Italian breadcrumbs, and ½ cup of Parmesan cheese
Put a little spaghetti sauce and water in the bottom of the pan. Layer dry noodles on the sauce. Add the layer of spinach, and then all of the cottage cheese mixture. Top that with a mixture of shredded mozzarella and cheddar. Add another layer of noodles, then top it with more spaghetti sauce. Cover it with foil and bake for about 35 minutes at 325 to 350 degrees until the noodles are tender. Test the noodles. When the noodles are fork ready, top with more shredded mozzarella and cheddar and bake about 10 minutes more, until the cheese is hot and bubbly. THE CHEESE ON TOPS TENDS TO BURN IF YOU COOK IT THE WHOLE TIME.
It’s good to make it ahead, and let the flavors mellow. And it’s more flavorful if you let it stand 15 or so minutes after it is done. Microwaves well.
Grocery list:
2 bags of baby spinach
no-boil lasagna noodles (I never boil the noodles, but the old kind taste more floury than the no- boil kind...why would I have the boil kind on hand?)
garlic
olive oil
1 short carton cottage cheese
eggs
Italian breadcrumbs
bottled spaghetti sauce (I like the kind without sugar...but use your fave)
Grated parmesan cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Cheddar cheese
Fresh bagged baby spinach…use two bags for a large pan of lasagna…it cooks down to little of nothing. And you can use frozen, but I'm telling you, with spinach FRESH IS SOOO MUCH BETTER THAN FROZEN.
Sauté spinach in olive oil with garlic. (you may add bits of carrots or chopped mushroom, but the spinach and garlic are good on their own.
You may add the sautéed spinach and garlic into the cottage cheese mixture or use it as a separate layer. Barbara uses it as a separate layer.
Mix together ¾ of a short carton of cottage cheese (they have tall cartons and short cartons...I think the short carton is 12 ounces), 2 beaten eggs, ½ to 2/3 cup of Italian breadcrumbs, and ½ cup of Parmesan cheese
Put a little spaghetti sauce and water in the bottom of the pan. Layer dry noodles on the sauce. Add the layer of spinach, and then all of the cottage cheese mixture. Top that with a mixture of shredded mozzarella and cheddar. Add another layer of noodles, then top it with more spaghetti sauce. Cover it with foil and bake for about 35 minutes at 325 to 350 degrees until the noodles are tender. Test the noodles. When the noodles are fork ready, top with more shredded mozzarella and cheddar and bake about 10 minutes more, until the cheese is hot and bubbly. THE CHEESE ON TOPS TENDS TO BURN IF YOU COOK IT THE WHOLE TIME.
It’s good to make it ahead, and let the flavors mellow. And it’s more flavorful if you let it stand 15 or so minutes after it is done. Microwaves well.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, RECIPE #1, OR THE SPINACH AND RICE THING
Quick Easy Forgiving Adaptable
The recipe came from Real Simple and was called Wendy’s Brown Bag Lunch. She made a lot of brown rice on Sunday, and used it as the basis of her to-work lunch the rest of the week:
The original: sauté garlic, scallion, jalapeno, carrot, red and green peppers, and snow peas in olive oil. Add salt and pepper and about a cup of brown rice. Add 2 or 3 handfuls of fresh spinach and a cup of salsa. Heat thoroughly. Toss in a few chunks of Cheddar cheese, which will melt from the heat. Add some sliced avocado if you have it.
The boyfriend really likes this. We probably use more cheese than Wendy. Cheese freaks, and surely we will pay for it. When I am not going to be home for lunch, I sometimes make it up and leave it on the stove. And it is good heated up, if you are not against microwaves.
Use what you have. I always use garlic, onion (my basics), mushrooms and carrot. And spinach. I try to have the snow or sugar snap peas…they have a great crunch, but so would water chestnuts. We don’t usually have salsa. Rotel tomatoes can work. Petite diced canned tomatoes can work. Fresh diced tomatoes can work. Bottled spaghetti sauce can work. My friend swears by green olive salsa, which I want. Oh, so probably olives can work. I use red pepper flakes instead of taking the time to chop jalapenos, which I usually don’t have. Got it? And if you have the avocado (no, the boyfriend does not like it, did you think he would?) throw it in and head out for a picnic. You can pretend you’re a sixties hippie lunching at Audubon Park in New Orleans. No fringe or beads required, because you are what you eat.
TIP: Fresh spinach really is much tastier than frozen spinach, but it's really up to you. If you go the frozen route, thaw and squeeze dry, and make sure the spinach doesn't all clump in a couple or five places.
The recipe came from Real Simple and was called Wendy’s Brown Bag Lunch. She made a lot of brown rice on Sunday, and used it as the basis of her to-work lunch the rest of the week:
The original: sauté garlic, scallion, jalapeno, carrot, red and green peppers, and snow peas in olive oil. Add salt and pepper and about a cup of brown rice. Add 2 or 3 handfuls of fresh spinach and a cup of salsa. Heat thoroughly. Toss in a few chunks of Cheddar cheese, which will melt from the heat. Add some sliced avocado if you have it.
The boyfriend really likes this. We probably use more cheese than Wendy. Cheese freaks, and surely we will pay for it. When I am not going to be home for lunch, I sometimes make it up and leave it on the stove. And it is good heated up, if you are not against microwaves.
Use what you have. I always use garlic, onion (my basics), mushrooms and carrot. And spinach. I try to have the snow or sugar snap peas…they have a great crunch, but so would water chestnuts. We don’t usually have salsa. Rotel tomatoes can work. Petite diced canned tomatoes can work. Fresh diced tomatoes can work. Bottled spaghetti sauce can work. My friend swears by green olive salsa, which I want. Oh, so probably olives can work. I use red pepper flakes instead of taking the time to chop jalapenos, which I usually don’t have. Got it? And if you have the avocado (no, the boyfriend does not like it, did you think he would?) throw it in and head out for a picnic. You can pretend you’re a sixties hippie lunching at Audubon Park in New Orleans. No fringe or beads required, because you are what you eat.
TIP: Fresh spinach really is much tastier than frozen spinach, but it's really up to you. If you go the frozen route, thaw and squeeze dry, and make sure the spinach doesn't all clump in a couple or five places.
NAKED LUNCH--THE RANT
or rather naked supper.
A group I’m a member of had a supper meeting at a local restaurant. Eating out. Yum. Hard for me to choose, because even though I do eat stuff that originally comes with brain stems, my preference when eating out is seafood, which also comes with brainstems but with itsy bitsy brains, I hope. Or fried fish. Southern fried fish, cornmealed rather than breaded with flour. I only indulge in my fried fish obsession with a select few. For one thing, not many places get it right. For the other thing, I like to eat more fried fish than is seemly, and I can only do that with people I trust to do the same. Like my sister. Maybe only with my sister, and one friend who has loved me so long and likes fish nearly as much as I do, and we have an unspoken agreement that she won’t comment on the school of fish I’m devouring and I won’t notice she likes to end the meal with dessert. (I thought the fish was the dessert…appetizer, entrée, et al. With garnishes of slaw and turnip greens and a smatter of hushpuppy.)
The restaurant where my group ate didn’t have fried fish, thank goodness, much less a fried fish buffet, so I was saved from public gluttony. I ordered the shrimp po-boy. Which came with remoulade sauce and a choice of sides. Yes, I ordered the fries. The sandwich, when it arrived, consisted of four fried shrimp on a hot dog bun. That’s all. Zip. Okay, the fries were hot, which doesn’t always happen in some restaurants. The remoulade was adequate and the mayonnaise didn’t have a yellow film on top (you know what I mean). The bun was fluffier than your grocery store marshmellow bun, and the four shrimp were lightly breaded and delicately fried. I ended up eating the shrimp with my fingers, dipping them into the sauce. I had plenty to eat. Left most of the bun and some of the fries.
Lunch is an issue to me, even if it’s supper or dinner or whatever you want to call it, because I feed the boyfriend, and I want it to be something he likes, and I want it to be the best it can be. I want him to know I love him. If I am giving you his money for your food which I did not have to purchase or cook myself, pamper me. Love me just a little.
And if I order a shrimp po-boy, dress it for Pete’s sake, especially if what you have to offer is four measley shrimp, which is definitely not a fish g-orgy. It’s not as if you didn’t have lettuce, tomato, and onion. My friend who ordered the cheeseburger plainly said, NO TOMATO, and she got tomato.
So listen (I am sure all of my town’s restaurants are going to come read this blog to figure out how to get and keep my business)…when I eat with you, treat me like an esteemed colleague you want to impress, because LUNCH IS WHAT I DO.
I feel better now.
A group I’m a member of had a supper meeting at a local restaurant. Eating out. Yum. Hard for me to choose, because even though I do eat stuff that originally comes with brain stems, my preference when eating out is seafood, which also comes with brainstems but with itsy bitsy brains, I hope. Or fried fish. Southern fried fish, cornmealed rather than breaded with flour. I only indulge in my fried fish obsession with a select few. For one thing, not many places get it right. For the other thing, I like to eat more fried fish than is seemly, and I can only do that with people I trust to do the same. Like my sister. Maybe only with my sister, and one friend who has loved me so long and likes fish nearly as much as I do, and we have an unspoken agreement that she won’t comment on the school of fish I’m devouring and I won’t notice she likes to end the meal with dessert. (I thought the fish was the dessert…appetizer, entrée, et al. With garnishes of slaw and turnip greens and a smatter of hushpuppy.)
The restaurant where my group ate didn’t have fried fish, thank goodness, much less a fried fish buffet, so I was saved from public gluttony. I ordered the shrimp po-boy. Which came with remoulade sauce and a choice of sides. Yes, I ordered the fries. The sandwich, when it arrived, consisted of four fried shrimp on a hot dog bun. That’s all. Zip. Okay, the fries were hot, which doesn’t always happen in some restaurants. The remoulade was adequate and the mayonnaise didn’t have a yellow film on top (you know what I mean). The bun was fluffier than your grocery store marshmellow bun, and the four shrimp were lightly breaded and delicately fried. I ended up eating the shrimp with my fingers, dipping them into the sauce. I had plenty to eat. Left most of the bun and some of the fries.
Lunch is an issue to me, even if it’s supper or dinner or whatever you want to call it, because I feed the boyfriend, and I want it to be something he likes, and I want it to be the best it can be. I want him to know I love him. If I am giving you his money for your food which I did not have to purchase or cook myself, pamper me. Love me just a little.
And if I order a shrimp po-boy, dress it for Pete’s sake, especially if what you have to offer is four measley shrimp, which is definitely not a fish g-orgy. It’s not as if you didn’t have lettuce, tomato, and onion. My friend who ordered the cheeseburger plainly said, NO TOMATO, and she got tomato.
So listen (I am sure all of my town’s restaurants are going to come read this blog to figure out how to get and keep my business)…when I eat with you, treat me like an esteemed colleague you want to impress, because LUNCH IS WHAT I DO.
I feel better now.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The Boyfriend
The lifestyles editor of the local paper asked me for a Meet Your Neighbor interview. One of the questions asked where I worked…having evaded employment since 1992, I must say I work at home, or confess to being carelessly lazy. The question that followed: What do you do? My answer: Lunch. While the lifestyles editor professed to enjoy my interview answers, for some reason--perhaps she felt grown folks don't hang around the house all day thinking about food--, she decided some adjustments must be made. She changed my answer to the first question. I became a free lance writer, working at home. She deleted lunch altogether.
This is my disclaimer.
All my youth and into my adulthood, I wanted a boyfriend, a good one. My husband is better than good. He is the perfect answer to those famished years of desire. He also works three minutes from our house. My neighbor once told me concerning her own husband’s retirement, “I married him for better or worse, but not for lunch.” If your perfect boyfriend works three minutes from your house, doesn’t require you to ply a trade, is kind of blind where dust and minor clutter is concerned, and gets off work at three and snacks through supper, lunch assumes the language of gratitude and love.
Like every language, it comes with some perimeters. He is allergic to everything with a brain stem. Read vegetarian (and since he quit eating meat, he no longer has chronic indigestion, diarrhea and heartburn, and he stopped losing hair on the crown of his head…the reversal of hair loss is a vegetarian phenomenon I first read about in The Kamikaze Cowboy by Dirk Benedict). He doesn’t like chili. Not fond of lemons. Tart and salty, the basis of my own food preferences, sends him rummaging through the honey buns. Did I say he doesn’t like cilantro?
I have read books about women who are suddenly alone after years of familyhood. They quit cooking. They eat singular things. I particularly remember the woman who nourished herself with only a pan of cornbread every evening. I relate. When I cook, I cook for him. It’s part of my nature, the part that made a boyfriend so imperative to begin with. And he, the only cigarette-smoking, coffee-drinking vegetarian in America, isn’t really interested in food. He could live for years off of macaroni and cheese, but since his daughter dreamed he had a heart attack, he rarely requests it.
Several years ago, I put together a 280-page cookbook with all the recipes my large extended family used for over fifty years. Though people told me they enjoyed reading the cookbook, many also told me they don’t cook any more. Eating out has become a way of life, and maybe we would eat out more, too, but we live in a small Southern town, and our choices are limited. Usually to meat. Which means we don’t eat out so much.
Though lots of folks have said they like my cooking, it’s never been natural to me. I am not precise and discriminating in anything I do. Clumsy and haphazard is a more apt description. Also a friend told me years ago, if you don’t have something called for in a recipe, use something of the same color. I can tell you it works nine out of ten times, but when it doesn’t work, it fails spectacularly. For some reason I cannot seem to follow a recipe, though I faithfully pull them out whenever I cook. Perhaps the dish will be okay the first time, it usually is, and maybe even the third or fourth time. Then I will do something unexpectedly with totally bizarre results. And, even though I cook nearly everyday, I will hit that dry patch when I can’t even think what I used to cook, much less what I am going to throw together today. I am not the only one with that problem. If you read cookbooks by Personalities you will eventually discover the author has some simple recipe she or he uses three or four times a week. Lunch can be a serious and debilitating business.
Thus, Ms. Lifestyles Editor, I work at home, granted, as little as possible, and that little is usually lunch. This blog is my proof, as well as my nod to being a free-lance writer. It is also a reminder of what can be cooked, and a record of ‘oops, best not do that again.’ And it is an invitation. If you can do a recipe better than me, let me know. Or if you do cook, and you know of something quick and healthy, tell me about it. And if you do eat out, give me a call; I do restaurant lunch with glee, piggy happy about eating other people’s food, though I will probably leave that rice and spinach thing on the stove for the perfect boyfriend, because lunch is what I do .
This is my disclaimer.
All my youth and into my adulthood, I wanted a boyfriend, a good one. My husband is better than good. He is the perfect answer to those famished years of desire. He also works three minutes from our house. My neighbor once told me concerning her own husband’s retirement, “I married him for better or worse, but not for lunch.” If your perfect boyfriend works three minutes from your house, doesn’t require you to ply a trade, is kind of blind where dust and minor clutter is concerned, and gets off work at three and snacks through supper, lunch assumes the language of gratitude and love.
Like every language, it comes with some perimeters. He is allergic to everything with a brain stem. Read vegetarian (and since he quit eating meat, he no longer has chronic indigestion, diarrhea and heartburn, and he stopped losing hair on the crown of his head…the reversal of hair loss is a vegetarian phenomenon I first read about in The Kamikaze Cowboy by Dirk Benedict). He doesn’t like chili. Not fond of lemons. Tart and salty, the basis of my own food preferences, sends him rummaging through the honey buns. Did I say he doesn’t like cilantro?
I have read books about women who are suddenly alone after years of familyhood. They quit cooking. They eat singular things. I particularly remember the woman who nourished herself with only a pan of cornbread every evening. I relate. When I cook, I cook for him. It’s part of my nature, the part that made a boyfriend so imperative to begin with. And he, the only cigarette-smoking, coffee-drinking vegetarian in America, isn’t really interested in food. He could live for years off of macaroni and cheese, but since his daughter dreamed he had a heart attack, he rarely requests it.
Several years ago, I put together a 280-page cookbook with all the recipes my large extended family used for over fifty years. Though people told me they enjoyed reading the cookbook, many also told me they don’t cook any more. Eating out has become a way of life, and maybe we would eat out more, too, but we live in a small Southern town, and our choices are limited. Usually to meat. Which means we don’t eat out so much.
Though lots of folks have said they like my cooking, it’s never been natural to me. I am not precise and discriminating in anything I do. Clumsy and haphazard is a more apt description. Also a friend told me years ago, if you don’t have something called for in a recipe, use something of the same color. I can tell you it works nine out of ten times, but when it doesn’t work, it fails spectacularly. For some reason I cannot seem to follow a recipe, though I faithfully pull them out whenever I cook. Perhaps the dish will be okay the first time, it usually is, and maybe even the third or fourth time. Then I will do something unexpectedly with totally bizarre results. And, even though I cook nearly everyday, I will hit that dry patch when I can’t even think what I used to cook, much less what I am going to throw together today. I am not the only one with that problem. If you read cookbooks by Personalities you will eventually discover the author has some simple recipe she or he uses three or four times a week. Lunch can be a serious and debilitating business.
Thus, Ms. Lifestyles Editor, I work at home, granted, as little as possible, and that little is usually lunch. This blog is my proof, as well as my nod to being a free-lance writer. It is also a reminder of what can be cooked, and a record of ‘oops, best not do that again.’ And it is an invitation. If you can do a recipe better than me, let me know. Or if you do cook, and you know of something quick and healthy, tell me about it. And if you do eat out, give me a call; I do restaurant lunch with glee, piggy happy about eating other people’s food, though I will probably leave that rice and spinach thing on the stove for the perfect boyfriend, because lunch is what I do .
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