Today's Recipe: Lasagna Roll Ups!

Lasagna is one of those meals that you occasionally want to enjoy but the process of making lasagna on a weeknight is arduous after a long day at work. What I do is to make lasagna rolls and freeze them to make a quick and easy dinner later. Just pop a couple of these into a casserole, top with some of your marinara (that you have made previously and keep in the freezer too) and bake for an hour. Here's how I do it and the recipe follows...

Simmer your lasagna noodles in salted water with 2 tablespoons of oil. Cook for 7 minutes or so until they are rollable. Do not overcook as they will cook more in the oven. Fish them out of the water and into a cold water bath to cool. Lay them out on greased sheet pans. Prepare your fillings. Mise en place...

Put a schmear of your ricotta filling onto the lasagna noodles almost to the end

Then divide your sausage filling on top of the cheese

Roll up the noodles finishing with the "un-topped" end and place seam down on a sheet pan lined with parchment that has been sprayed with vegetable oil spray. Don't let them touch or when they freeze they will stick together. You may also spray the rolls lightly with vegetable oil spray to keep them from sticking together. As you can see I decided to put some together with sauce for this evening's meal. Cover the sheet pan tightly with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil and pop into the freezer until they are solidly frozen. 

This is what they look like when they come out of the freezer the next day. 

Pop them into a freezer bag, label and return to the freezer for later

To finish, take a casserole dish, spray with vegetable oil spray and spoon some of your sauce into the bottom of the casserole. Put your lasagna rolls into the casserole and top with more sauce. I cover them with parchment (to keep the tomato sauce from touching the aluminum and getting a metallic taste) and then wrap tightly with foil before I pop them into a 375f oven for 45 minutes. 

Take them out of the oven, uncover and sprinkle some grated cheese on top and return to the oven for another 15 minutes or so until the cheese is melted and bubbly 

Spoon some of the sauce from the casserole on top and enjoy! 

Here is the recipe, as promised. Before I left for work today I took some of these out of the freezer and prepared them with sauce and wrapped them up, ready to go into the oven. they will thaw a little in the fridge and will be ready to go when I get home. MMM-mmm!

Sunday Night Dinner: Easy Sesame Chicken

I needed something easy to make for dinner tonight. Last week Stop and Shop had chicken thighs for $0.39/pound so I got a whole bunch of them. I decided to make this recipe that I found at Budgetbytes.com (click on the link for the recipe). It's a terrific recipe and now I have some nice leftover Chinese for luncheon tomorrow. Mmm.

Get your rice cooker out and make some rice for this dish. 

If you have leftover cold rice (this is brown rice),
a nice dish of fried rice is moments away

Testing new product: Progresso Bistro Cup Soups

This product comes in two parts, an envelope
of soup mix and a K-Cup of broth

I joined a program at Shaws Market called MyMixx which sends me an email every Saturday with a coupon offering 2 for 1 items or freebies, etc.  and last weekend it was a coupon for a free box of these Progresso Bistro Cups Soups. They come in 3 flavors, Southwestern Style Creamy White Bean and Corn, Broccoli and Cheese and Creamy Tomato and Parmesan. The soups come in 2 parts; an envelope of soup mix and a Keurig K-Cup of (I think) broth. You dump the contents of the envelope into a mug, place the K-Cup into your Keurig machine and before you can say "Haute Cuisine" you have soup!  Now I normally do my shopping at Market Basket but as Shaws had eggs at 2 dozen for $3 and since the soup was free I thought that I'd shop a little at Shaws and give one these a try, fully expecting it to be too salty and probably a little weird. I gave the Southwestern Style Creamy White Bean and Corn flavor a try yesterday at work. 

What I discovered was that the soup was very thick and not at all salty as I had expected. It had a nice "southwestern" flavor from cumin, some sort of chili pepper and a little sweetness from the corn. I'd rate it as "not bad" on the FHP Processed Food Scale. It was very easy to make and although it says to use the 8oz setting on your Keurig I might add a little more water to it just to thin it out a little. All in all, if you occasionally like soup for lunch and you cannot get away from the office for lunch, these are a good thing to keep in your desk for a soup emergency. I will probably give the other varieties a try as well, however at 3 cups of soup for $3.99 they do seem like I probably wouldn't buy them on a regular basis. 

(Full Disclosure: I did experience a case of "wind" about an hour after eating this soup, so you may want to try this at home first to see if you experience the same effect, especially if you work in close quarters. This may be endemic only to the white bean flavor. If you have your own office and/or a good vent system at your workplace, then go for it!)

Dump the contents of the envelope into a large mug (they recommend a 16oz mug)

Pop the K-Cup into the Keurig machine and set the dispenser for 8 ounces,  although for the Southwestern Bean Soup you could probably use the 10oz for a less thick soup. 

After the machine finishes "brewing", give the soup a vigorous stir and then let it sit for at least a minute before eating

As you can see the soup gets really thick. It could be thinned out by using the 10oz setting on the machine or if you have a water cooler in your office that dispenses boiling water, add a little from there. It's a good product, in a pinch, when you want some soup and can't get away from the office to enjoy some. 

I think these will be a project very soon...

Courtesan au Chocolat - See how they're made

This Weekends Recipe: Queen Pudding

Yummy cake. Get recipe here

I know just what some of you are going to say so don't bother. What do you do if you've made a delicious cake and you have some left over going stale very quickly? You make Queen Pudding. We used to do this in cooking school. While working in the pastry shop, if there were any leftover danish, croissants, or cake, we would dry them a little and then chop them up, add a custard to them and bake it off. You can also add some defrosted frozen cherries, nuts,  or blueberries to the mix. Use your imagination. Here's what I did with some leftover French Yogurt Cherry Cake, made last weekend. There is no recipe here, this is a "technique" post.

I had about 1/3 of this cake left, so I trimmed off the "crust", the browned edges of the cake, cut it into cubes and tossed it into a well-buttered baking dish

For this size dish and that amount of cake, I figured six whole eggs would do the trick. I added a little more than 1/2 cup of granulated sugar (to your taste, that is), a couple of teaspoons of my homemade vanilla extract and about 1 3/4 cups of whole milk. Add a pinch of salt as well. Whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla and milk together until well blended

Pour the egg mixture over the cake, dot with butter and bake in a 325 degree oven about 40 minutes.

Test by sticking a knife into the middle and it should come out clean

I served it warm with a little drizzle of some delicious Vermont maple syrup given to me by our Vermont political reporter, MaryKaye. Try whipped cream, or just a little heavy cream. Yum!

Today's Recipe Challenge: French Yogurt Cake

I came across a recipe for French Yogurt Cake, described as a cake in every French housewife's repertoire. It sounded pretty easy. No creaming of butter and sugar, no separating eggs... Sounds too good to be true. I did a little more digging and sure enough I found a number of variations on this simple theme. Most, if not all required 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, plain greek-style yogurt (any fat content), 1 cup sugar, 2-3 eggs, some sort of fat and a flavoring such as lemon zest, orange oil, vanilla, etc. Very easy. I decided to make this cake for our office meeting this week. I didn't have any greek yogurt so I substituted sour cream for the yogurt. I also didn't have any lemons, but I did have some frozen cherries so I decided to use some of them. Here's my recipe:

French Yogurt (or Sour Cream) Cake

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plain greek-style yogurt or sour cream
3 eggs (room temperature)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup frozen pitted cherries, defrosted and chopped
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons soft unsalted butter for greasing a pan

• Grease an 8x4 inch loaf pan and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl, set aside
• In another bowl, whisk together the sugar and yogurt or sour cream and then add eggs, one at a time, whisking vigorously between each added egg. Add vanilla and almond extracts
• Add chopped cherries to flour mixture and toss with the flour mixture (this helps the cherry pieces "float" in the batter rather than sinking)
• Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients (not the oil yet) and whisk until the ingredients are fully incorporated
• Using a rubber spatula, add the oil in 3 or 4 "glugs", beating with the spatula to incorporate fully before adding more
• Pour into your prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean 
• Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then tip the cake out and cool completely

Here are some photos of the process: 

First things first... get those cherries out of the freezer to defrost. I put them on paper towels and cut them in half to facilitate the defrosting

Once defrosted, I used a sharp knife to chop the cherries and put them, again, on paper towels to dry a little. You don't want a lot of extra juice making the cake heavy

Whisk your flour baking powder and salt together. Add the sour cream or yogurt and whisk together

Whisk each egg vigorously into the sour cream/sugar mixture. 

Toss the chopped cherries into the flour mixture and stir to coat the chopped cherries

Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients until well combined. Using a rubber spatula add the oil in several additions mixing it in thoroughly before adding more. 

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes or until your cake tester comes our clean

Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then tip out of the pan and let sit until completely cool. 

Here it is. A really nice, favorful cake that was really easy and infinitely variable. Try lemon, orange, rosewater, anise.. any flavoring your like

Today's Recipe: Butternut Squash, Bacon, Feta and Arugula Quiche

I found this recipe online (afraid I don't remember where, oops!) and gave it a try today. I made it with feta although the recipe calls for Bleu or Gorgonzola. It's very tasty but I thought it was under seasoned for me. I left the recipe alone so you can adjust the seasoning as you like.

Butternut Squash, Arugula and Bacon Quiche

Ingredients

1 pie crust

3 slices bacon, diced 

2 cups chopped butternut squash 

1 small white onion, chopped 

1 clove garlic, minced 

6 eggs, whisked 

3/4 cup milk 

3 Tbsp. flour 

1/2 tsp. baking powder 

1/2 tsp. salt 

1/8 tsp. black pepper 

3 handfuls fresh arugula, whole or roughly chopped 

4 ounces crumbled gorgonzola, blue or feta cheese (or any cheese you'd like)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Lay prepared pie crust in an ungreased pie plate. Bake for 5 minutes, then set aside. 

Cook bacon in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat until crispy, stirring occasionally. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon, leaving grease in pan. Add butternut squash and onion and sauté for 8-10 minutes, or until the onions are translucent and the squash is tender. Add garlic and sauté for an additional minute. Remove from heat. 

In a separate large bowl, whisk together eggs, flour, baking powder, milk, salt, and black pepper. Stir in the sautéed vegetables, arugula, cheese, and cooked bacon, and stir until well combined. 

Transfer the quiche filling into crust, and use a spoon to smooth the surface. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Quiche will rise while baking, but should settle back down once you remove it from the oven. Remove from the oven and allow the quiche to rest for at least 5 minutes. Slice and serve warm.