Food

Yes, you read that title right, white lasagna.  See, I’m not a huge fan of tomato sauce.  Its ok in pizza, but thats about it.  So a while back I went looking for a white lasagna recipe.  Ran across one that was titled “(Major Chain Restaurant)’s 5 Cheese Lasagna”, the recipe called for the addition of chicken, and 2 cheeses I’d never heard of, one of which I wasn’t able to find locally.  So I “fixed” it.

Mind, its STILL not a recipe for anyone on a diet.  But I dumbed it down a bit, made it a bit easier to make, and so I make it a couple times every winter.  I cheat and use the pre-cooked lasagna noodles (the trick to make them taste right is to pre-soak them, before you do anything else for the lasagna set the noodles to soak in a pan of warm water, it makes a HUGE difference), but I DO use fresh cheese as much as possible.  I’ve had a couple people suggest that you could slice up some fresh tomatoes, or zucchini or the like and layer that in with the cheese, and I’m sure it would be wonderful that way too…..but I like it just the way it is.  I usually make a small lasagna pan, and several single serve size Pyrex containers, then once cool, put the lids on the Pyrex containers and freeze them for later.

(and yes, I’m making this for supper tonight!)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• 1 Tbls. minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1-32oz pkg ricotta cheese
• lasagna noodles
• Cheese: lots, I usually grab a good sized block of sharp cheddar, a couple large rolls of mozzarella, some fresh provolone, some asiago, a good sized block of Parmesan, and whatever else catches my eye at the grocery store.  You can do this with all pre-shredded cheese, but you’ll miss out, trust me.

 Directions:

• In a 1qt sauce pan heat the milk, pepper, garlic and salt, stirring constantly as mixture comes to a simmer, add the flour and stir till it thickens
• Refrigerate till cool (does not have to be cold, just not hot) 
• If using pre-cooked noodles now is the time to set them to soak, also preheat oven to 350F
• Spread a THIN layer (as in barely there) of the ricotta cheese and a small amount of the milk sauce across the bottom of the pan
• Spread out first layer of noodles and then spread ricotta cheese then layer on a handful of each of the cheese, and a little milk sauce. Repeat pasta, cheese layering till pan is full
• On the top layer of noodles repeat cheese layering and pour the rest of the milk sauce on top
• Cover with tinfoil (and I recommend layering some tinfoil on the bottom shelf of the oven under the pan in case the cheese bubbles over)
• Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour (if making single serves like I do they’ll probably come out about the 45 minute mark, though the time I forgot and left them in the hour they were fine)
• Remove from oven and loosen, but do not remove, the tinfoil
• Let set for at least 20 minutes (or as long as possible, I usually barely make it 10….) before serving to allow cheese the set (or it’ll go gooey all over the bottom when you try to lift out a piece), I usually just sit it on top of the warm oven to set without going cold 
• Enjoy!  (and don’t complain to me when your doctor has a fit over your cholesterol, I DID warn you!) 

Edited cause I almost forgot: the made, but uncooked lasagna will keep overnight in the fridge just fine, infact I’ve made it that way for cooking the next day several times, I have not tried freezing the uncooked lasagna.  Cooked lasagna keeps for several days in the fridge and freezes and reheats just fine.

We’re headed for my inlaws, no major travel involved, and no major cooking required on my part.  Which is good, since I could probably avoid burning the turkey but thats about the limits of my holiday cooking.  I have NO INTEREST in running around the kitchen for the previous 24hrs in an attempt to cook up a storm for a single meal (to be fair neither does my mother-in-law, and she somehow manages to produce an awesome Thanksgiving dinner with out doing so, the fact that the kids all help by bringing food helps).

My sole contribution to Thanksgiving dinner is homemade zucchini bread.  For those if you who’ve never had it and are now looking at your computer screen like it just sprouted tentacles I promise its GOOD, and it doesn’t taste at ALL like zucchini, and other than some bits and pieces of green in the final product you’d never know it was there either.  My dad used to make it when I was a kid.  When I moved out, and asked him for his recipe, I was informed he didn’t have one, and just kinda “tossed things in the bowl till it mixed up right”.  Sigh, the downsides to having a father who was taught to cook by an old fashioned housewife (the upside was fresh homemade bread and other sundries weekly ALWAYS).  Every recipe I found didn’t quite work right, something was off.

Finally I ran across the following recipe on Food Network’s site, and it only required minor modification to make it damn near perfect.  I’ve never put the lemon juice in (I somehow never have any on hand when I’m making it, therefor its never had it, and frankly I’m not missing it), and I’ve never put in the chopped nuts (cause I HATE nuts in my baked goods, I’ve been known to pick them out of all sorts of things), and I cut the sugar in half (cause god the original recipe is sweet).  So here’s my current zucchini bread recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 cups grated zucchini

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, and zucchini. Mix wet ingredients into dry. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, sprayed with nonstick spray, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.

Now I’ll usually run the zucchini through the smallest cutters on the mandolin cutter rather than grate it, doing so is easier on my hands, and the larger chunks don’t seem to make any difference in the overall product (though folks who don’t know what they’re eating occasionally freak out over the green stuff in their bread).  2 cups is about two small zucchini, or one large, depending on how tightly you pack it.  I also often pour it into muffin tins instead of bread pans, especially if I’m making it for anything other than a holiday, as its easier to just eat a muffin or two and then stop where when its a loaf we generally finish off it off in less than 24hrs.

Yesterday I decided to try my hand at making butter.  Why, I’m not entirely sure, other than it seemed one of those oddly gourmet sorta thing to do and yet seemed REALLY easy to do.  There are instructions online in about a million places for home made butter, but they’re all pretty much identical, I picked this set because I liked the pictures.  I will say it was more like 1/2 hour to get butter rather than 10 minutes.  Not sure why.  But otherwise it really was as easy as they said it was.  Pour whipping cream in the mixer, and let it run till it forms butter.  Used the buttermilk this morning to make pancakes, and of course used the butter ON the pancakes.  Turned out pretty good too, though I’m not sure its worth the fuss and bother.

Then today I decided to try my hand at the cheese spread recipe I mentioned before.  Much thanks to North and DaddyBear for the suggestions and help.  My ingredients were about 9oz of cheese total, mostly sharp chedder (cubed), with a handfull of grated asiago, 1/4 pound of butter (softened in the microwave), a big dollop of sour cream, and a dash of Red Hot.  First thing I learned: my blender hates me.  I really need a food processer if I’m going to start doing things like this on a regular basis.  The blender managed, but it wasn’t happy about it.  I’m also not sure the flavor is going to be strong enough, I might want some extra extra sharp chedder next time.  But its currently sitting in the fridge solidifying a bit so we’ll see.  Flavor at first spoon lick wasn’t bad, just not as strong as I was hoping for.  Unless it turns out really nasty (which I don’t expect at this point) I’ll eat it no problem, but I’ll have to break down and get the food processer before I start serious experimenting.  I think a bit less sour cream less time, unless it solidifies up more than expected its a bit creamer than I prefer.  Also the stick of butter seemed a bit much, though it blended in better than I thought at first glance.

Sorry for the less than steller pictures, I almost forgot to take them at all!

Ok, I know there’s a couple folks who read this who COOK, where as I CAN cook, but am generally much happier following a recipe (there are exceptions to that, but not many).  Once I know a recipe reasonably well I’ll play with it, but I gotta have that start.

So, I want to make my own cheese spread.  Why?  Cause a really GOOD cheese spread is hard to get sometimes, and the rest kinda suck.  The BEST cheese spread I can get locally I have to go rather out of my way for and it costs more than the rest (of course), its worth it, but its still money and time spent that gets annoying when I want cheese spread.

So I went looking for recipes.  I’m gonna link to three, there’s lots more, but these three seem to be reasonably good examples of what I’m seeing:

recipe 1
recipe 2
recipe 3

So.  The are some rather significant differences here, and I’m bit stumped as to which I’m likely to want to try.  They all call for butter, but one also calls for sour cream.  One calls for white wine (but notes that if you only have water that’ll work), the others don’t call for any liquid.  The amounts I’m less worried about (though there’s some significant differences there too), I’m capable of adding bit by bit till I get the texture I want, and I can figure out flavorings myself, but does anyone have any ideas as to which recipe might be a better choice (or at least WHY this one calls for sour cream, and that one white wine….), or do you have a recipe to share that you’ve already tried?

So I posted way back about how I use the Vermont Powered Cheddar cheese from King Arthur Flour to make a home-made version of Smart Food popcorn.  I’ve loved the cheesey popcorns since the first time someone introduced me to Smart Food when I was a kid.  The stuff’s addictive and I can’t NOT eat a whole bag in one sitting.  So since I could really stand to loose a few (ok, several) pounds I don’t buy it at all any more.  But that left the cheesey popcorn craving just so unsatisfied till I found the cheese powder at King Arthur.

Just the difference in calorie counts is huge.  According to the Smart Food link above a 1oz serving (of which I usually eat 3 or 4 of) of Smart Food contains 160 calories, 10g of fat, and 14g of carbohydrates.

My homemade cheezey popcorn (recipe to follow) approx 95 calories, 4.5g of fat, and 9g of carbohydrates (nutritional data for the cheese powder is on the above link, for plain popcorn see here)

See what I mean?  And my recipe makes a whole lot more than a single 1oz serving.

How to make homemade cheezey popcorn:

First off pop your popcorn in the method of your choice, keeping in mind that if you pop in oil it may raise the above numbers a bit.  I use a Whirley Pop popcorn popper and love it (got mine locally, Amazon is a handy link).  My Whirley Pop will do a 1/2 cup of corn comfortably so thats the amount I usually do at one time.

Sprinkle 2 to 3 tablespoons of the cheese powder over the top of the popped corn and mix in (yes this requires a very large bowl, or you’ll have popcorn everywhere).

Then sit down in-front of your favorite movie and enjoy!

If you wish to save some for later bag it up into single serving size ziplocks as soon as its cool enough to handle (which happens pretty quick), as the longer you let it sit the more stale it’ll taste later.  Make sure you get all the extra air out to help keep the popcorn from going stale.  You could bag it up in a single big bag, but I find the single serving size handy when I’m rushing out the door to work.  I’ve found it’ll keep that way just fine for at least a couple days.  Might keep longer, but I’ve usually eaten it by then!