Veggie Lasagna with Spinach Pasta

Self-explanatory. Make it, it's delicious.

Veggie/tomato sauce:

1-15 oz can of crushed tomatoes

1-8 oz can of diced tomatoes

1-8 oz can of tomato sauce

1-5 oz can of tomato paste

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp basil

1 tsp salt/pepper each

2 T crushed red peppers

1 carrot, minced

1 celery stalk, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 c Brussel sprouts, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 zucchini, chopped

½ red pepper, chopped

2 c spinach leaves

Olive oil

Add 2 T olive oil to a large saucepan with minced carrot, celery and garlic and sauté on medium heat for 3-4 minutes.  Add oregano, basil, salt and pepper and sauté a couple more minutes. Proceed by adding Brussel sprouts, onion, zucchini and red pepper and allowing to cook for 10-15 minutes. Add all tomato products except for paste and simmer for 20 minutes. Add tomato paste and crushed red peppers. Allow to simmer until ready to use, add spinach 5 minutes before use.

Ricotta cheese filling:

15-oz part-skim ricotta

1 c parmesan

1 T parsley

2 tsp ground pepper

1 egg

2 c shredded mozzarella

Mix all ingredients together EXCEPT mozzarella well and place in fridge covered until use.

Spinach pasta:

2 ½ c all-purpose flour

1 egg

10 oz fresh spinach

Blanch spinach for 2 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water. Squeeze out as much water from the spinach as possible and place in a food processor. Pulse spinach several times. Add egg and pulse several more times to mix together well.

Create a well of flour and place spinach mixture in the center. Slowly begin to incorporate the flour into the spinach-egg mixture by whisking with a fork. Continue to mix until a dough is formed. Slowly add more flour while kneading the dough, just enough for it to not stick to the surface…do NOT add too much flour. Once a soft, lightly sticky dough has formed, wrap in plastic wrap and let sit for 15 minutes.

Roll out dough using a rolling pin or pasta maker until thin (if using a pasta maker, notch 3 or until desired thickness). Cut dough into the length needed for the pan being used (likely 9in x 13in).

Coat bottom of pan with a layer of the vegetable tomato sauce and top with one layer of the spinach pasta. Add ricotta mixture to the top of the pasta and sprinkle some mozzarella on top and any left over Parmesan you have.  Repeat layers ending with tomato sauce. Top with layer of mozzarella.

Cover lasagna pan with a cookie sheet (aluminum foil will cave and stick to the cheese) and cook at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes, broil for the final 3-5 minutes.

Nom nom nom!

~Koober Jr.

Real Men Do Eat Quiche

And occasionally make it. Quiche is actually a great standby dish if you have a yen for throwing some things together and having it come out yummy. For any number of starter recipes search the web or you can go to the classic source: Julia Childs. From there you have a wide, wide range of possibilities both for the crust (or not – crust-less quiche), filling, egg mixture, size baking vehicle, etc. Here are some ideas.

Crust:

Crust has become an interesting development since my younger days. Back when I first learned to cook it was Crisco (brand name for solid vegetable shortening if you’re really young!) that most people used. And before that it was lard. Both make great crusts and to this day I think using “Crisco” is a lot more foolproof than butter. However, there are the health issues, of course. I don’t make a lot of crusts and often when I do, I create, so for a Quiche I typically go back to my mother’s old standard of solid vegetable shortening: it yields a light, flaky, yummy vehicle for the other ingredients to rest in. The old Betty Crocker cookbook has the measures, but essentially you’re talking 1/3 to ½ cup Crisco, 1 ¼-1 ½ cups flour, a nice dash of salt, and water. Mix well, roll out, place in pie plate, ramikins (individual), Quiche dish, whatever you are going to use.  Bake in hot-ish oven (375-425) until partially baked (5-8 minutes) Julia recommends a partially baked crust before adding the rest of the ingredients and she also recommends weighing the crust down with pie weights or, as I did in this case, I placed another, same-size, pie plate on top of the crust, pushed it down until it contacted the crust uniformly, and baked it this way.

If you want to go with butter, the key is COLD! Everything should be cold until you pop it in oven to bake.

Egg mixture:

Julia recommends only three eggs to a quantity of cream (1 ½ to 2 cups). Personally, I tend to go for a few more eggs and a bit less cream. It just changes the texture a bit. Experiment. You can vary this mixture quite a bit – cream, half-and half, even milk (2% or whatever). Depends on how ‘classic’ you want to be. I used five large eggs, and about half cream and half milk. Make enough to fill your dish to about a half inch from top of crust after the other ingredients are added.

What’s inside:

Cheese is not essential, and in some cases not even recommended. Classic Quiche Lorraine doesn’t have it according to Julia. I like adding cheese, and you can use any good melting cheese, though Swiss and its ilk are quite nice.

Veggies: I put in green and yellow zucchini squash, broccoli, shallots AND green onions, a bit of red bell pepper, and some ham, a bit of salt and pepper to taste, and Jarlsberg. Again, classically the quiche should focus on the eggs, but put in what you like in the quantities you like and adjust the amount of the egg mixture accordingly. For this quiche the emphasis was on flavor, I didn’t overwhelm it with veggies, etc.

Bake in hot-ish oven for about 45-50 minutes (350-375). Or, as I did in this case, because I had other things to do while it was baking, I cooked it slower and longer (300 for over an hour).

You may note that this whole dissertation goes back to my roots of being the Irreverent Gourmet. Nothing is sacred unless you make it so. Have some fun.

Joe

Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Rhubarb Sauce

I had an abundance of rhubarb I took from my mom's overly-zealous rhubarb plant in the backyard and what better way to use a bunch of rhubarb than to make a sauce! It just so happened I had just bought cherries, so I threw those into the mix as well. This whole meal was insanely easy and didn't take too long either! Win win. I forgot to take photos of mostly everything, so I apologize for the lack of visual aids.

1 c cherries; halved and pitted

2 c rhubarb, chopped

½ c onion, chopped

1 T balsamic vinegar

4 T sugar

¼ c water

Pork tenderloin

Olive oil

Soak cherries in balsamic vinegar and water for 15 minutes. In a saucepan, sauté onion in 2 T olive oil over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Add the cherry mixture, rhubarb, and sugar to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the rhubarb is tender and begins to fall apart; 5-10 minutes. Set aside for use.

Preheat oven to 425. Put ~2 T an ovenproof skillet and heat on medium-high; sear tenderloin on all sides until lightly browned. Place entire skillet into the oven and cook tenderloin for 15-20 minutes. Serve with sauce, veggies, etc.

~Koober Jr.