Tim informed me the other day that he would like more lasagna, meatloaf, and tacos in his life. Cool. I can do that. I had lasagna on the menu before he even asked.
Winner. (Um, both of us.)
I woke up really early this morning to get started, since I had two meals to cook and photograph. Boy was it fun. No really, it was. I’m totally not being sarcastic. I enjoyed a full day of cooking and picture making.
It’s a lot of fun to cook and photograph for you guys to see on here. But, let’s be honest, when I know that Tim is going to love something as much as he loves lasagna, well, not much can beat that.
We just moved and have some friends coming to visit from Germany next week (yippee!). So I made two, and put one in the freezer. That means that if my kitchen isn’t completely unpacked, or if I don’t have the energy after unpacking and working all day, I can pop a lasagna in the oven, and dinner is taken care of… except for the caesar salad and garlic bread that will definitely need to accompany the meal. Other than that, all I have to do is open the wine.
This is my version of a classic meat and cheese lasagna, with lots of veggies. I threw in some radish, kale, celery, and carrot. I’m not really afraid of veggie-ing up a dish. If you don’t heart vegetables, you are not alone (sorrynotsorry). Yesterday, Tim told me that something we had for dinner was “really good, for vegetables”. We may not share the same opinion about the deliciousness of greens. 😉
Thankfully, we do both really enjoy cheese. I know you can use ricotta for lasagna, but I couldn’t find it at the store, so I used cottage cheese. It’s mixed together with Greek yogurt, mozzarella, and parmesan. I’m not sure that you could have too much of this cheesy mixture.
The sauce is simple, it’s almost just tomato sauce and herbs. Like the cheese mixture, too much is a good thing.
The anatomy of the lasagna and the way it all comes together.
Also, the sunlight changes more than I’d noticed in real life.
It bakes up and bubbles and melts and mmmm tastes so good. You should’a seen the huge helping Tim got. And then I looked over and it was gone. So I gave him a bite of mine. He can’t get enough lasagna.
I served this lasagna with some crazy good garlic bread. Done and done.
1 – 9 oz. box (about 12 noodles) lasagna noodles (the kind that don’t need to be cooked first*)
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
Cook beef until partially done, then add garlic through celery, and cook for 5-10 minutes. Add kale and wilt down, about 5 minutes. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Taste and adjust seasoning. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.
Mix together cheese filling ingredients. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Mix together tomato sauce ingredients. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Grease two 8×8 pans (or one 9×13). Spoon a bit of sauce into the bottom of the pan and top with two noodles. Top noodles with meat and vegetable filling, then with cheese mixture, and more sauce. Repeat three more times, topping last set of noodles with lots of sauce and reserved mozzarella.
Bake covered for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 30-40 more.
Alexandra Joy is a busy new mom. She has a four month old daughter named Clover (hello cutest name ever!) and is the owner of Pink & Honey Event Styling. Yet she still makes the time to love on friends like me and tell people about my work. So I thought, what better dish for a tired mama than a quick flatbread?!
You need some cheese, mushrooms, and prosciutto.
Lemon, basil, and walnuts are a must. They transform this flatbread from “pretty great” to “putthisonthemenueveryweekforrealforrealforreal”.
It all goes onto a thin pizza crust that’s topped with some olive oil and salt. A tired mom could do that, right? (Seriously, I’m asking. I have no idea.)
This can be an appetizer (hello Oscar party!), a snack (what I’ve been eating all day), or a light dinner (falling asleep at the table is totally allowed).
I made it this morning. I’d already eaten breakfast (ok, like two hours before, but still…) and I couldn’t stop eating. I only had two slices, but I’m confident that I could have devoured two or three more the entire thing. Seriously good food.
The only problem is that I don’t want to share… I guess it’s a good thing that AJ lives about 1,150 miles away (actually, I’d rather she lived closer – I’d share).
I’m thankful for great friends and good food.
Happy Eating!
Mushroom and Prosciutto Flatbread
Recipe Type: Pizza, Flatbread, Oven, Appetizer, Dinner, Party Food
Author: Rachel Oberg – De Ma Cuisine
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 2-4
Ingredients
1 pizza crust
olive oil
to taste salt
to taste pepper (optional)
3/4 C mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/3 C (3 slices) prosciutto, chopped
1/2 C gruyere cheese, grated
1/2 C Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 C walnuts, chopped
fresh basil, chiffonade (or sliced into ribbons), for serving
lemon wedges, for serving
Instructions
Pre-heat oven according to pizza crust recipe (I cooked it at 450F).
Thinly roll crust on a greased baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with cheese (reserving 1/4 C), mushrooms, prosciutto, walnuts, and remaining cheese.
Bake for about 10 minutes, or until crust is to desired crispiness and cheese is melted.
Serve topped with basil and a squeeze of lemon.
3.2.1275
I used Alana’s crust from her The Homemade Pantry cookbook (p.172) and it was just perfect. I made it the night before and (as instructed) let it rise for about 15 hours. Fabulous!
The smoke detector will go off when the oven is at 500F and there’s a pizza stone in there.
Artichokes may be best on pizza.
When I’m tired I type things like, “Almost anything is better when it tastes like garbage.”
I like one of these two lessons. No, two of them. I still can’t stop laughing at the garbage line. And I like that almost anything is better when it tastes like pizza.
Take artichokes for example. Sure, they’re fun to eat steamed, grilled, boiled and then dunked in dip. That’s a good thing. But, I wondered to myself the other day if they might not be even better on pizza.
I think they are. It may be my new go-to way to eat them.
Carrots on the other hand, can be used in about a million different ways, and are delicious in all of them. I mean, you can make them into cake for goodness sake! (And I made a rhyme… cool.) How many things can you eat raw and in a cake and call them both extraordinary?
Rosemary compliments the artichokes and carrots. Lemon zest and juice are added to tomato sauce to make a tangy, citrusy pizza. Everyone is topped with some Gruyère and Parmesan cheese. Yep, you’re welcome.
One of the day’s lessons came when I was following the recipe in Alice Water’sThe Art of Simple Food for pizza dough. Her recipe says to pre-heat the oven to 500F with a pizza stone in there. I was gonna prepare the pizza on the pizza peel and slide it onto the hot stone. But, our smoke detector is in our kitchen (since our kitchen is a part of the living room), so it started screaming at me. I know that pizza stones can smoke, but I didn’t want the noise to continue. So, lesson learned. For as long as we live here, with this particular kitchen, I will not be using a pizza stone.
I used a regular pizza pan and it worked out just fine. Plus the noise stopped.
The artichoke hearts were steamed before they went on to the pizza, which makes them tender and delicious. The lemon gives them a good citrusy kick, and the rosemary brings an earthy balance to each slice. The carrots, well, they seem to get along with everyone, so they’re there, in the background, sharing a little bit of sweetness.
All in all, a great new way to use artichokes… or maybe just new to me. You might have been doing this all along. Sometimes I need to catch up. Especially on a day like today when my brain has not brought it’s A game. I blame the olympics. They keep me up way too late.
Happy Eating!
Veggie Pizza with Artichoke Hearts
Recipe Type: Pizza, Main Dishes, Vegetarian
Author: Rachel Oberg – De Ma Cuisine
Serves: 2-4
Ingredients
3 large artichoke hearts (choke removed), halved (save leaves to steam and eat)
water
1 pizza crust
1 C tomato sauce
1/2 to 1 t fresh rosemary, chopped
to taste salt
to taste pepper
1/4 to 1/2 t red pepper flakes
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 small carrot, grated
3/4 C gruyère cheese, grated
1/4 C parmesan cheese, grated
Instructions
Pre-heat oven according to your favorite pizza crust recipe.
Place artichoke hearts in a steamer basket in a pot with about 1″ boiling water in the bottom. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, or until artichokes are tender. Roughly chop and set aside.
To make sauce: Combine tomato sauce with rosemary, seasonings, lemon zest and juice. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
Roll out pizza dough.
Top crust with sauce, cheese, veggies, and a little more cheese.
Bake according to crust recipe until crust is crispy and slightly browned and cheese is melted.
Notes
The sauce is enough for 3-4 pizzas. Freeze any leftovers for next time!
While we were in Paris we ate out a lot. We had Boeuf Bourguignon, Roast Beef and Potatoes, and Chicken and Rice. We ate baguettes, croissants, and pain au chocolate. It was pretty much the best ever. Ever ever ever.
Tim really wanted me to take some cooking classes while we were there. We found a little school about a 15 minute walk from our Montmartre flat called Cook’n With Class. Know what makes the best vacation even better? When you can (somewhat) duplicate the foods when you return home.
The first class that I took was a baking class with Chef Emmanuelle. She’s a great teacher. She made the class fun and comfortable, and made the recipes seem possible (I had had the impression that French baking was impossible – I now know that I was wrong).
She taught us how to make pain au chocolate (which I’ve decided was better than any that we bought at the patisseries or boulangeries in Paris). They were incredible and surprisingly easy to make (easy being relative though – we’re still baking).
We made a strudel avec des pommes (apple strudel). Oh so divine. I got to braid it. Yeah, I know. I felt pretty cool doing it.
And then… the croissants. Once again, not as difficult as I’d imagined they’d be. They’re next on my list of Paris foods to make. I have pounds and pounds of butter in the fridge just waiting. I’m not sure how many croissants I ate in Paris. Too many to count. I’ve had one since we returned. It was meh. I’m sure that even the ones I make won’t be quite the same.
We also made pain aux raisins, which is like a raisin bread with a custardy filling and an apricot glaze.
I’ll take two, please.
At Cook’n With Class they were happy to have Tim come by to taste the food we’d made. And they even let our German friends (who came to visit us) try some. Since Tim didn’t take the classes with me, it was special to be able to share what I’d made with him.
We got to take home the leftovers too.
I really want one many pain au chocolate right now.
The second class that I took was the Evening Market Class with Chef Patrick. He is a world class chef. Wow. So talented. We put vanilla beans in mashed potatoes (mind blown), we crushed coriander by hand, and we stuffed cherry tomatoes with spices and torn basil leaves.
This class was really cool. We met at a nearby metro stop and then walked over to some of the market streets. We bought most of the ingredients for our four course dinner. The first course was (I’m totally sighing as I write this because I can’t stand that I’m not eating this right NOW!) Duck Magret with Sweet Wine “Jus”with Sautéed and Caramelized Pears with a salad that had a delicious vinaigrette.
The second course was Fish Fillets with Dijon Mustard Sauce with Herbs, Sweet Red Chili and Basil Slow-Baked Tomatoes, Vanilla Mashed Potatoes, and Peas.
Chef Patrick asked if anyone wanted to learn how to skin the fish. Fish that he’d just chosen from the fishmonger an hour earlier. I tried. You guys, it’s way harder than it looked!
Since people in the class knew that I had some experience with cooking, I got volunteered to help a few times. I didn’t mind. I pretended that I knew what I was doing. My jobs were to plate the tomatoes (that we all seasoned and stuffed), to watch the potatoes, and when they were done, to add the cream and butter. (Um, I added a lot – I was kinda expecting him to tell me when to stop. He didn’t. Cool. I like butter and cream. I think I added just the right amount.)
And then there was dessert. I’m so not a sweets person. This Lava Cake was insane. There’s some serious gooey goodness going on there. Another on my ever lengthening list of things I must make from Paris.
In Paris you get to eat cheese after dessert. No matter that we were incredibly full after the first three courses (I didn’t just try things, I ate everything). It was time for cheese and more wine. (We drank a lot of wine in Paris. It was often the cheapest beverage on the menu.)
I can’t remember the names of the cheeses. I do know that one was a brie, there was a goat cheese, a super aged something or other, a roquefort (I think), and a something else. They were arranged in order of stinkiness.
The class lasted for about 6 hours. Tim had bought a dinner ticket, so he joined us right before we started eating. We walked home late that night, hoping that we’d be hungry in the morning, since I had my French Bread Making Class coming up.
Chef Alex taught this, my last class. It was just a few days before we were to leave. I’d had probably a baguette a day, maybe more. I was ready to make my own.
They were much more difficult than I’d imagined they’d be. I figured that I’d made bread before and I’d be pretty good at it.
Nope.
No expert here.
I mean, they turned out great. But, that was because Alex would come over and ask what I was doing and then tell me what I was actually supposed to be doing. I got it, eventually, and we successfully made real French baguettes. Best food ever.
Tim was once again invited to taste the treats we’d prepared. In addition to the baguettes, we made two kinds of brioche (rolls and a braided loaf)‚ fougasse(focaccia), and these rolls that were made with a Beaujolais wine (the worst wine to drink, but it made for a yummy bread), sausage, and nuts. And of course there was wine and cheese to go with it. Even though we’d eaten a huge meal the night before we had room for plenty of bread.
One of the things that I miss the most about Paris: the baguettes. Big surprise. For Christmas Tim gave me a kitchen scale (it was suggested that I have one before trying to bake on my own). A few weeks ago I was finally able to make real French baguettes at home. Ok, kinda real. They weren’t the same, but they were pretty good.
So, friends, if you’re ever in Paris (and I really hope you are), I’d definitely recommend taking a cooking class from my friends at Cook’n With Class. What a fun and delicious experience it was.
They were kind enough to allow me to share their baguette recipe with you. Some of the instructions make more sense after you’ve taken a class. If that’s the case, um, they’re located at 6 rue Baudelique 75018 Paris, France. 😉
2 1/4 pounds / 1 kg all purpose flour or bread flour
1 1/2 pounds /650 to 700 g of water, cold from tap (distilled is better)
1/2 oz /16 g of dry yeast OR 1oz/ 32 grams of fresh yeast
2/3 oz or 22 g fine sea salt
Instructions
In a stand-up mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add flour, then water. Mix 30 seconds just to combine the ingredients. (You can also by hand use the dough hook to stir the flour and water together until all of the flour is wet). Cover and let rest for 30 minutes (autolysis). In these 30 minutes the flour will slowly absorb the water.
Now using the dough hook. Start on medium speed and add slowly the yeast, then the salt. Keep mixing for about 5 minutes on medium low speed, let rest 10 minutes and then mix again on high for 5 minutes to develop the gluten. The dough is done when a small piece can be stretched so thin you can see your fingers through it. (This is called the windowpane test). The dough should be very smooth and should not be any warmer than 27C /80F.
Let the dough rest, covered, for about 1 hour at room temperature. If the room is too hot place the dough in the fridge, always covered.
Optional but well worth the effort: Turn the dough over onto itself every 15 minutes during the hour that it rests or just until it becomes to elastic to stretch, this technique will help develop fantastic air pockets in the dough. Slap the dough onto the table a few times, then place in large plastic container 30cm x 40cm lightly greased with vegetable oil. Cover with lightly oiled film, place in the fridge for 14 to 16 hours.
Take the dough out of the fridge and gently place it on a floured table. Divide into 6 rectangular pieces. Keep the sticky side facing up and gently fold the dough a third of the way down your rectangle, do this by pulling the dough over your thumb as to not push all the air out of the dough. Then by using the piano fingers technique spread the dough laterally while also pushing forward you are trying to form a tighter skin around the dough to trap the air. Repeat this a couple of times, then using your thumbs, seal the dough to itself, forming a seam. Place these pre-formed baguettes on a tray covered by a tea towel until they are about 50% larger, This will take roughly 1/2 hour for this rising.) During this next phase you will try to save as much air pockets as possible. If you’re too rough the dough will deflate and the crumb will be more dense and even. Shape each piece into a baguette by placing each pre-formed baguette onto a lightly floured surface the sticky side up and repeating the folding steps noted above create the seal by pinching the seal onto the bench with your thumbs. Gently roll the baguette with your hands to achieve the final baguette shape. Place each baguette on a baking sheet lined with parchment and then lightly floured. Gently roll the formed baguettes onto the baguette baking trays seam side down, then cover again until about 50% larger than they were… maybe doubled.
Place a shallow pan in the bottom of the oven and preheat to 475F (250C) degrees.
Using a razor or sharp knife make 1/4 inch deep, diagonal slashes, 3 to 4 times down the length of the loaf. (for a half baguette) 6 to 7 for a full baguette) do this by holding the end of the baguette with one hand, and with the other hand, make quick slashes along the length of the baguette. Pour about 1/4 of a cup of water in the pan in the bottom of the oven, and place baguettes in the oven, working quickly vaporize the oven and generously vaporize the baguettes with a spray bottle. Quickly close the as not to lose too much heat. Keep making steam for the first 10 minutes to help developing a nice thick crust. Bake the bread for about 20 minutes until browned.
You can use an instant read thermometer to test for doneness. The bread should have an internal temperature of 200F/93C degrees when done. When the bread is cooked it sounds hollow when you tap it.
If you’re like me, Thanksgiving might just be one of your favorite meals of the year. My perfect bite is one that includes EVERYTHING: mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, and cranberry sauce. And, yes, I am a traditionalist when it comes to the Thanksgiving meal food. I don’t want roast beef, I’d rather not have creamed corn, and I definitely don’t need a salad. I love all these things, buuuut, not at Thanksgiving. To be honest, I can even do without the rolls (but that’s only because they kinda just take up extra stomach space that could be used for more of everything else). However… I know that not everyone feels the same way. And that’s great. We don’t all need to think like I do.
Some may think it would be fun to eat something other than turkey for Thanksgiving. Awesome. Some may not love mashed potatoes and gravy. Cool. Some may detest sweet potatoes and green beans. I think you’re missing out, but then there’s more for me. Whatever your reason, I do love to plan a fun themed menu, so I have some ideas for you.
To start, you could enjoy a delicious Roasted Butternut Squash Soup. I made this soup a few weeks ago and I just loved it (um, I will note that Tim, who is not a super fan of squash, said it was good, for a squash dish ;)).
If you need some sort of bread to go with a special meal, Garlic Bread would be fun. (When we eat garlic bread, sometimes I don’t want to eat whatever else we’re having because I love bread so much.)
Pomegranates are in season. How about making some homemade Pomegranate Juice to drink? Confession: I’ve never done this. I need to.
Ok, now we need something to replace the traditional Pumpkin Pie. I made these Apple Bourbon Galettes a few weeks ago and they were phenomenal. They’re great for a special occasion, but also perfect for a weeknight dinner… yes!
On Wednesday I will have some ideas for what to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers. I wonder if anyone in the history of Thanksgiving has ever not had leftovers. I doubt it. Actually, I don’t think I like that idea. Thanksgiving leftovers are so yummy!!
1/4 C coconut palm sugar (or brown sugar or raw sugar)
1/4 C maple syrup
2 t bourbon (optional)
2 t vanilla extract
1 T apple cider vinegar
pinch salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1-2 pinches ginger
1-2 pinches allspice
4-5 (about 4-5 C) apples, thinly sliced
1 pie crust, divided in 4
1 egg, whisked
butter, for greasing
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 375F. Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Butter the parchment paper.
Whisk together honey through allspice (it’s ok if there are still small chunks of butter).
Toss sweet mixture with apples, making sure all apples are coated.
Roll out individual pieces of crust in a circle. Place on parchment paper. Place a few scoops of filling on one crust. Fold crust up and around filling, leaving the center open. Make sure there are no cracks in the crust or the liquid will run. Repeat with remaining pieces of crust.
Brush each crust with egg.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until crust is golden and flaky.
