Zucchini lasagna - more ways to use garden zucchini

I have yet more zucchini to use up, so I went to an old family standby - the zucchini lasagna. Luckily, unlike a summer many years ago, I only made ONE lasagna, not years' worth of lasagna.

First, the veggies had to be dealt with - two medium onions and one small green pepper from my dad's garden


Those were added to a pound of ground beef and two links of Italian sausage to brown up:


Then I chopped up our "star" ingredient, the zucchini:


And grated cheese, in this case mozzarella and pecorino romano:


And got the filling together - ricotta, herbs, salt/pepper, and an egg:


Meanwhile, I added in the remaining tomato sauce from last week into the meat/veg sauce:


Then I looked at the filling again and decided it needed to be thinner, hence, another egg:


And prepared the pan with a large ladleful of the sauce:


Then began the layering - sauce, noodles, zucchini, ricotta filling, cheese...


Until I filled the pan


I baked this at 375 degrees for probably close to an hour - I covered it with foil for the first 3/4 and then took it off towards the end (when I failed to photograph it). I also made some breadsticks with the remaining pizza dough - dough, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and some Parmesan cheese.


It was pretty good - I definitely needed more sauce, it was a tiny bit dry. I still have more than half a pack of lasagna noodles, though, so I can probably take another crack at it if I desire...I'm sure we've got more zucchini lurking in the fridge.

Homemade tomato sauce

So, the tomatoes are coming in. And the basil. And other veg. My father has a ginormous garden, so he sent me up a dozen and a half or so Roma tomatoes. I decided to make a quick marinara sauce to serve on pizza (the lengths I go to in order to avoid the store).

First, we have our Romas. I did not want the skins in the sauce, nor most of the seeds, so some prep was required. I cut a small cross in the bottoms of each tomato, and plunged them into boiling water for about 30 to 60 seconds. Just enough to loosen or start to split the skins. Then, they are placed in an ice bath to stop the cooking and get them to a temperature where they can be easily handled. The skins should easily peel off at this point. I give them a good squeeze into the sink (and all over the wall, myself, the countertop, usually) to get out the bulk of the seeds and what little juice is inside.


Meanwhile, two medium onions are sauteeing in a pot on the stove.


Then some carrots too - three small/medium carrots peeled and roughly chopped.


Then I figured, what the heck, and tossed in one medium chopped zucchini and a few garlic cloves - I also added some salt at this point, along with black pepper and red pepper flakes.


And in go the naked tomatoes - I smash them up a bit with a wooden spoon, but generally allow the heat to do most of the work.


Once the mixture gets rolling, I added some bay leaves, a few sprigs of thyme from the garden, and other Italiany seasonings - oregano, etc. I also added more salt at this point and eventually, a scant teaspoon of sugar to cut the tomato acidity.


Once the tomatoes were broken down and the other veg totally soft, I removed the bay leaves and thyme stems, and put my boat motor to work to make a spreadable sauce. Here the sauce is, in its pizza glory (on a giant pizza - I was very hungry and didn't realize how much dough I grabbed from the fridge)


Topped it with some pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, grated provolone/regular mozzarella, parmesan, fresh basil from the garden and remaining Roma tomatoes. I also forgot to brush the crust with olive oil, oh well.


And here is the giant pizza after about 12 minutes in a 475 degree oven - golden and bubbly.


I didn't eat all this - I split part of it with Mr. R - even we are that greedy. :)

Pizza partay

We had a pizza party last night. Well, not so much a party as just having delicious homemade pizza for dinner. But using a new dough made it seem more festive somehow. Something had been missing from previous homemade dough attempts - the crust didn't just lend itself to making pizza as well as I'd have liked - not too much flavor, not v. stretchy. So, I broadened my horizons and sought out a new recipe. Tonight's efforts were well worth the moderate additional effort to make this dough. I decided to trust Mr. Batali and give his dough a whirl.

First, you bloom the yeast in a mixture of warm water and wine. Yes, wine. Last night, I used a pinot grigio, but in the future, I may try a red. Then you add honey, salt, and 1 c of flour (oh, this is all by hand - NO MIXER)

Next, you blend in the remaining 2 c of flour until you can no longer stir
Then roll out onto a floured board and hand knead for about 7 minutes - the dough came together amazingly well given the ragged, floury state of it out of the mixing bowl.Then, after a 45 minute rise*, you are ready to make the pizza.

This dough was beautiful to work with - v. stretchy, yet pliable. Not stiff. It easily rolled into whatever abstract form I desired. Then I put a bit of sauce and a bit of pesto on top.

Then some pepperoni and tomatoes, and cheese, of course

10 minutes in a 475 degree oven and we were ready to slam it. This was Mr. R's personal pizza.


And here is mine. I was constrained by the fact that I couldn't find any of my flat normal cookie sheets, so I had to use a short narrow one. Hence, the long rectangle of 'za.

This dough was really good. Easy to make and work and it had more flavor than your standard homemade dough. The thin parts were crackery** yet tender and the thicker parts of the crust had a nice chewy texture. Will DEF be making this again.


*I decided the cold oven wasn't exactly warm enough for the dough to rise, so I turned the oven on, intending to let it run for about 30 seconds, then turn it back off. 10 minutes later the oven beeped to let me know it had reached 350 degrees. I FLEW to the stove to turn it off and rescue my potentially dead dough. It DID get a bit dry on top, but it kept rising in the fridge, so the little yeasties were still alive apparently. Do not do this yourselves.

** The thinner crust was decidedly similar to a certain Barnaby's pizza in South Bend, IN. So a certain father of mine should make it soon.

When life gives you saffron, make a risotto!

I love risotto. But for whatever reason, I've not made it in ages. Mr. R gave me saffron threads for my birthday in March and has been after me to use some ever since. So, I decided to make something that would show off the saffron without overwhelming it - a saffron risotto. I did a bit of research and landed on a Mario Batali recipe that didn't require unusual ingredients (beyond saffron) and didn't add in too much other "stuff" to take away from the saffron flavor, a Risotto Milanese.

First, we chop the onions:
And measure out the precious saffron threads:
The onions go into a large saute pan with some olive oil, while the saffron goes into the chicken stock to "infuse" the stock:Once the onions have softened, you add the arborio rice and let that get coated with oniony flavor. Then wine - then you start adding the bright yellow saffron/chicken stock - one ladle at a time. Here we are midway through adding the entire amount of stock:
And at the end. The arborio gives off starch to make a creamy texture.
Then, you add in a few handful of grated Parmesan and some butter at the end. Obviously, I needed more Parm before eating:
This was a tasty, basic risotto. To be honest, the saffron didn't blow me away. I could smell it in the finished product, but it didn't add any flavor. I guess Mr. R and I are used to jazzier risottos - stuff with some pancetta, or else a butternut squash/sage mix. It was a fairly subtle set of flavors. I'll keep my eye out for saffron recipes in the future!

The start of the month

So, Mr. R and I are starting a new way of grocery shopping. Industrial, utilitarian, and Midwestern in its manner, I am aiming to only go to the store once per month, with interim stops only for milk and other perishables. We rely primarily on frozen veggies, so that isn't an issue, and I've frontloaded most other perishables into the earlier weeks of the monthly menu. I am optimistic that this will be both a time and money saving plan, as our grocery bills had ballooned out of control for a family of 2 plus one spastic dog.

So, with that in mind, I planned 15 meals for the month (each to be eaten for two nights plus leftover lunches). Night one - faux lasagna (faux in that, I had penne, so I used penne instead of lasagna noodles).

First, I browned up a pound of ground beef with 2 small sliced onions, some garlic, and a TON of Penzey's pizza seasoning. This pizza seasoning was the whip. It had all kinds of delicious flavors - fennel, basil, oregano, etc - and really was tasty. Once browned up, I added in about 1 1/2 c of marinara sauce I'd made a while back (in retrospect, 2 c would have been better, even 2 1/2). Meanwhile, I prepped the creamy filling. I mixed equal parts ricotta and cottage cheese, an egg, garlic, thyme, basil, salt and pepper.
After cooking a pound of mini penne, I began the layering. A spoonful of sauce, penne, ricotta mix, repeat. SOMEONE ate all my cheeses, so I had to rely only on Parmesan on top. Then, it was ready for baking.I baked it, covered, at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. Notice the lovely Do-si-Dos in the background. V integral. Then gently served (note - cannot serve slices like you can regular lasagna, penne went flying). You'll notice it is a bit dry - extra sauce would have been useful. But it is really tasty!

Meatball superheroes

I set aside a some meat to make meatballs last week and last month had been inspired to modify my recipe by a Wellfed post on the topic. I could not do away with onion and garlic in my meatballs, so I did not adhere to the Wellfed recipe in its entirety but I did adopt two elements - adding ricotta the mixture and flouring the meatballs before frying them. Both elements were excellent ideas and will become part of my normal meatball-making routine.

To make the meatballs, I first mixed 1 cup of ricotta cheese, a handful of parmesan, one egg, a splash of milk, about 1/3 c of seasoned breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, 1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning, 2 grated cloves of garlic, and 1/2 of a grated onion. I let that sit for a few minutes to allow the breadcrumbs to soften. For the meat, I used slightly over one pound of ground beef, one-half pound of ground pork, and I randomly had about a quarter pound of ground lamb in the freezer from the gyro-making adventure, so I tossed that in (note to self - the lamb overpowered everything else, which wasn't horrible, but still, not what I was necessarily looking for). I gently mixed everything, then scooped out the meatballs and rolled in flour. Here we have some meatballs lined up awaiting their flouring, some already floured:Then eat meatballs got a lovely fry up in the skillet in a small amount of olive oil. I fried in about 3 batches, because I needed plenty of room so I wouldn't mush up the meatballs and so they'd get a nice crust. Then, they got added back into the sauce and cooked for...a while (v. technical) until we were ready to assemble the sandwiches. Cook until the meat is cooked through.For the sandwiches, I lightly toasted soft hoagie rolls, then layered on some smoky provolone, the meatballs, some more parm, then ran them through the oven again.They were served with corn, in the manner of a school lunch. But they were delish! The meatballs were VERY tender and held together well (I often have problems with my meatballs disintegrating). I was amazed at how light the meatballs were though, I think the ricotta really lightens them up! I highly recommend!

Swing and a miss...

For some reason, I'd been in a mood to try my hand at Chicken Cacciatore for a while. I'm not sure why. It just seemed to strike me as something we would enjoy - chicken in a tomato-y stew served over rice or other starch. I'm not sure how it went wrong - well, not so much wrong, but just not right. I wasn't in the mood for meat last week, so that was my problem. And R just found it bland, although, I'm not sure why. Needless to say, it was not a culinary triumph. I researched several recipes, but didn't love any of them, so I stole from many and created my own. Maybe that was a flawed method, but whatever, here's what I did:

Here are some of the characters in this sad play:
Then I salted and peppered the chicken thighs and browned them up:Then removed them to a platter and added two diced onions and 3 peeled and chopped carrots to the pan: While these softened, I had a red bell pepper roasting in the oven (400 degrees, rotating from time to time, until a bit charred and v. soft, usually about 15-20 minutes). I then put it under the glass bowl to steam so the skin could be removed.
Meanwhile, back at Pan Central, I added 8 oz of cremini mushrooms to the mix. Then several cloves of minced garlic and a big dollop of tomato paste.
Then our friend white wine came to the party.And finally, one large can of diced tomatoes and about a cup of crushed tomatoes. I also added back in the chicken thighs to finish cooking.Cook for another 20-30 minutes, then serve over some fluffy white rice. The end. As I said, it was ok. I actually liked the stew portion - the chicken wasn't doing it for me. And R said it was a bit blah. But whatever, maybe it was just a phase of the moon.