Lasagna, to eat it or wear it, either is joy (apparently)

So,  a few days ago we made a staple for both Scott and I when we were growing up: Lasagna.  Funny enough our moms had totally different approaches (this was the only thing my mom did that was sort of serious cooking-- she took loads of time to make a sauce from scratch and this was  a lovely little short cutted meal for my m-i-l who actually didn't even cook the noodles in her version!)-- both versions are delicious.  For some reason- Scott and I don't make either of them.  We have our own variation that we've come to love.  And so has Max as the picture shows....

Everything below her eyes:  her own terrible eating produced those results-- her forehead, well, that was her father's work... he felt like she might as well go all out (why should just her forehead be clean?)

This is our lasagna... it was even better than it looks and fed us for 3 meals

Ingredients:
Lasagna Noodles
Large jar of  spaghetti sauce (or- make your own)
Ricotta (16 oz) -- half that if you want a smaller lasagna, we have a LARGE dish there...
Mozzarella (16 oz) -- half that if  you want a smaller lasagna
Parmesan (1 cup or so)

1 small Zucchini (sliced thinly)
1 Small yellow squash (sliced thinly)
1 jar or mushrooms or a cup of cooked mushrooms
1 egg

we sometimes throw in leftover sausage or chicken if we have it, but we also like it just vegetarian

Cook the noodles according to package directions.  Meanwhile- mix together the ricotta, all but a handful of the mozzarella, egg and 2/3 of the Parmesan--- Plus any seasoning you like (we throw in some Italian seasoning, some salt, and pepper and sometimes a little onion powder).

Preheat oven to 375.
I like to oil the pan with olive oil...
(ours is a 13x9 inch deep stone lasagna pan- a glass or metal pan would work too)

When the noodles are cooked and cool enough to handle begin to layer.  I pour in a little sauce on the bottom, then 3-4 noodles, then 1/2 of the cheese mixture then 1/2 the veggies then 1/3 of the sauce.  Then one more time-- noodles, the rest of the cheese mixture (still reserving that initial 1/3 of the parm and  handful of mozz)....then the rest of the veggies, 1/3 of the sauce, then a final layer of noodles.  Top the lasagna with the remaining sauce and the leftover cheeses.  Bake covered with aluminum foil for 35 minutes - then remove the foil and bake another 15 minutes uncovered.  Cheesy, bubbling, and good.

Serve with fresh bread, European butter and a nice glass of something red.  enjoy!

A little late night project...

So--- tomorrow night Scott and I are going (sans children) to a friend's house for dinner in PA.  And it promises to be a rousing good time.  Four women who are highly opinionated- strong willed- VERY funny-- great friends and all around- great to be with girls... and Scott.
Too cool isn't it?
Wish you could be there?
It gets better.
We are meeting in order to have a lovely dinner and time together and to do some planning to introduce our little country church to the very beginning of a conversation about LGBTQ issues and the church.  Just a toe in the water mind you- but the start of some good things, which will include some faith-filled conversations that are LOONNNGGGG overdue.  Especially for a congregation with so many L,G and T people in our midst or in close relationship to our members.
These are good times.
Plus- we are doing this whole event with WINE and bread (beer bread no less) and pasta.  and Scott and I made brownies, plus, even now at 11:13 pm-- we are making FLAN.

Such good things to come.  I will try to post pictures of the event (if we take any) and or the flan in the future-- but in the meantime.  Here's my pre-event prep for our meeting:

I like to be prepared...

Here's scott's:







Yep-- we are different personalities oh yes we are!
I'm thinking Scott should write for the after event blog post.
Don't you think so too?
Can't wait till tomorrow.  Too fun!

When You Can't Get to Biscuitville

So, let me confess. I have never been to a Biscuitville.  But according to their website  http://www.biscuitville.com/   and the rumors from my North Carolina friends- and well- their name- they have biscuits!  Real southern biscuits.  I imagine them in my head as buttery, soft, deliciousness.  I imagine them as a base for gravy, as a start for a sandwich with good cheddar cheese, as a breakfast slathered with good strawberry or apricot jam.  In my head- they are iconic.  (ok north carolinians!  next time I'm there- we're having a meet up at Biscuitville!)

That said, I can't wait to go south to get me a biscuit- so I found a recipe for Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits from one of my favorite food network chefs, Ina Garten, and last week we tried them.  They were good.  Not quite as buttery and soft as I'd like, but hearty and delicious for sure.  They would have been great with chipped beef gravy poured over them. Maybe we'll do that next time.  For now- here they are as a starchy side on their own.

Ina Garten's Recipe for these cheddar biscuits can be found at

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/buttermilk-cheddar-biscuits-recipe/index.html

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
• 1/2 cup cold buttermilk, shaken
• 1 cold extra-large egg
• 1 cup grated extra-sharpor sharp Cheddar
• 1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water or milk
• Grey or sea salt on top

Directions

Preheat oven to 425.

Place 2 Cups of flour, baking pwdr and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer.  With the mixer on low, add the butter and mix until the butter is the size of peas.Combine the buttermilk and egg and beat lightly with a fork. With the mixer still on low, add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and mix only until moistened. In a small bowl, mix the Cheddar with small handful of flour and, with the mixer still on low, add the cheese to the dough. Mix only until roughly combined.

Dump out onto a well-floured board and knead lightly. Roll the dough out to a rectangle 10 by 5 inches. With a sharp, floured knife, cut the dough lengthwise in half and then across in quarters, making 8 rough rectangles. Transfer to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops with the egg wash, sprinkle with salt, if using, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the biscuits are cooked through. Serve hot or warm.  Mmmmmmm... cheddary bicuity good.

Brined Fried Chicken

We have been tinkering with this recipe for over a year now.  The impetus for the whole "make fried chicken at home" thing is that the best fried chicken I'd ever had we found at Annie Bailey's (an irish pub in Lancaster) and it is a sweet tea brined, pecan encrusted, piece of deliciousness.  It is one of my favorite foods for sure, but it's a $15 plate of chicken and potatoes and I became convinced Scott and I could do this cheaper and just as well at home.  Eating at home is much easier than trying to eat a nice meal while our kids are talking loudly and falling off of the very high table stools at Annie Bailey's (no need for someone to die while trying to get a good piece of fried chicken).

Epicurious has a recipe for brined fried chicken, but the first time we tried to make it we were worried it was undercooked and so we let it go long enough that the breading burned.  Over time we figured out that we could make it with chicken tenders if we adapted it (less salt, less time to brine) and then it was easier to make sure it was cooked enough on the inside yet only golden on the outside... So we make ours without skin, without bones and yet with all the key ingredients (salt and sugar) it is so, so good.

 Here's our version.

The ingredients that make this dish so finger lickin good.

Brine:
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup kosher salt
1 teaspoon Black peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 or 2 bay leaves

For the Chicken:

1 package of chicken tenders (or chicken breasts no bones, no skin)

3 cups buttermilk

2 tablespoons plus 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

3 cups of flour

1 Tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika

2-3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper

1 Tablespoon freshly ground black pepper  

Oil for frying 

For brine:


Pour 4 cups cold water into a pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat and add the sugar, salt, bay leaf, peppercorns, and coriander seeds. Allow to cool completely.

For fried chicken:
1. Put the chicken in a glass baking dish and pour the brine over the chicken. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4-6 hours.

2. Remove the chicken from the brine, remove any peppercorns stuck to the chicken, and let the chicken dry slightly on a wire rack while preparing the buttermilk and flour.

3. In a large bowl, stir together the buttermilk with 1 tablespoon of the salt. In another large bowl, stir together the flour with the remaining salt and spices.

4. Dredge the chicken in the flour. Transfer to the buttermilk, gently shaking the bowl to coat the chicken. Transfer the chicken back to the flour, being careful not to scrape off the batter. Gently shake the bowl to coat the chicken with flour, then transfer the pieces to a wire rack, again being careful not to scrape off the batter. Repeat with the remaining pieces of chicken and let dry on the wire rack for 30 minutes.

5. Pour the oil into a 5-quart pot and heat it to a temperature of 350°F. Cook over medium heat. The oil will cool to about 300°F after adding the chicken; this is the correct heat for cooking the chicken. Cook for 4-5 minutes, then turn the chicken over and cook for an additional 3-6 minutes. If the chicken gets too dark, lower the heat. Drain on a wire rack and repeat with remaining chicken. Serve hot or cold.






One final note-- if you're going to use a lot of oil 
to fry some chicken, 
it only makes sense to thinly slice up a potato or two 
to throw into that oil and the end- and turn into chips.
There were only a few, but they were really really good.  
They were crisp and much tastier than anything coming from a bag 
(sorry Martin's, but even you can't beat Scott's).
Happy frying folks! Enjoy the snow (if ya got it)...

Great foods, lots of cooking, no pictures to be found...

So, I don't like putting posts up without pictures, so here are a few gratuitous shot of family to  make up for my lack of food photos.

Over the last week I have cooked and baked and been generally speaking- happier than I've been in ages. Since May really.

I've also been sick, with a nasty cold that abated just for Christmas eve and then crept back so that on Monday and Tuesday all I could do was sleep and blow my nose....
 This means we've made soup.  Lots of soup.  Saturday we had Chili (not quite soup, but same theory)... Monday we had tomato soup.  Tuesday - I was so sick, I have no idea if we even ate anything.  But last night I felt a little better and got up and made my mom's Potato soup and the kids gobbled it up-- so did we.

Ingredients:
5-6 large potatoes
Half gallon of milk ( i used some mild but also threw in a cup of heavy cream cause we had some leftover)
Half a stick of butter
Flour
celery salt, pepper and salt to taste


Basically, I hard boil 4 eggs.  Cut them into pieces and set aside.
Peel and Dice the potatoes.  Boil until soft (this takes very little time if you have them cut into bite size pieces).  Drain the potatoes, in the bottom of the pot, make a little roux by melting the butter and adding few tablespoons of flour.  Whisk that together and cook until the flour starts to brown a little and is less raw...( or my mom likes her soup fairly thin, so she skips this and just whisks a raw egg into the milk instead-- this too is a thickener, but less so than a roux).   After the roux is ready, pour in the milk, add the potatoes back in, add the egg and season with celery salt and pepper (potentially a little more butter if you like).

We eat it with a ton of saltine crackers, a dash or two of hot sauce-- or tonight we had some bacon and cheese we threw in when we reheated it.  It was delicious last night and tonight.  Soup make me feel better. :)  Simple but delicious...

Hope ya'll have a healthy and peacefilled new year.

Not a food post

So-- tonight I realized that i have two polity classes, two worship classes, two MS classes and loads of papers standing between me and the end of the semester.  But-- that sounds way better than my life sounded back in September.
And-- tonight my hubby suggested that we should go see the National Christmas Tree (and all it's little tree friends-- apparently there's 50+)... which is pretty exciting, because it reminds me that we do live near DC now.  Why I can't seem to remember this most days- is- well, clearly related to my not being there much.  But this will not last forever.  And-- this will be our first Christmas spent at our DC house and thanks to a fantastic sister-in-law, and great in-laws all around-- I will get to be in Derwood and really enjoy Christmas day.  I am very, very excited about this.

Finally-- tonight Ike got to go to Barnes and Noble and sing with a bunch of other 6year olds.  He's a little performer that's for sure.... And he loves a Christmas song.  As a whole, having him and Max in our world makes everything so much brighter - especially the holidays.

Christmas 2007, just before a little sister arrived

Hope to have a post of some deliciousness again soon-- but in the meantime... enjoy your advent friends! Till next time...
J

Foods That Make Ya Go... Mmmmmmm.

So, although we are willing to try new foods (ie, brussel sprouts which are now a FAVORITE at our table).  Some foods of "exotic" origin have been hard to pitch to my crew.  My mom isn't exactly an adventurous eater. She's really happy with a hot dog or a fried egg any day of the week, but doesn't love a lot of vegetables, nor a lot of proteins for that matter- she is however game for every starch and cheese we put out, but I have been in the mood to try some dishes that don't have cheese as their center point.

The kids like vegetables, but are random in what they will eat on any given day and Scott has to be in the right mood to try certain new foods.  So- I was very surprised that yesterday I got everyone on board to try Cody's Moroccan stew (which is really smitten kitchen's which was really Aida's... oi vey, it's the recipe version of whisper down the lane)... http://crashingthelastsupper.blogspot.com/search?q=moroccan+stew   ... anyhow- we tried it, and it was love at first bite,

for 4 out of 5 of us (the only reluctant one was the two year old, and honestly, she doesn't count and was busy stuffing her face with 3, yes, 3 clementines!)  Anyhow-- we really loved it.

It's also the first time I've convinced Scott to eat one of the orange foods (butternut squash in this case) happily. The man likes a carrot, but has been very ambivalent about squash, pumpkins or sweet potatoes, and in some cases, he just flat out refuses.  But-- this one-- he liked!!  We used parsley instead of cilantro, threw in some lovely little green olives that we found at our Safeway, and added some hot sauce at the end.  Just makes ya go mmmmmmmm.

Thanks Cody, and thanks to the whole country of Morocco for finding a way to make an orange food we love.  And thank you autumn for your inspiration, your crisp sunny days, and for being a beautiful transition season.  I love this time of year.  mmmmmmmm.... Tonight's agenda:  Cider with spiced rum.... mmmmm.  fall.