Recipes

Just popping in for a friendly reminder about the Family Supper Club.  Lately, I've posted recipes for Chicken Enchiladas (use up leftover turkey!), cheesecake, stock, and risotto.  Go browse for ideas!

Baked Ziti with Summer Squash

I made this for church last night and it went over well. Lots of people were asking for the recipe so I'll just post it here. Here's a quote from one of my favorite college students: "In all seriousness I think it was the best pasta I've ever had outside of a restaurant... actually I think it was better than half the pastas I have had at restaurants!" So there you go.

Topping:
4 slices white bread, quartered
2T butter, melted

Casserole:
1 lb summer squash, sliced in half lengthwise, then sliced into 1/2" pieces
1 lb zucchini, cut same way
3/4 lb penne pasta
kosher salt
4T olive oil
6 shallots, diced, about 1/2 -2/3 cup
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c flour
1 1/2 c cream
2 1/2 c chicken broth
2 ounces grated Parmesan (1 cup)
3/4 c fresh basil, chopped
1/4 c fresh parsley, chopped
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered

1. Make topping. Pulse bread with butter in food processor until crumbly, about 6 one second pulses. Cover and set aside.
2. Set squash in a colander, sprinkle with 2T kosher salt, let sit & drain for 30 minutes. (If you don't have room in the sink, set the colander in a large bowl.)
3. Preheat oven to 400.
4. Cook the pasta in salted water until a little underdone. Toss with 1T oil and set aside.
5. Spread salted squash out over a double-folded papaer towel, pat dry with additional paper towels, wiping off residual salt. Heat 1T oil in a skillet on high until it starts to smoke. Saute half of squash until golden brown and a bit charred, 5-7 minutes. Transfer squash to a baking sheet or platter and repeat with other half of squash in fresh oil. (Doing this in batches allows all of the squash to be in contact with hot oil. If you put too much squash in at once some of it is just steaming on top, and it gets mushy.)
6. Wipe skillet out and heat 1T oil over medium-high. Cook shallots until soft, about 3 minutes. Add garlic, cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until golden, about 1 minute. Whisk in broth and cream. Bring to a simmer for 1 minute or until slightly thickened, whisking frequently. Remove from heat and stir in parmesan, basil, and parsley. Season with salt & pepper.
7. Add sauce, tomatoes, and squash to pasta, stir to combine. Pour into a 9x13 dish and sprinkle with topping. Bake until bubbling and crumbs are lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

Notes:

• To make ahead: Follow recipe through the sauce, but don't chop the herbs or add them to sauce. Refrigerate topping, pasta, squash and sauce in separate bowls, tightly covered in plastic wrap. When ready to bake, heat sauce, chop and add herbs, and assemble and bake casserole. It will bake for 20-30 minutes.
• This is from "Cover & Bake," one of the cookbooks in the line of "The Best Recipe," published by the guys from America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated magazine. I love anything these guys do.
• The point of the kosher salt is that it can be wiped off. No biggie if you need to use regular salt. You just won't want to add salt anywhere else.
  
• Even if you don't want to make the casserole, please try the squash salting & sauteing trick. It's fantastic. I made it again today for lunch.
• I know it's a little late in the year for summer squash. Sorry. Bring this recipe back out next July. My HEB actually has some pretty good squash right now, nice and small, not all overgrown like it usually is.
• Nothing terrible will happen if you use onion instead of shallots. One regular onion will do just fine. Maybe not a very strong one.
• Yes, that's a lot of basil. I used one package from the grocery store, but it wasn't quite the measurement listed, so I added some dried.
• In my opinion the tomatoes are optional. I saw lots of people picking them out.
  
• I didn't actually change oil between batches, or wipe out the skillet before the next step. Shhh.

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the best cookies i've ever had

go make these right now. but halve the recipe.

go on, scoot.

thanks, liz.


edit: pastry flour = cake flour. Swan's Down, big red box.

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Veggie goodness

I am not, by any stretch, vegetarian. But I do need more veggies in my life. So I try to do vegetarian meals every now and then. "Meatless Monday" if you will. It helps me to stop thinking of meat as "the real food" and everything else as "sides," aka "optional if you're still hungry after the meat and bread" or "get this down so you don't feel guilty about the chocolate cupcakes." (Am I talking to anyone out there?) I would love to think of the green stuff as what I most need and want to eat, with a little meat thrown in here and there for protein. That would be much healthier.

Enter my new cookbook.


How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman is a great reference for curious omnivores like me. Justin picked this out for me, and it was a great selection. I've tried other vegetarian or even vegan cookbooks, but they too often are preachy, or a little too funky, or call for excessive amounts of tofu. I'm just looking for good recipes eaten by normal people, not self-help. We've got enough preaching around here; I don't need it from a cookbook (wink, wink).

But this book has great ideas, modern and interesting but not weird. I love his style of "theme and variations." For example, he'll list a simple pasta sauce but then 5 ways to modify it, depending on the season or what's available. Or a list of "20 things to put on bruschetta." The "vegetables" chapter is enormous, with lots of information about how to choose and prepare different produce. I think that will help me use up some of the bounty from our CSA.

I like cookbooks that are written by regular home cooks rather than professional chefs. The recipes are very realistic, and most ingredients are available even at small town groceries. If it's a complicated recipe or obscure ingredient, he makes sure to warn you so you don't get in over your head. He's also an omnivore, so it's a good perspective for someone like me who's just experimenting.

To give you an idea, so far I've tried Southwestern Mixed Vegetable Soup, Barley Soup with Seasonal Vegetables (the summer vegetable and roasted variations), Vegetable Lasagna, Buttermilk Blueberry Pie (in an oatmeal crust), Upside Down Plum Rosemary Cake, and Buttermilk Ice Cream. I'm excited to try his Corn Chowder, lots of pizza ideas, Oatmeal Apple Cookies, Olive Oil Cake, and Brown Sugar Cookies with Sea Salt.

I know, I've spent a lot of time in the dessert chapter. So sue me. Most desserts are vegetarian anyway (although he does include vegan recipes and modifications, which are harder to find), but these desserts are a little bit healthier but still feel like real dessert. More whole grains, natural sweeteners, that sort of thing. Baby steps.

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mom's chicken enchiladas

(Don't worry, you don't have to make that many. That's a quadruple recipe. Yes, I'm a crazy person.)

Chicken Enchiladas

2T oil
1 onion, chopped
1 lb cooked chicken, diced
2t chili powder
1/2 t cumin
1 can rotel
salt & pepper
2 cans cream of chicken soup
(or cream of whatever. in a pinch i've used cream of celery or cream of cheddar)
1 cup sour cream
1 4 oz can diced green chiles
12 oz grated cheddar
14-16 flour tortillas


1. This time I tried chopping the chicken (gently poached, or buy a rotisserie chicken at the deli) in the food processor. I used the regular 4mm slicing disc and it turned out great! A timesaver, since I was quadrupling the recipe this time. Chop the onion first with the chopping blade and dump it into the skillet, then put on the slicing disk and do the chicken while the onion cooks.


2. Cook the onion in the oil until tender.
3. Add chicken, chili powder, cumin, rotel, and salt and pepper. Simmer 10 minutes.
4. Mix soup, sour cream, green chiles, and 2/3 of the cheese.
5. Put a little bit of soup mixture into 9x13 baking dish (or a bigger lasagna pan, like 10x15, if you have it). Just enough to cover the bottom. This keeps the enchiladas from coming out too dry.


6. Make an assembly line. I don't recommend doing this part at the stove, as in the picture, unless you happen to enjoy cleaning your stove. Do as I say, not as I do.


7. Spoon 1T of soup mixture onto a tortilla. (If you want to use corn tortillas, you need to heat them to soften.) Don't use too much soup mix or you won't have enough left to go on top. Top with chicken mixture.


8. Roll 'em up. Don't cram too many in a pan or they won't get any sauce. 12 in a 9x13 works well.
9. Top with rest of soup mixture and rest of cheese.
10. Cover with foil. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until warm, or refrigerate and bake later.

look how domestic i am

homemade peach jam, folks. cue the "applause" signs.

mom brought me a ton of peaches from fairfield and helped me with my first canning project. i had helped her do this a thousand times, but hadn't paid enough attention to do it myself. it wasn't hard at all. i meant to document the process for an online tutorial, but i forgot. here's the short version:

buy this:



and follow the directions in the box.

here's the shortcut my mom taught me:

we didn't need to boil the jars to seal them. mom got the jars hot by running them through the dishwasher, and soaked the lids in hot water. then we poured in the hot jam and turned the jars upside down. that was enough heat to seal them.

so thanks, mom, for teaching me. and in the interest of Titus 2 (when did i become the OLDER woman in that verse????), i would love to teach anyone else who wants to know. just show up with a bunch of peaches (or whatever) and some empty jars.

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French Dip

Yes, sometimes I photograph my food. Don't you?

Slow Cooker French Dip

makes 4-6 sandwiches

2 lb chuck roast
1 can beef broth
1 packet onion dip mix
1 bottle beer (the darker the better)
6 french rolls
butter

1. Trim some of the fat off the roast. Not too much.
2. Put roast in slow cooker with broth, dip, and beer.
3. Cook on low 8 hours.
4. Pull out meat and shred with forks.
5. Remove cooking liquid to saucepan. Boil to reduce, 10-20 minutes.
6. Return meat to cooker with a bit of cooking liquid to reheat while the dipping sauce reduces.
7. Slice rolls, brush with butter and toast.
8. Serve with small bowls of dipping sauce on the side.

Reducing the sauce is optional. It just makes it a little thicker, not so watery. Feel free to skip that step. Also, I don't strain my sauce, but it would probably look prettier if you did.

This goes well with roast potatoes. They like the sauce too.

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Bacon Tutorial

Seriously. You need to know how to do this.

1. Buy Farmland bacon. (Personally I avoid the thick sliced, but maybe you're into that kind of thing.)

2. Turn oven on to 375. You don't actually need to wait for it to preheat. You can put the bacon in a cold oven.

3. Line a rimmed cookie sheet (a.k.a. "jelly roll pan") with tin foil.



4. Put bacon in the pan. (I make no assumptions of cooking acumen here.)

5. Put in oven. (See?) Turn on the light so you can watch the goodness.

6. Bake 10-15 minutes, to desired crispness.


7. Drain on paper towel.



8. Enjoy! Dipping in maple syrup is optional.



we're going to puerto vallarta this week. hasta luego!

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