Lazy “Lasagna” and Lemon Broccolini

Posted on April 23, 2013 by admin

This meal takes maybe 10-15 minutes of your attention and work, making it a great weeknight choice!

Lazy “Lasagna”
Frozen ravioli of your choice (I used a 4 cheese variety but a meat or veggie filling would be good too)
Your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce (or homemade, but this is supposed to be LAZY)
2-4 cloves garlic, pressed (optional, but that’s no reason to be TOO lazy)
Fresh grated or sliced mozzarella
Fresh grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 375.

Pour about half the jar of spaghetti sauce and garlic into a glass baking dish. Arrange still-frozen ravioli on top of the sauce in one layer. Add about half the remaining half of sauce on top (repeat with garlic). Make another layer of ravioli then cover with the rest of the sauce and garlic. Arrange a layer of mozzarella on top of that and then Parmesan to finish it off.

Bake for about 45 minutes. Let cool a few minutes before serving–the cheese will be piping hot!

Lemon Broccolini
1 bunch broccolini, ends trimmed
Juice and zest of 1 large or 2 small lemons
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed
Salt and pepper
EVOO

Steam broccolini for about 5 minutes.

While that’s going, whisk together remaining ingredients in a small serving bowl.

Use tongs to transfer steamed veggies to bowl and toss to coat.

Lemon-Garlic Fettuccine with Roasted Asparagus

Posted on April 23, 2013 by admin

Equal parts EVOO and fresh squeezed lemon juice (I juiced 4 lemons, which was somewhere between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup)
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed
Salt and pepper
Zest of 1-2 lemons
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped
Your pasta of choice (I used fresh Fettucine)
1 bunch asparagus, woody ends removed
More EVOO, salt and pepper
However much pine nuts you want, toasted

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss asparagus with EVOO on a rimmed cookie sheet, arrange in a single layer, and season with S & P.

Whisk together the lemon juice, EVOO, garlic, and S & P in a large serving bowl. Stir in the grated cheese and set aside. In a separate small bowl, combine the lemon zest and parsley.

Pop the asparagus into the oven and roast for 20 minutes.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. When rolling, cook your pasta as needed. When ready, remove pasta with tongs into the serving bowl (don’t worry about a little water getting in as that will help bind the sauce to the pasta). Gently toss to coat with lemon sauce, then add the lemon-parsley mixture and toss a bit more.

Remove asparagus and chop into large bite-sized pieces.

Grab a big helping of pasta with the tongs and plop it on a plate. Top with a good amount of asparagus. Sprinkle with pine nuts. Dig in!

Beet Tart

Posted on February 24, 2013 by admin

Today I made a yummy thang loosely based on this beet tartine.

I had wanted to attempt the homemade crust but I don’t have a tart pan, and I thought a regular sloped pie pan would be too deep, so I thought hey–puff pastry is good!

The filling is a layer of shallots (caramelized in bacon butter!), roasted sliced beets, a light custard (3/4 cup half & half, 2 eggs, about a teaspoon fresh thyme, S&P), walnuts and chèvre. I baked the crust at 400 for 15 minutes, added the filling, then baked for another 20 minutes at 350. I think it looks pretty great! Can’t wait to dig in:

Update: it was indeed delicious! Paired with a salad of butter lettuce, apple, bacon, and a lemon faux vinaigrette.

Cauliflower Soup and Peasant Bread

Posted on February 18, 2013 by admin

Months apart, I pinned two cauliflower soup recipes, and since I bought two heads of cauli but used just one for the lemon-tahini recipe, I decided to make a soup. One recipe uses roasted cauliflower, aged cheddar, garlic and fresh thyme, while the other uses carrots, a little bay leaf, and lotsa cream, so I made a hybrid version. Shallot, garlic, carrot, thyme, bay leaf, nice and singed roasted cauliflower, veggie broth, a little roux, milk, heavy cream, sharp cheddar, garnished with bacon! Heck yeah! This turned out AMAZING even though it’s really unphotogenic.

I also baked some bread. Yep, me. It was suuuuper easy, which was the whole gist of the original blog and why I pinned it at all, but it did fall a bit when it cooled. No matter–it was absolutely HEAVENLY. The crust was crispy and buttery and the inside spongy and moist. While I was eating it while it was still warm I had a gut-level wonderment that we eat anything that isn’t bread. I mean, look at this motherfucker:

This soup and bread together made for one decadent homemade meal! Pinterest success! Pinter-cess…Princess? Sure, that’s how I felt manga-ing on this feast! 🙂

Birthday Squash with Sausage

Posted on January 12, 2013 by admin

Deciding what to do with a rogue butternut squash is one of the more pleasant Grey Season conundrums. Today was Ian’s birthday and I didn’t want to buy a bunch of groceries since we’re doing the big party thing tomorrow, but I didn’t want to make the poor guy eat from my Frozen Soup Hoard on his big day. So I looked around the kitchen and found the aforementioned squash, some kale, and 2 Link Lab jalapeño pork sausage links in the freezer, and came up with the following deliciousness:

3-4 large leaves kale, big veins removed, chopped
1 butternut squash, halved and scooped
2 large links good pork sausage
1/3 cup (dry) red quinoa
1/3 cup veggie broth
Scant 1/4 cup water
1 large shallot
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon stoneground mustard
Eyeball quantities:
EVOO
Sherry vinegar
Lemon juice
Salt and pepper
Garlic powder and ground cumin
Wildflower honey (clover’s fine!)

Preheat oven to 375 and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Remove papery skins from shallot and garlic, toss into blender or Magic Bullet cup. Chop the kale (well rinsed and dried) and throw into a large mixing/serving bowl.

Place halved squash face down onto cookie sheet and bake for 45 to 60 minutes.

In a small saucepan over medium high heat, toast quinoa for a few minutes, tossing to do so evenly. Add veggie broth, water, and a few shakes of garlic powder and cumin and stir. Bring to a boil, stir, cover and reduce heat to low. Leave covered until water is absorbed, then remove from heat and fluff with a fork. Transfer quinoa to bowl of kale.

Attend to the blender or MB cup of shallot and garlic. Add 1 part sherry vinegar, 1 part lemon juice, and 2 parts olive oil. Add mustard and a short stream of honey, season with salt and pepper. Blend for a good minute. If the shallot and garlic are being chunky stinkers try doing short pulses. Transfer to bowl of kale and quinoa and toss well.

Remove squash from oven and let cool just enough to handle.

Remove casing from sausage. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high heat, add a dash of oil if it’s not super seasoned. Plop down the sausage and break it up with a wooden spoon. Brown meat and crumble it down as you cook. Once cooked through, set aside.

Remove skin from squash. Sometimes you can hand peel it off but others you may need to use a vegetable peeler. Chop into roughly 1-1.5″ chunks and transfer to the bowl of kale, etc. Season liberally with salt and pepper.

Add sausage to the party in the big bowl and toss to combine. Enjoy with your favorite crusty bread!

We paired this with a nice green salad of butter lettuce, arugula, gooey ripe persimmons, toasted hazelnuts and a light hazelnut oil dressing. Didn’t keep the meager leftovers so sadly no picture.

Hippie Harvest Salad

Posted on October 22, 2012 by admin

1 butternut squash, halved “hotdog style”
3 sweet potatoes, peeled diced
1 Walla Walla (or other sweet yellow) onion, chopped
1 Granny Smith apple, chopped
1 bunch kale, veins removed, chopped into bite-size pieces
1/4 cup white quinoa and 3/4 cup red quinoa (dry measurement)
3/4 cup low sodium vegetable broth
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup roasted hazelnuts, chopped
1 chunk of semi-hard (slightly aged) sheep’s milk cheese, thinly sliced, then cut into bite-sized pieces

Dressing: juice of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon stone ground mustard, 2 cloves pressed garlic, 3 tablespoons hazelnut oil, eyeball EVOO, salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400.

Add water and veggie broth to a medium sized pot with a fitted lid, and bring to a boil.

While you wait for the above liquids to heat up, dump both the red and white quinoa into a large frying pan over medium heat. Stir frequently to toast evenly. As soon as a few white grains appear toasted (and you’ll smell a nice warm nutty scent) transfer quinoa to the broth-water mixture. Stir well and cover with lid, reduce heat to low, and simmer until the liquids have been absorbed. Remove lid, fluff cooked quinoa with a fork, remove from heat, and set aside for later.

While quinoa is cooking, take the halved butternut squash, drizzle with EVOO, season with S&P, and place face-up on a parchment-lined, rimmed baking sheet. Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes. Take out and set aside until cool enough to handle, then remove skin, chop up, and place finished squash in a mixing bowl.

Make dressing by whisking all ingredients together.

Carefully rinse and dry kale before chopping. Place in very large serving bowl and add dressing, tossing to coat evenly. Let sit/marinate while you finish the veggies, this will soften the kale a bit and make the nutrients more available.

Add sweet potatoes, onion and apple to the same parchment-lined baking sheet as above, toss with olive oil, and bake about 25 minutes. When potatoes are soft with slightly crispy/wrinkly edges, remove from oven and add to the bowl with the squash. Season the lot liberally with sea salt and toss to combine.

Add all veggies to the serving bowl of dressed kale. Add however much quinoa looks good to you. Add the sliced cheese to that, and top it off with the hazelnuts. Toss gently to combine and enjoy!

This makes surprisingly good leftovers and would be a great make-ahead potluck contribution.

Locavore Note: butternut squash, potatoes, kale, onion, apple, hazelnuts, garlic, and sheep’s milk cheese can all be easily sourced from PNW farmers in early fall. Olive oil, S&P, quinoa, mustard, lemon are always imports.

Taco Salad

Posted on August 5, 2012 by admin

Most folks think they know what taco salad is–a salad of taco fillings inside a bowl-shaped tostada shell–and most folks are incorrect. Edible bowls are dumb because if you eat it you lose a very functional bowl and where does your food go? And if you don’t eat it your meal is missing an important ingredient. LAME-O. Proper taco salad is ALL the taco goodness tossed into taco bliss! Today we had this version:

A few big leaves of green leaf lettuce, chopped
1 amazingly meaty and juicy tomato, chopped
About 1/4 cup Beecher’s Flagship cheese, grated
2 green onions, diced
Handful of raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/2 a huge avocado, chopped
1/2 pound ground beef, pre-cooked and pre-seasoned from our freezer
About a cup tortilla chips, crushed a bit by hand
About 1/4 cup whisked-up dressing: EVOO, lime juice, clover honey, cumin, paprika, and black pepper

The spices, olive oil, lime juice and tortilla chips were non-local Pantry items and the avocados are my one caveat ingredient. The rest is legit, including the beef previously bought from Olsen Farms a couple months ago.

We ate this with sliced up yellow nectarine as dessert and it was sooooo good and soooo summery. Gettin’ into the swing of this whole local thang!

Summer Garden Salad

Posted on August 3, 2012 by admin

Salad Fixins
1 cup mixed salad greens, rinsed and revitalized
1 large zucchini, shaved into ribbons on a mandelin, torn into bite size pieces
1 ear of husked corn, broken in half
1/2 pound green beans, cut into 2″ pieces
1 cup heirloom cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 slice of Field Roast’s “celebration roast,” diced

Dressin’
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoons stone-ground mustard
1 shallot, diced
A drizzle honey
A few grinds black pepper
Dash sea salt
EVOO

Set water in a fairly deep but not necessarily large steamer over high heat. Once it’s reached a rolling boil, add the 2 corn on the cob halves to the water. Place the steamer basket on top and plop the green beans in, cover and steam for 5-8 minutes. Remove the green beans and transfer to a cold bowl. After a few more minutes remove the corn and set on a cutting board to cool.

Add a dash of olive oil to a frying pan and place over medium heat. In goes the celebration roast! Toss to coat and keep an eye on it. Stir occasionally and cook until golden brown with some crisp edges. Remove from heat.

Make the dressing in a small mixing bowl. Add orange juice, balsamic vinegar, mustard, shallots, honey, salt and pepper, and whisk together. Continue whisking while you add EVOO in a slow stream.

Add all ingredients–except the dressing–to a large salad bowl. At this point the salad can be transported or refridgerated for later. Add dressing and toss to combine and coat thoroughly right before serving.

B.L.A.T. Salad

Posted on May 4, 2012 by admin

I’m pretty darn proud of this one! It satisfies all your food cravings save chocolate (after all, this is a salad I’m talking about). The key is delicious fresh produce and this wowzer of a dressing.

Salad Ingredients
1 lb. of your favorite bacon, cooked and chopped
4 perfectly ripe avocados, chopped
4 juicy Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 head butter (Bibb) lettuce, torn into bite size pieces
1 head red leaf lettuce, also torn into bite size pieces
1 Romaine heart, chopped
4 slices of good sourdough bread, cut into 1/2″ or 3/4″ square pieces

Dressing Ingredients
1/4 cup Lemonnaisse (regular mayonnaise is OK)
1 large or 2 small lemons, juiced (+1 if using reg mayo)
1 tsp stone-ground mustard (+1 if using reg mayo)
1/4 cup EVOO
1 tsp bacon grease (!!!!)
Several grinds of black pepper
Pinch sea salt
Optional: a little lemon zest never hurt anybody 🙂

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Fill your kitchen sink with cold water and dump in all the lettuces. Let them hang out there for about 10 minutes while you attend to other stuff, then remove and give them a few whirls in a salad spinner. This was enough lettuce that I had to go in 3 batches but maybe your spinner is bigger. Once they’re as dry as they’re going to get transfer to a very large serving/salad bowl and set aside.

Cook the bacon however you prefer, drain on paper towels, and reserve a teaspoon of the drippings.

Get out a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Arrange bread evenly in one layer, drizzle with olive oil, and season with a little S&P. Pop into the oven and toast for 5-10 minutes. If the bread is fresh it will take more towards 10, if it’s dryer 5 will be fine, but also it depends on how crunchy you like your croutons so just keep an eye on them. Set aside to cool when they’re ready.

Onto the dressing! In a medium sized mixing bowl, plop the Lemonnaisse, stone-ground mustard, lemon juice, and bacon grease. Whisk together and season with fresh ground black pepper and sea salt. While continuing to whisk, add the EVOO in a steady stream. If it looks a little thick add more EVOO, if you want it creamier add some more Lemonnaisse, if you really like pepper add some more of that, etc. Pour over the lettuce mixture in the very large salad bowl.

Reuse the post-dressing mixing bowl to combine the chopped tomatoes, avocadoes, and bacon. Squirt with some lemon juice so the avocadoes stay green. Add a serving spoon and to table this bowl goes.

Add the croutons to the big salad bowl and give it a good tossing to coat both lettuce and croutons. Add whatever salad-serving-utensils-you-use and this baby’s ready to join its buddy at table.

When serving, give yourself a nice bed of lettuce/croutons/dressing and then top that off with the avocado/tomato/bacon mixture. BAM!

This is better than any BLAT sandwich…although, to give credit where credit is due, this was totally inspired by my beloved Hi-Life’s heavenly lunch creation. The lemon aioli they use makes the sandwich POP! in your mouth, I only ever wish there was more lettuce/tomato/avocado because of my more veggies-to-meat ratio obsession.

Barrel of Apples

Category Archives: Entrees