Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

My sister Nora just emailed me asking for a good veggie lasagna recipe.   Here's basically how I make mine, but I never measure, so this is my best guess!

*UPDATE*   My sister Nora made this for a wedding and took pictures of the process!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna.

The Illustrated Kitchen Bread

I'm chained to my laptop this weekend to finish various projects, so I thought a really good way to procrastinate getting any of those projects actually finished would be to make bread and take some shitty cell phone pictures of it for you.

You're welcome.   And thank you for enabling my distraction from important shit.

This is my effort to prove to you that your kitchen holds as yet untold and unimaginable varieties of bread lurking in your cupboards and fridge, waiting to be brought forth into the world.   Spelunk your cupboards.  

Strawberries are not Forever Friends.

I just got a text about this from a friend!  What do you do when you bring home a bunch of strawberries?

The short answer is eat them fast or freeze them.  

DO NOT wash them until just before you eat them.   This will make them rot lots faster.

If they're damp, or you did it before you read this, line a container with paper towels and store them on a single layer, with an airtight covering.   This will help wick the dampness away, and buy you some time.

Eat it Like Popcorn

It's Friday.   Hooray!

Today, I'm not going to do a recipe, I'm going to share a trick that you might already know, but if you don't, will change your life.   You'll never spend money on microwave popcorn again.

Anadama Bread

This is another awesome pantry bread.   Who doesn't have cornmeal and molasses gathering dust in a cupboard?

It's a traditional New England recipe with a weird name.  The story goes that the woman of the house never made anything for dinner except cornmeal mush and molasses, so one day the fed up husband stirred some yeast and flour into the leftovers, muttering, "Anna, damn her."    Whatever, dude.  You finally figured it out yourself, which was probably her damn point.

More Bread Capers

Continuing the theme of making bread from leftovers and pantry ingredients, here's a variation of a recipe Ma got from a friend.   I've long since lost the little recipe card, but here's how you make it.

Onion/Olive (or Caper) Bread

Use the Back of your Fridge to make Bread.

Not the encrusted stains, the coils or the dust- I mean the half cup of mashed potatoes you couldn't throw away, and will never eat.   Here's a brief list of dabs in a container that you must admit might otherwise go bad if you don't turn it into bread.

Orange and Lemon Thyme Roasted Chicken and Unchicken.

I often make meat for guests, and for Ben on special occasions.    My urge to feed people is much stronger than my aversion to touching raw meat.  I want to be able to taste the flavors I'm creating, though, so I always make a meat and a vegetarian version of the same dish.   

Asparagus Soup for You

Let's make something seasonal to celebrate our first farm share pick up of the year, hooray!

Happy Birthday, Emma! This soup makes me think of you.

Making Bread Out of Nothing at All

I suck at measuring.  I like to throw things together at the whim of my heart and my refrigerator.    I have a whole post about "repeatable experience" cooking drafted, but the gist is, I'm not good at it.  Mostly, I don't write things down, and I don't use measuring cups.   I get angry, like they are trying to tell me what to do.   Who are you to dictate to me, tablespoon?   Huh?  What if I don't want a tablespoon, what then? Huh?

And that is why I like to make bread.

I know, I know- stop looking at me crazy.   It does seem counter intuitive.   But the fact of the matter is that bread is about proportion.  It's about variables.  It's about getting the dough to feel right under your fingers, and on some days it may take 3 cups of flour; on others, 3 and a half.   And you'll drive yourself crazy if you care about anything but the following:

• You're using active yeast, and you don't kill it with hot water.
• How your dough feels in your hands.

I'm going to do several posts on this, because more than anything, I get questions about bread making, and it's just not scary.  I swear.  It's so easy to fix bread, because your dough tells you what it needs to be happy.

And all you need is flour, yeast and liquid to make bread.   It's the best kind of kitchen cupboard cooking I know.   There's so much 'scope for imagination' in bread making.   One cup of liquid, 2 tsp yeast, 3 cups of flour- that's the basic proportions for bread.   But notice that they are proportions- you can use anything at hand to measure, as long as the ratio remains roughly the same.  And "liquid" is a relative term, too.  You want moisture.  As you'll see below, I subbed cottage cheese.

Let's try it with a flavored oil:

manifesto.

So here's the obligatory post about my cooking philosophy, which has not been apparent from my sugary posts heretofore. I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian, and have been so almost half my life, which is the age of consent in pretty much all countries.  I don't eat meat because I know I can't kill it or dress it.  I think it's really important to know where your meat comes from, and I grew up with that knowledge first hand.

When I think about how spectacularly my late (so sweetly, still daily beloved) brother John's plan to turn me into a sportswoman failed,  I take a moment to apologize to his voice on my shoulder.  Despite his best efforts, he only succeeded in teaching me that a) meat came from living beings b) you must kill and dress those living beings c) I can't do that.

So I don't eat it.  I'm not a perfect person by any means, but that's too big of hypocrisy.

I have no patience for people who cry over Bambi and buy ground beef under plastic in a supermarket.  

I equally have great respect for those who will eat an animal toe to tail.  I think you should HAVE to if you sign on to eating meat.  Eat some brain and tripe, and you're all right with me.

So, I do and will cook meat that's local and sustainable for other people to consume. At the same time, I cook an equivalent version with a protein I can eat, so I can test the flavors, and at the end of the day, I produce a product with flavors that translate to multiple proteins.

With very little effort, you can produce a meal that will cater to meat lovers, veggies and vegans with sides that are accessible for all- and everyone has the same flavor experience.

Fair warning: I also love the ugly vegetables.  The forgotten vegetables.  The cabbage family. I promise you'll like them when you meet them.

I call it "Cooking for a Mixed Crowd."    

Because if you can't beat them, feed them.  

mushroom broth/mushroom gravy

Finally, a recipe without sugar!  

 I use this basic method for probably about 20 different applications.   This mushroom broth goes into soup, gravies, and forms the base for a bunch of different casseroles.    You can also tweak the seasonings for a delicious Asian mushroom broth with soy and ginger.   I buy dried mushrooms in bulk from Bill's Imported Foods ($5 for enough to make this recipe about 6 times)  I've found big containers of them at Costco for cheap, too.  Any dried mushroom will work, but the regular old button mushrooms are my favorite.   I find this is far easier and more cost effective than having veggie broth around, because I can make exactly the amount I need for a fraction of the price, and I always have all these things on hand.

I always eyeball it, myself, but these measurements should work fine.

Here's how you do it.

Cocoa Whipped Cream/Another Shame Pie

This one is at the request of the Lois type sister, and was discovered upon the occasion of the Mary type sister's birthday.    Mary was in that special place that causes one to blurt "chocolate with more chocolate, please God, send chocolate" in response to any direct question.

I don't really like chocolate frosting.  I don't like to make it.  And I won't touch canned frosting with a ten foot pole.   My brother in law Lance doesn't chocolate frosting, either, and that is why I am particularly proud, because he's requested this one.

So here's the basic recipe, and two ways to use it, although I can think of a good dozen and most of them aren't even obscene.

Flash the Magic Pizza Dough

Okay, I'm going to share a very, very dangerous recipe with you.   If you love homemade pizza and don't know this trick, consider the consequences very seriously before you click on the cut below.   I will not be held responsible for your sudden addiction to impulse pizza making.*

Lemon Curd and Sister Pie

I found this method for making lemon curd online somewhere- I recall that it was named after the Ecuadorian line cooks the chef stole it from.   It's basically that recipe, but I cut the sugar and increase the lemon, because wimpy lemon desserts are not acceptable in my family.    If you don't bite into it and feel that little burst of tang in the back of your tongue, you're a terrible disappointment to your mother.

So you can cut down the zest and the lemon in this recipe, and bump the sugar, but don't tell me about it so I can't judge you: