Thursday, January 30, 2014

Chicken Tetrazzini!

This was very tasty--Rob approved and the boys even ate it, the noodly part at least. :) It makes two so you can freeze one. this is adapted a little..

Ing.

1 tbsp unsalted butter
cooking spray
1 cup finely chopped onion (I use about a half tsp onion powder)
2/3 C finely chopped celery
3/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
2 (8 ounce) packages presliced mushrooms
1/2 c dry sherry
2/3 c all purpose flour
3 (14.5 oz) cans chicken broth
2 1/4 C parmesan cheese
1/2 c cream cheese
7 cups hot cooked vermicelli or angel hair (about 1 lb uncooked pasta)
4 c shredded cooked chicken breast
bread crumbs

Prep.

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Melt butter in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add onion, celery, black pepper, salt, and mushrooms; sauté 4 minutes or until mushrooms are tender. Add sherry; cook 1 minute.
3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Gradually add flour to pan; cook 3 minutes, stirring constantly (mixture will be thick) with a whisk. Gradually add broth, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
4. Add 1 ¾ cups Parmesan cheese and cream cheese, stirring with a whisk until cream cheese melts. Add pasta and chicken; stir until blended. Divide pasta mixture between 2 (8-inch-square) glass or ceramic baking dishes coated with cooking spray.
5. Place bread in food processor; pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs form. Combine breadcrumbs and ½ cup Parmesan cheese; sprinkle evenly over pasta.
6. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until lightly browned and bubbly. Remove casserole from oven; let stand 15 minutes.
To freeze unbaked casserole: Prepare through Step 5. Cool completely in refrigerator. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing to remove as much air as possible. Wrap with heavy-duty foil. Store in freezer for up to 2 months.
To prepare frozen unbaked casserole: Thaw casserole completely in refrigerator (about 24 hours). Preheat oven to 350°. Remove foil; reserve foil. Remove plastic wrap; discard wrap. Cover casserole with reserved foil; bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 1 hour or until golden and bubbly. Let stand 15 minutes.

Monday, January 20, 2014

THE BEST Lasagna!

I will never make a different lasagna again. Rob and I were blown away by deliciousness. In fact, the only thing I might change is use a few more noodles! There's that much meaty, juicy, cheesy goodness!

Ingredients

1-1/2 pound Ground Beef
1 pound Hot Breakfast Sausage
2 cloves Garlic, Minced
2 cans (14.5 Ounce) Whole Tomatoes
2 cans (6 Ounce) Tomato Paste
2 Tablespoons Dried Parsley
2 Tablespoons Dried Basil
1 teaspoon Salt
3 cups Lowfat Cottage Cheese
2 whole Beaten Eggs
1/2 cup Grated (not Shredded) Parmesan Cheese
2 Tablespoons Dried Parsley
1 teaspoon Salt
1 pound Sliced Mozzarella Cheese
1 package (10 Ounce) Lasagna Noodles
(add 1/2 Teaspoon Salt And 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil To Pasta Water)

Preparation Instructions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet or saucepan, combine ground beef, sausage, and garlic. Cook over medium-high heat until browned. Drain half the fat; less if you’re feeling naughty.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 tablespoons parsley, basil and salt. After adding the tomatoes, the sauce mixture should simmer for 45 minutes while you are working on the other steps.
In a medium bowl, mix cottage cheese, beaten eggs, grated Parmesan, 2 more tablespoons parsley, and 1 more teaspoon salt. Stir together well. Set aside. Cook lasagna until “al dente” (not overly cooked).

To assemble:
Arrange 4 cooked lasagna noodles in the bottom of a baking pan, overlapping if necessary. Spoon half the cottage cheese mixture over the noodles. Spread evenly. Cover cottage cheese with a layer of mozzarella cheese. Spoon a little less than half the meat/sauce mixture over the top.
Repeat, ending with meat/sauce mixture. Sprinkle top generously with extra Parmesan.
Either freeze, refrigerate for up to two days, or bake immediately: 350-degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes, or until top is hot and bubbly.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Granola Bars

From Kitchen Stewardship

Ingredients:

1 C butter, softened
1 C honey
1 tsp vanilla
4 1/2 C rolled oats
1 1/2 C whole wheat or spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda

2 C add-ins: I use mini semi sweet choc chips and coconut

Lightly butter a 9 x 13 in glass pan. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, honey, and vanilla.
Add the oats, flour, and baking soda. Beat well until combined. Stir in add-ins by hand. Press mixture hard into pan.
Bake at 325 degrees for 15-22 minutes. I usually do about 17.
They'll seem underdone. Cool for 10 minutes. Store at room temp or freeze.

I want to try this trick for making them stick together better:
Melt the butter, honey and vanilla i a saucepan and cook on low for 5 minutes after the butter melts, then mix the liquid ingredients into the dry.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Ingredients:

2 packages crescent rolls
8 oz. cream cheese
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 stick melted butter

Press one package of crescent rolls in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 casserole dish to form the bottom crust. Mix the cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar and vanilla together and spread on top of the crust. Press the second package of crescent rolls on top and pat thin to cover everything. Mix the rest of the sugar, cinnamon and melted butter together and pour over top, spreading to the edges to cover everything. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Serves great hot, cold, warm--or right out of the dish with a fork.

This is so easy and it is always a hit. I'm going to half the recipe and freeze a bunch to take to neighbors. It freezes great. This is totally my go-to now!

Saturday, January 4, 2014

The BEST chocolate chip cookies

The Only Chocolate Chip Cookie I Will Ever Need to Know How to Make For The Rest of My Life
by Shirley Hendrickson, adapted from Jacques Torres (Kate: I totally had this link and recipe wrong before, sorry about that!)

Secret 1: The use of a mix of cake flour and bread flour. Cake flour is finer, and bread flour has gluten, both important. Use them and no other.

Kate: I’m fairly certain this is one of the keys to this recipe being so great. It took me ages to find cake flour at my huge grocery store as it’s not super popular and they hid it on the top shelf that I had to have someone help me get down, but dig dig dig as it’s necessary!

Secret 2: Chilling. This is key — KEY! — to cookie texture success. The reason is that letting the dough rest allows all the eggs and the butter and the liquids to ooze and soak and hydrate into all the dry goodness. 24 hours is minimum, 36 is preferable (and noticeably better).

Also, the flavor gets crazy! Deep, caramel-y, toffee-y, and they bake up so much more deliciously brown. Plus, it lets the outside get crisp and crackly and keeps the middle almost underdone when you pull them out — they set up and turn into soft, chewy heaven.

Kate: I baked one batch after only four hours of chilling and they were great – like SO great people begged me for the recipe at the potluck. Then I tried 12 hours, 24 hours, and 36 hours. While 36 was DEFINITELY in-freaking-credible (so true about the caramel-y-ness), if you can only wait four hours, it won’t be the end of the world. This also makes SO many cookies that you could make half and then half later, like I did.

Secret 3: All ingredients. Room temperature. Do it. (Note: The misconception with room-temperature butter: it actually doesn’t mean letting it sit out until it’s supersoft and melty. You should be able to press a slice of butter with your finger and easily make a dent, and it should crack faintly.)

Secret 4: Did you know? People make their cookies way too small! It’s silliness! If you make them too small, they dry out too quick, and they get too crunchy. We want gooey and chewy! The way to achieve that is to scoop your dough out into golf-ball sized — or slightly larger — portions. I use a 1/3 c measuring cup for extra big cookies.

Secret 5: The chocolate. Sorry, Toll House. And don’t even think about the generic supermarket brand. I only use Ghiardelli 60% Cacao chips — they’re pretty widely available the best chips you can buy at a grocery store. However, if you run across anything that is 60% cacao, it’ll be good.

Secret 6: The sprinkle of salt on the top. Makes all the sweetness sing.

Secret 7: Wait. I mean, sure, have one piping hot out of the oven, but the flavors actually meld and deepen once they cool. These are definitely cookies that get better the next day.

Secret 7 1/2: Always err on taking them out too early rather than too late – also essential for middle-softness. They continue to cook on the sheet for a few minutes, so don’t overdo it – underdone is better than overdone, every time (and you can always pop them in for a minute more if you like).

Stick to these secrets, and you will ace chocolate chip cookies forever.

2 cups minus 2 Tbsp. cake flour (8 1/2 oz)*
1 2/3 cups bread flour (8 1/2 oz)*
1 ¼ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. coarse salt, such as kosher
2 ½ sticks (1 ¼ cups; 10 oz.) unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups (10 oz.) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. (8 oz.) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks, preferably about 60% cacao content, such as Ghirardelli
Sea salt or kosher salt for garnishing

(* to those questioning the weight of the flours – they are indeed correct. Different flours have different weights, so just because you are weighing out the same oz doesn’t mean you are using the same amount, if that makes sense. Trust Shirley on this one.)

Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Whisk well; then set aside.

Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars until very light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low; then add dry ingredients, and mix until just combined. (Unless you have a plastic guard that sits around the rim of the bowl, this will make a big mess at first, with flour flying everywhere. I found that carefully holding a dish towel around the top of the bowl helped a lot.) Add the chocolate chips, and mix briefly to incorporate. Press plastic wrap against the dough, and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. The dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°F. Remove the bowl of dough from the refrigerator, and allow it to soften slightly. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat.

Using a standard-size ice cream scoop – mine holds about 3 fluid ounces, or about 1/3 cup – scoop six mounds of dough onto the baking sheet, making sure to space them evenly. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt, and bake until golden brown but still soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies onto the rack to cool a bit more.

Kate: my oven is a class-act pile of junk, so one batch was cooked at 400 for 15 minutes and I think it turned out the best! One was cooked at 300 for 25 and it was kind of mediocre. So, in my opinion, hotter and faster seems to be better. At least in my crazy oven.

Repeat with remaining dough.

Yield: About 24 (5-inch) cookies. Kate: Mine made more like 18. But I have a cookie dough eating problem.

Go forth and make cookies, people.

- See more at: http://forme-foryou.com/2011/08/the-only-chocolate-chip-cookie-i-will-ever-need-to-know-how-to-make-for-the-rest-of-my-life.html#sthash.aGkfTeZ3.dpuf