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Individual Portion (Mini) Eggplant Lasagna

broderic on December 11, 2011

I read about these small portion lasagnas the cooking for two issue of the Cooks Illustrated magazine. They baked the lasagna in a small loaf pan rather than a traditional pan. Since, I only cook for myself, that recipe looked interesting. I wanted to make a mini lasagna. The recipe was for a spinach white lasagna, and it had some béchamel as a sauce. That’s starting to get complicated. My recipe is going to be an eggplant lasagna.

I started with the sauce. I diced up some green, peppers, onions, and carrots which I sautéed in olive oil with some garlic. Once that was nice and tender, I added some chopped whole tomatoes and some tomato sauce. I let this simmer down. Adding some salt for taste.

I had some ricotta which I mixed with an egg, dried basil, and oregano. This is the cheese layer. Maybe I should’ve mixed some parmesan in here.

Once all this was done. I started to build my mini loaf pans with a lasagna. Easy bake lasagna noodles, the ricotta mixture, eggplant, then the tomato sauce. I was able to only put 2 of these layers in one mini loaf pan. I topped it off with some more tomato sauce; perhaps I should’ve put some cheese here, too.

I bake it in my oven pre-heated to 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Actually, it’s baking right now so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Mushroom Barley Soup

broderic on December 3, 2011

It’s like the Spinache Mushroom Barley Soup except without the spinach.

Used different mushrooms, rather than the plain white buttons: Porcini mushrooms to flavor the stock and some darker mushrooms. Don’t remember their names, but they taste just as good.

I followed the same recipe, but changed up the stock. I had to buy each ingredient for the stock individually rather than rely on the “soup stock” vegetable package I get the grocers. The stock is the Porcini mushroom soak, carrots, onions, celery, bell peppers, thyme, and pepper corns.

It’s very weird to spend my time cooking variations of mushroom soup. I don’t really dig mushrooms but I dig barley and the two go together. So with all this barley in my house, its only one package!, but I have to use it up. There’s still a few cups left over. Maybe sometime soon, I have to make that barely risotto I keep thinking about.

Ham Stir Fry

broderic on November 8, 2011

Just throwing left over ham into a frying pan with some vegetables doesn’t mean it is really a stir fry. Especially, if you don’t even bother to have rice as well. It’s just fried ham with vegetables. Don’t do this again.

I just took some ham and chopped it up into little pieces. Heated up the frying pan with some oil and the rest of my roasted garlic spread. Threw in some frozen vegetables. And that’s all I am calling my ham stir fry.

Once again don’t do this again.

Pan Roasted Garlic

broderic on November 5, 2011

One of things about cooking once in awhile is that you accumulate plenty of ingredients which you may or may not use again. In my root cellar I had a potato which I threw into my Mushroom Soup. I still have some garlic and an onion in there as well. I thought about making some eggs this morning but found my sink with the frying pan I would use. So in lieu of making an omelette, I decided to roast the remnants of the head of garlic and try to make some type of garlic butter spread.

I first boiled the garlic as per this recipe. Then when they were tender. I pan fried/roasted them in a tablespoon of oil. I actually used some salt, thyme ,and red pepper flakes as they cooked in the frying pan. When golden brown, I threw the cloves in a container with a tablespoon of butter and mashed them together. The butter melted, but I’m hoping that storing in the fridge will resolidify it.

What should I use this garlic spread for?

Another Mushroom Soup

broderic on October 29, 2011

Once more, this morning I made some soup. It’s gonna a be good because soup’s good food whenever a nor’easter rolls through.

Today’s soup is called a Hearty Mushroom Soup. It’s main ingredients is mushrooms. The recipe calls for porcini and shiitake mushrooms. The porcini had to be steeped in the broth to rehydrate. After twenty minutes the broth took on a nice delicious brown color. The original recipe called for celery, but I didn’t want to have several stalks sitting in my fridge so I abandoned that for some potato. Along with that I sautéed onions, orange bell pepper, and garlic in butter. Then I dumped in the mushrooms before adding the broth and 1/4 cup of barley. Boy, do I love barley.

As you know I’m looking out for my salt intake, although I wanted this soup to taste better. So I cut the salt down by half to 1/8 teaspoon after adding soy sauce and a dash of tabasco. The soup is also creamy. The recipe called for half and half plus some thickening agent in 2 tablespoons of flour.

After simmering for about 10 minutes, it’s done. Garnish with some scallions.

Looks good. Tastes good.

I still need to learn how to chop things better. I left the potatoes and bell pepper pieces too big. I should’ve cut down more on the salt for my health and not for the taste especially I should’ve used less soy sauce. Now I need to make more soup stock. This time perhaps beef broth.

Spinach Mushroom Tortilla

broderic on October 16, 2011

Since I had plenty of spinach and mushroom left over from the spinach mushroom barley soup, I figured to throw the leftovers into another Spanish Tortilla.

I tried a couple of different things this time around.

This time I also fried the potatoes with the spinach and mushrooms before throwing everything together in the pan. I was hoping that this would make the potatoes tastier, but since I didn’t put enough salt, they still ended up being bland. I wonder what types of spices to use to make the potatoes tastier. Or maybe I should be using another potato? These are white potatoes. Would the others taste any better?

I also arranged the potatoes better in the pan. The presentation after flipping it out looks more appetizing.

I should’ve left the temperature the same from last time (325F) but increased it to 375. It came out overcooked as you can tell from the color of the egg.

One day I will find a more flavorful combination for my tortilla.

Spinach Mushroom Barley Soup

broderic on October 9, 2011

I’m working on my kitchen skills or as normal people would say – I’m learning to cook. It’s a way to keep my sodium intake down to keep my blood pressure lower (not low as it will never be low again unless I work hard at it). I’m cooking the eponymous soup of the title from a recipe from The Big Book of Soups & Stews by Maryan Vollstedt.

I like barley and wanted to cook something with it. If you think of a barley soup, you usually think of Beef Barley Soup. Yet, I’m looking for something vegetarian, so that’s why I’m leaving out the meat.

Last week, I made the vegetable stock. It’s just a simple stewing of your normal stock vegetables: celery, leeks, onions, peppers, turnip. Plus some herbs in bay leaf and thyme. Black pepper but no salt also added. This stock has been frozen in the freezer for a week now and it will be the basis for the soup.

Now, I’m not gonna rehash the recipe here. I will put my cooking notes down so as to help me become better around the kitchen.

First of all learning kitchen skills one of the hardest things is measurement. The recipe called for a half cup of chopped red peppers. I had a big pepper and chopped it, but what is half a cup from this. It’s the same with the mushrooms: one pound. What does this look like? I went by sight, but since I am a novice, I have no idea what these measurements looks like. They seem like I have too much.

Second, it takes longer than you think to prep the ingredients when you’re a novice. I chopped the vegetables, but forgot about defrosting the spinach and the stock. I was left standing around with the vegetables simmering in the pot while it took a while for the stock to be melted.

Third, knife skills. I can’t for the life of me dice or chop vegetables. They end up irregular sizes. Are the carrots too big? Are the mushrooms? In due time I’ll know, but right now with my skills, the vegetables are too big.

So this is my adventure this morning. I’ll let you know how it tastes.

UPDATE: Fourth, grains soak up water. I had put in half a cup of barley. The recipe originally called for a third of a cup. This looked meek. So I upped the measurement. After half an hour of simmering, the barley has soaked up tons of the stock. Rather than a soup, it looks like a stew.

Tortilla

broderic on June 18, 2011

This week I started eating salad for lunch trying to lose some weight. I bought too much vegetables so that by the weekend I had left over onions and peppers. I needed to use them before they go old. Somehow I thought that I should make a Spanish tortilla, an omlet. I can cook scrambled eggs so how hard can it be?

First, I prepped the onions and peppers. Just fry them up like normal in a bit of oil. They recommend olive oil, but all I have is canola. Then comes the potatoes. I used white potatoes because of their size. Slice them up. If I was a better knife handler, they would all be the same thickness, but they weren’t. Cook these up as well. When done remove the excess oil from the pan. Lower the heat on it and get ready to put everything pack into the pan. I was worried that they would stick to the pan so I put a little bit of butter before arranging the potatoes on the bottom. Then I put the fried peppers, onions and tomatoes on top. Took four eggs and scrambled them then poured over the vegetables. I finished it off with some feta cheese. Let sit for about 1 minute before I slid the pan into a pre-heated the oven at 325F. Cooked for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven. Let sit for a few minutes. With a spatula, free up the edges, put a plate over the pan and flip. Enjoy!

Things to note, because I may forget.

Use less oil. I used too much for the pepper, onion, tomatoe mixture so that as the tortilla came out of the oven it was too oily. Use more salt. I’m watching my sodium, but more salt is needed to give the tortilla a kick. At least the feta cheese added to the saltiness. Slice potatoes better. Or even the peppers. I should’ve diced them. That pan handle is hot after it comes out of the oven. Yes I know, but not being in the kitchen very often.