Meat Lasagna On The Fly

Easy Meat Lasagna

Originally I was planning on making stuffed peppers for supper, but when I realized I didn't really have a pan big enough to bake them in, I decided to amend my original plan and make a meat lasagna. I vaguely remembered my mother making it, but I didn't have a recipe.

How hard could it really be? 

The Attempt:

 1/2 lb chopped meat

1+   cup mixed peppers

1/2  an onion, chopped

Jar of marinara sauce

A couple of shakes of: Onion powder, garlic powder, basil, salt, pepper

2 Tbs oil

uncooked lasagna noodles

Filling:

Heat oil in large skillet. Sauté onions and peppers until soft. Add meat, brown. Add around half a jar of marinara sauce and spices.  Heat through. 

To assemble lasagna: 

Cover bottom of pan with a layer of marinara sauce. Add a layer of uncooked lasagna noodles. (Because I was using a smaller pan than the typical 9x13 I had to break the lasagna pieces into smaller pieces.) Place a layer of the filling on top.  Add another layer of lasagna noodles, then another layer of filling. Add another layer of lasagna noodles over filling. Top the noodles with more marinara sauce. 

Makes 3 servings.

The Verdict:

A+.  This was really good. Definitely a repeat. A couple of things to note. 

• All my servings are small. I make just enough for me and Prince Charming, plus a little extra. If you are making this for more people, double the recipe.

• Since it was a small recipe, I didn't make it in a 9 x 13 pan, but rather a 1 1/2 qt. pyrex dish. Because of that, I had to break up the lasagna pieces. It didn't look pretty and it wasn't even, but once the dish had cooked you couldn't tell the difference. 

• I felt like it needed more spice, maybe more salt. Prince Charming didn't think it was missing too much but then again he's in middle of finals and wasn't paying much attention. Next time I make it, I'll experiment with adding a few more shakes of the spices. 

• The top was too crunchy to eat, I think it needs to be completely covered with marinara sauce in order for the noodles to cook, so the next time I will add more sauce. 

• I made this dish in the morning, went to a midday vort (engagement party) in Lakewood, NJ, sat in mucho traffic, and when I was an hour away from home asked Prince Charming to pop it into the oven. I'm not sure, but it is possible that the time the lasagna spent chilling out in my refrigerator might have contributed to the lasagna noodles getting softer- because they were sitting in the meat sauce. The next time I make it I'm going to have to put it in the oven right away to see what happens. 

The Thing With the Crockpot

Chicken Taco Soup

For those of us religious jews, crockpots invariably conjure up images of Shabbos (Sabbath) in which we thow a whole bunch of awesome ingredients into a crockpot and cook them together to make Chulent. 

Chulent is a goulash type dish that most Jewish men adore. Many Jewish women adore it too. But here was a kitchen gadget sitting in my tiny kitchen taking up space, unused, for most of the week. 

The thing about Crockpots is that they are no-brainer supper machines. Just put in all the ingredients leave them for a whole bunch of hours and come home to a steamy hot comfort dinner with minimal effort. I have a recipe for slow cooker pulled beef sandwiches that earns a 10+ in Prince Charming's book. It's amazing and super easy. Well, I'm starting school again in a month and the need for easy and yummy no-brainer suppers is rather pressing. So I'm on a quest to find as many good crockpot recipes as I can over the next few weeks. 

The Attempt:

Yesterday I tried a recipe for Chicken Taco Soup that I found on allrecipes.com. I made a couple of changes, naturally. 

1. I swapped out the beer for ginger ale. In my experience ginger ale stands in nicely for beer in most recipes that call for it. We usually don't have beer in our house, but we always have ginger ale. 
2. Swapped out the corn for more vegetables(shredded carrots and mixed peppers). 
• I like more vegetables. In everything.
• Prince Charming doesn't like corn. 

The Verdict:

Eh, Ok. It was good, but lacked oomph. 

• Maybe if I had used actual beer it would have had the oomph factor.

 Also, Charming wasn't a huge fan of the shredded chicken. 

• If I make it again, I'll cut the chicken into chunks, that might be better.

But on the whole, it's a good recipe for every once in a while, but not exactly one that's going to make it into our weekly rotation. 

Applesauce Adventures

The Cranberry Chronicles, Part 1

Ever walk by the flavored applesauces in the grocery store and wonder:
"How can I make that myself?"

Probably not. But I have. Maybe it's because I grew up with my Bobby making the most wonderful cinnamon applesauce every year for Pesach (Passover), but for some reason store bought applesauce is not as awesome as homemade applesauce. So after spending a few months of my marriage buying applesauce, I decided enough is enough! I have to make it.

And at first I was happy just putting apples, water,  and sugar into a pot. But then came the cookbook: Fresh and Easy Kosher Cooking by Leah Shapira had a recipe for strawberry applesauce. Which I just had to try. It was eye opening. Then came the pears. Prince Charming has pears for breakfast most mornings, but there were some that were too squishy to eat, and in leu of throwing them away, I decided to make applesauce with them.

Into the pot went the pears and the apples (and all the other ingredients) and voila! Something amazing was born. And I was inspired.

What else can I put into a pot of apples?

So, I've been sitting on this idea for a few weeks now. We need to maintain the applesauce consistency, but add things that change the flavor and color and make it exiting.  This week cranberries were majorly on sale in the grocery store and with the myriad of canberry-apple crisp and crumble and whatnot recipes out there, it occurred to me that the cranberry-applesauce might be really really good.

The Attempt:

1 apple

A bunch of Cranberries

Cover with water

Sugar to your heart's desire

Vanilla sugar

Capful of lemon juice

Cook, covered on medium flame until soft. Squish a bit with a spoon. 

Eat. 

The Verdict:

It needs tweaking. It's really good, and really tart. I think it needs more sugar, or perhaps no lemon juice because the cranberries are tart enough as it is. 

We'll be looking back at this one over the next few weeks (i.e.: So long as cranberries are on sale.) Once we get the proportions right, I think we might also need to experiment with different apple varieties. 

Hmmm. I'm getting really exited about this! 

Welcome to A Kitchen Oddyssey! If you are here, you are committed to joining a grand culinary adventure as I bravely cook where I have never cooked before. 

But before we begin, a brief introduction:

Who am I?

My name is Esti. I am a student, artist, cook, baker, sister, daughter, wife, mother (exhale). I wear many hats and by far my favorite is wife and mother. Partially because as a wife and a mother, I get to feed my family.

That's where the adventure comes in.

I've been cooking seriously since high school. However, I was cooking for people who's tastes were similar to my own. It was mostly a no brainer- if I wanted to try a recipe that sounded good to me, chances are my parents and sibs would be on board as well. My parents and siblings, like myself, are all culinary adventurers. I love trying new foods and I haven't yet found a food that I adamantly dislike enough not to eat. Except p'cha. And omelets before 12pm. Don't ask me why.

Then I got married to Prince Charming. He's my knight in shining armor. The love of my life. And a picky eater. I recall one early date where my Prince started mentioning all the foods he doesn't like. My first thought was: "How on earth am I going to cook for him?!?" That should have been the first sign that we were headed to good places.

Because no quest is complete without challenges. And here are mine:

• NO Vinegar
• At all. As in, like never. Period.
• NO Peanut Butter
• NO Squash
• NO Sweet Potatoes
• NO Chicken-on-the-bone
• This one was wrenching. Before I met Prince Charming, I was convinced that chicken was the love of my life. And no, cutlets just don't cut it. 
• Every supper should have, if possible, a form of animal protein. 
• That means Lasagna, Baked Ziti, Falafel and the like are not valid suppers

And on my side:

• NO Dairy
• The princess doesn't like diary, therefore, until she figures out a different way to get her daily nutrients, no milk for me. 
• UPDATE: The Princess is fine with milk, so this restriction is no longer applicable. :) In fact, she just tried yogurt for the first time. GO MOMMY!! 

However, I have a goal. A holy grail if you will. 

I WILL COOK, YUMMY, HEALTHFUL, DELICIOUS, EXITING MEALS. 

Even with all of the above limitations. 

Along the way, I have guides. Like cookbooks, cooking blogs, cooking websites and cooking magazines that inspire me to try new things. The trick is to expand my culinary acumen, while still sticking to the above guidelines. 

We're on a kitchen odyssey. And anything can happen. 

So, are you in?