Thoroughly Awesome Lasagna

Giada probably doesn't call it that. Or maybe she does, I wouldn't know. Fall has landed in New England with a resounding thump, and with it the need for Serious Food. Lasagna is not something I make very often, because for some reason I am constitutionally incapable of making it with shortcuts like jarred sauce, and also because there's just the two of us eating it, and we have to eat it all week. I solved the latter problem by issuing an invitation on Facebook to anyone who wanted to drop by, with the result that my sister-in-law and her husband joined us for dinner.

This recipe is indeed a serious lasagna, an all-afternoon, many-pot project with results that are absolutely worth it.  I thought when I started it that I had made it before, but the deeper into it I got, the more certain I was that I hadn't. It is not a light recipe by any means--the four cups of whole milk for the bechamel being just the start--but a pan of this can easily feed eight people, so any one portion is probably not too bad. Or so I tell myself. Judge for yourself:

Classic Italian Lasagan - Giada de Laurentiis

Tomato Sauce:

1/2 c extra-virgin olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

Salt and pepper

2 32-oz cans crushed tomatoes

2 bay leaves

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, optional

1. In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, 5-10 minutes. 
2. Add celery and carrots and season with salt and pepper. Saute until soft, 5-10 minutes. 
3. Add tomatoes and bay leaves. Simmer over low heat until thick, about one hour. 
4. Remove bay leaves and check for seasoning. If still acidic, add butter, one tablespoon at a time, to round out the flavors. 
5. Puree sauce in a food processor (I didn't puree it--I don't mind little bits of veggies in my sauce--but if you must have a smooth texture, go right ahead.). Allow to cool before using or freezing.

Makes 6 cups. (You will have some left over after making the lasagna.)

Bechamel Sauce:

5 Tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 c all-purpose flour

4 c whole milk at room temperature

Pinch of nutmeg

1 1/2 c tomato sauce (see above)

1. In a two-quart pot, melt the butter over medium heat. When completely melted, add the flour and whisk until smooth, about 2 minutes. 
2. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Continue to simmer and whisk over medium heat until the sauce is thick, smooth, and creamy, about 10 minutes. You want it thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. 
3. Remove from heat and add the nutmeg and tomato sauce. Stir until well combined, check for seasoning. Set aside and allow to cool completely.

Lasagna:

1/4 c extra-virgin olive oil

1 lb ground beef

1 1/2 lb ricotta cheese

3 large eggs

1 lb lasagna noodles, cooked al dente

2 10-oz packages frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

3 c shredded mozzarella

1/4 c freshly grated Parmesan

1. Preheat your oven to 375F.
2. In a saute pan, heat olive oil. Add the ground beef and brown. Drain off any excess fat. Set aside and allow to cool.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, mix the ricotta and eggs. Set aside. 
4. In a 9x13 baking dish, spread 1/3 of the bechamel sauce. Arrange pasta sheets to cover the bottom of the dish. Evenly spread all of the ricotta mixture and then all of the spinach. 
5. Arrange another layer of pasta sheets and spread all of the ground beef on top. Sprinkle 1/2 of the mozzarella on top of the beef. Spread 1/3 of the bechamel on top.
6. Arrange the third layer of pasta sheets and top with remaining bechamel, mozzarella, and Parmesan.
7. Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place the lasagna dish on top, cover, and put on the middle rack of the oven. Bake until the top is bubbling, about 30 minutes. Remove cover and continue to bake another 15 minutes.

This dish was made, by the way, on a day that was mostly owned by sheer chaos. JJ woke up around 4:30 and didn't want to go back to sleep (he eventually did, but not until well after his parents had decided to just get up already). I took him to the grocery store later in the morning, and somewhere along the way he lost a shoe.  After lunch, he threw up. Many trips to the plaza were made--for new shoes, for wine, for light bulbs to replace the two we lost in twenty-four hours, for things I forgot on my first grocery trip, and then yet one more trip when I realized I was out of sugar to make the frosting for the cake (which may appear here later).

Dinner, however, was wonderful.

660 Curries - Kheema Mutter

Although I don't post there very often, I do still spend a fair amount of time hanging out on the Cooking Light bulletin board, where there is always some new recipe or interesting food-based discussion going on. Most of those discussions run pretty short--a half dozen posts, a couple of pages at most, unless it's one of the regular features.

Or the discussion of 660 Curries. This one was swelled, admittedly, by the fact that the author dropped in to answer questions and provide encouragement--surely a model of self-promotion in the Internet age, and I mean that as a compliment--but even without that it took on considerably more life and enthusiasm than most similar threads I have seen.

After all of that, I finally picked up a copy of the book. It certainly did look interesting, and challenging. An opportunity arose to use it this week after I picked up some grass-fed ground beef at the farmer's market. At six bucks a pound, I didn't want to make meatloaf, so I was glad to find a recipe that was new, would put the meat to good use, and didn't require me to buy or make anything particularly exotic--the one problem with the book, I gather, being that you really need to have a spice grinder and an Indian market, neither one of which I have readily to hand.

I am far from an inexperienced cook, but all the buildup I had read actually left me a little bit nervous about making the recipe. I was very careful to chop, measure, and otherwise lay out my ingredients before I started. This is generally a good idea anyway, but I must admit it's something that I've gotten sloppy about; most of what I've been cooking this summer has been forgiving enough that if it cooks an extra few minutes while I dig out a utensil, or I have to leave out some herb I don't have on hand, no one really notices. I am under the impression that Indian cooking is not like that, so for once I followed the recipe very carefully

Kheema Mutter (Spicy Indian Ground Beef)

660 Curries, Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

2 T canola oil

2 t cumin seeds

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

3-5 fresh green Thai, cayenne or Serrano chile peppers

3 large cloves garlic, minced

2 T minced ginger

2-3 cinnamon sticks 

2 fresh or dried bay leaves

1 lb lean ground beef

2 t coriander seeds, ground

1 t cumin seeds, ground

2 t kosher salt

1 t ground turmeric

1 cup frozen or fresh peas

2 T chopped cilantro

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Add the cumin seeds and cook briefly, until they sizzle, turn reddish brown and are fragrant, about 5-15 seconds. Immediately add the onion and stir fry until limp and golden, 5-10 minutes.

Add the ginger, chile pepper, garlic, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. Cook until caramel-brown, about 5 minutes.

Break up the ground beef and add it to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beef is browned. Sprinkle in the coriander, ground cumin, salt and turmeric and stir to coat the meat evenly. Reduce the heat to medium low and cover the pan, simmering for 10-12 minutes. Stir in 1 cup of water and let the meat simmer for 5-8 minutes. Add peas and cilantro, cook until peas are done. 

Serve with basmati rice and, if you wish, a chutney.

The only change I made was to use a jalopeno pepper, because that's the only kind the market had. I used one large pepper, wary of the potential heat in the result. What came out of the pot was pleasantly spicy but not at all overwhelming, certainly not as searing as I momentarily feared it would be. It was balanced perfectly by the basmati rice, as it should have been. It was not, all my fears aside, particularly difficult, and I will absolutely make it again--and also, I hope, many other recipes from this book.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of this one.

Twirling, Twirling

Finally, a post I started writing two weeks ago....

I went up to NH for the traditional family July 4th weekend without a thought in my head as to what I was going to make for dinner when my turn came to cook on Sunday. This is not like me; when I am cooking for other people I tend to overplan, and when we go up to the cottage I tend to take half of my kitchen along with me, just in case I want something that isn't part of the antiquated batterie de cuisine. This time, however, I stuffed a couple of recent Fine Cooking issues in my backpack and figured I would wing it.

We arrived during a brief interlude between rainstorms. As previously noted, June in New Englad has been... damp this year. Sad to say, the trend continued during the first week of July, with storms rolling through every hour or two on Friday and Saturday. At least it kept the speed-boaters to a minimum. We enjoyed the sun while we could, spending time out of the dock, watching Raleigh swim after thrown sticks. L was induced to get into the water, and given a ride out to the raft by her "Uncle" Mike, where she handled an involuntary dunking with surprising aplomb.

Saturday morning we went to the parade and the library book sale in Moultonborough. I didn't even look at the books this year.

I did take L to the Old Country Store for some penny candy, and actually found something I've been looking for: a growth chart for her that we can take along when we move (we've been using the kitchen wall, which of course presents a problem...). Clouds kept rolling through, but the rain held off until we were on our way home afterward. After lunch, I found myself drafted into first moving a logpile that was in the way of some work being done on the smaller cottage, and then shoveling sand and gravel for various projects to do with the waterlogged state of the lot. It does not take much to bring out the hydrological engineer in my in-laws. Saturday night, only D's parents were brave enough to attend the fireworks, although as it turned out they took place during one of the clear interludes. It got very cold that night, and we made a fire (in July!).

It was still cold Sunday morning, with a fierce wind. Since it wasn't raining, we grimly bundled ourselves up and went over to the beach, but only stayed for a half hour before L was too cold and wanted to go back.

Various projects were attended to that afternoon; D's job for this trip was to cull the book collection, weeding out Readers Digest Condensed Books and fifty-year-old romance novels to make room for things that might actually get read once in a while. I went to the grocery store. Over the course of the day people who had to be at work on Monday drifted out, so it was a relatively small group for which I had to cook that night.

And I am happy to say that my uncharacteristically relaxed approach did not lead to disaster. While I did have to spend some money on spices I could have brought up had I known I would need them, and I am never going up there without a decent knife again, the meal we ended up with was perfectly adequate, indeed something I will more than likely make again. Here is a link, but I am not sure whether they keep recipes up all the time.

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/3 cup milk
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cayenne
28-oz. can diced tomatoes, with their juices
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lb. ground beef (preferably 85% lean)
2/3 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

Combine the breadcrumbs and milk in a mixing bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a heavy 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add 1 tsp. of the cumin, the cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp. of the cayenne and cook for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and their juices, 1 cup water, and 1/2 tsp. salt. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a steady simmer and cook for 15 minutes.

While the sauce simmers, prepare the meatballs: Mash the breadcrumbs and milk with a fork to a smooth paste. Add the beef, the remaining 1 tsp. cumin, half of the cilantro, 1-1/2 tsp. salt, several grinds of pepper, and the remaining 1/8 tsp. cayenne to the breadcrumbs. Mix with your hands until thoroughly combined. Wet your hands to keep the mixture from sticking to them and roll a couple of tablespoons into 1-1/2-inch balls; you should have about 30. Nestle the meatballs into the sauce, cover, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes to thicken the sauce. Stir in the remaining cilantro and season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over herbed couscous or steamed rice.

On Monday morning the weather turned gorgeous. Our second beach outing was much more of a success!

Happy Father's Day

Sorry for the loss of momentum here again--I've actually been working on writing, of all things, and might blog about that later. It seems that I can only keep two creative endeavors going at the same time without losing all headway elsewhere. Perhaps I need to schedule myself more.

But anyway, back to the food. Father's Day is one of those occasions when we lean on sexual stereotyping. The menu has to include meat, cooked in as primitive a fashion as possible. Since I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, this ended up being our menu:

• Ginger-Soy Grilled Steak. On the rare occasions I make steak, I love this recipe. It is ludicrously simple and very good.
• Ina Garten's French Potato Salad. My store had fingerlings, so I used those instead of the "new" potatoes, which are never new and that day looked particularly pathetic. I have abandoned her perverse-seeming instruction to cut up the potatoes after cooking them; it always seems to shred the skins, never mind what it does to my fingers!
• A green salad with dried cranberries and goat cheese
• Chocolate cake I've blogged before, with a simple and very sweet frosting from Martha.

It was a quiet day. Dave and his dad went off to the Higgins Armory for the afternoon, his mom played with the kids, and I watched some Torchwood.

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

I could not tell you the last time I had a sloppy joe--probably the last church supper I attended, which puts it back, oh, about twenty years--and I have never made one before in my life. So I have no idea what possessed me to make this recipe. I guess I wanted to make something different?

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

I'll definitely be making these again. The chipotle adds just enough punch--they'd be kind of dull without it. I used red pepper instead of green, because all the green peppers at my store looked about two weeks old (ugh). Caramelize the onions a bit, and the result, while maybe not fit for a dinner party, is something I wouldn't be shy about serving friends.

L didn't want any meat, but she did put her sliced peppers and cucumbers between the bun halves and ate it like a sandwich; I don't think she's ever done that before. We're always greatly encouraged when she tries a new dinner behavior.