Veg Lasagna

I suppose everyone has their preferences when it comes to lasagna. I like mine packed with veggies, but I don't want the vegetables to distract from the cheese. Which is how I wound up with a veg-cheese filling that blends puréed spinach, grated carrot, and chopped onion with mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta.

I originally made this lasagna with hand-chopped fresh spinach, but when I got a food processor, I found that it was faster (and cheaper) to use frozen spinach -- there's no change in flavor, and a slight improvement in texture. I also use store-bought tomato sauce in this lasagna, although you can make your own if you want. It's a pretty simple, no-fuss recipe, but the result is respectable enough to serve guests.

Ingredients
9 lasagna noodles, cooked per package instructions
10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed
1 carrot, washed and grated
1 onion, washed and finely chopped (or grated)
dash nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
1 egg
15 ounces (approx. 1 and 3/4 cup) part-skim ricotta
8 ounces grated mozzarella cheese, divided
About 3 ounces grated parmesan cheese, divided
26 ounces store-bought tomato sauce (about 3 cups)

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Purée the spinach in a food processor.

Transfer the spinach into a large bowl, and slowly blend in the carrot, onion, egg, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and ricotta, along with 2/3 of the mozzarella and 1/2 of the parmesan. Set the veg-cheese mixture aside.

Pour about 1/3 of the tomato sauce into a 9 x 13 baking dish, so that the bottom of the dish is covered.

Top the tomato sauce with three of the lasagna noodles.

Cover the lasagna noodles with 1/2 of the veg-cheese mixture (spreading the mixture so that the noodles are evenly covered).

Top the veg-cheese mixture with three more of the lasagna noodles.

Pour another third of the tomato sauce over the lasagna noodles.

Use the rest of the veg-cheese mixture to cover the tomato sauce.

Top the veg-cheese mixture with the last three lasagna noodles.

Pour the last of the tomato sauce over the lasagna noodles.

Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes.

Remove the foil and add the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

Bake (uncovered) for another 10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted.

Remove the lasagna from the oven and let sit for 10 minutes.

Serve.

(I get 9 generous servings -- any leftovers freeze nicely.)

Sweet Potato Truffles With Pecans, Coconut, And Chocolate

I know that, from my recent posts, it must look like I eat nothing but sweets and soup. That's not exactly true, but I do have another sweets recipe to share -- this time, homemade truffles, made with mashed sweet potato, pecans, coconut, and two types of chocolate.

They're tiny, so you might need to eat a few of them.

Ingredients
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup mashed sweet potato
1/4 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
3/4 cup pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dash salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder

Place the chocolate chips, sweet potato, pecans, coconut, vanilla, and salt in a food processor and process until the mixture becomes relatively smooth and forms a ball.

Scrape the truffle mixture out of the food processor and into a bowl; cover and refrigerate for one hour.

After about an hour...

Set out a piece of wax paper or parchment paper (to place the finished truffles on).

Remove the truffle mixture from the refrigerator.

Place the cocoa powder on a dinner plate.

Roll 1 teaspoon of the truffle mixture between your hands to create a ball.

Roll the truffle ball in the cocoa powder until coated, and place on the parchment or wax paper.

Repeat until all of the truffle mixture has been used.

Refrigerate until serving (or enjoy immediately).

Ginger Beet Soup

I'm don't know about you, but beets were not my favorite food growing up. In fact, I thought they were gross. Then, on a whim, I tried a bowl of ginger beet soup at a restaurant -- and discovered that beets weren't so bad after all. In fact, ginger beet soup was really really good.

This recipe from Maya at My Feasts creates a pretty close approximation of the soup I had that day. First, sautée leeks, ginger, and garlic over medium-low heat, and then add roasted beets, salt, pepper, and broth to the pot. After allowing the ingredients to simmer for a bit, purée, then finish with fresh lemon juice. It's a simple recipe, with great results. Not only does the soup have a nice ginger-beet flavor, but it will make your kitchen smell wonderful.

My only stray from the recipe was using water in place of broth -- happily, the leeks, garlic, ginger, and beets created their own.

Ginger Chocolate Chip Cookies

I had a craving for ginger + chocolate, so I decided to try this recipe for ginger chocolate chip cookies. I more or less followed the recipe exactly, except I used diced crystallized ginger instead of ginger chips, and I substituted 1/3 cup spelt flour for 1/3 cup of the all-purpose flour. Also, I decided to live dangerously and not grease the (nonstick) baking sheet, and it turned out fine.

When I read the recipe, I wondered whether little bits of ginger would give the entire cookie a ginger flavor, or whether it would only be noticeable when I bit into a piece of ginger (sort of like biting into a raisin in an oatmeal raisin cookie). Happily, the ginger flavor does permeate the entire cookie, and is punctuated when biting into an actual piece of ginger.

The only thing I would do differently when making these cookies in the future is doubling the recipe. I made my cookies a little bit bigger than the ones contemplated in the recipe, so I wound up with about 28 cookies instead of 36.

Beer Cheese Soup

Again with the cauliflower. This time, in soup. With beer.

Ingredients
1 head cauliflower, washed and cut into small pieces
1/2 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, washed and diced
1 stalk celery, washed and diced
1 clove garlic
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon ground mustard
black pepper to taste
8 ounces (1 cup) beer (I used a black ale)
4 cups veg broth (I used un-chicken broth*)
1 cup water
2 carrots, washed and diced
2 cups potatoes, washed and diced
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
About 2.5 ounces gruyére, grated

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.

When the water is boiling, add the cauliflower and cook until tender (10-15 minutes).

Strain the cauliflower and let cool.

Place the cooled cauliflower in a food processor along with the milk, and process until smooth. Set aside.

Return the pot to the burner, and melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the onion, garlic, celery, and bay leaf and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft (about 10 minutes).

Sprinkle the flour, dry mustard, and black pepper over the onion and celery and cook three more minutes, stirring constantly.

Slowly pour the beer into the pot, whisking constantly.

Slowly add the broth and water to the pot, whisking constantly (this will take several minutes).

Carefully add the puréed cauliflower, stirring until smooth. Then, add the carrots and potatoes. Cover, bring to a boil, then turn down to medium-low heat and simmer 30 minutes.

Remove the pot from the burner, take out the bay leaf, and add the grated cheese, stirring until the cheese has melted smoothly into the soup.

Serve immediately.

*I didn't add salt because my broth contained a decent amount of sodium.

Apple Yam Soup

From Paulette Mitchell's cookbook A Beautiful Bowl of Soup: a steaming bowl of apple yam soup, flavored with white wine, ginger, and curry powder, and topped with chopped pecans. A copy of the recipe can be found here.

Although the recipe calls for seasoned pecans, I just used plain chopped pecans (which are pretty amazing on their own), and saved the butter for the bread I ate along with the soup.

Pasta With Walnut Sauce

I love walnuts, so I was intrigued by a recipe for pasta with walnut sauce in the New York Times last week. However, I didn't want to take the time to track down "fresh ricotta" or walnut oil, so I did a little googling and came up with another recipe, one that used basic ingredients I keep around the house (walnuts, bread, milk, parmesan cheese, garlic, dried marjoram, olive oil). Not only are the ingredients easy to find, but the recipe is super-simple: soak a slice of bread in milk, then purée the walnuts, cheese, garlic, and marjoram. The olive oil, soaked bread, and milk are then processed into the sauce. The result is rich, pleasantly creamy, and great tossed with pasta and broccoli.

The recipe was vague about the amount of salt; I would recommend at least 3/4 teaspoon. I also used a little extra milk to thin the sauce, which was quite thick.