Lasagna, soup style

Grocery shopping while hungry the other day, I had a craving for lasagna.  It's starting to get chilly outside at night and in the mornings, and instead of craving cold sandwiches and ice cream I want to bake bread and cook soup in a crock pot and make warm casseroles.

I'd found a recipe a long time ago for lasagna soup, and the idea has always been in the back of my head as something I wanted to try.  I made mine completely from scratch and while it took a while, most of the time is pretty passive.  Here's three ways to make it, depending on how much time you have or how skilled you are.

Lasagna soup.  Like tomato soup, but waaaaay better.

Lasagna soup, level three

3-4 big tomatoes

1 medium onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, divided

1 cup cottage cheese

0.5-1 cup grated parmesan

4 wide lasagna noodles

S&P

1. Heat some olive oil in a medium pot.  Finely dice the onion and throw it in the oil, cooking until it's translucent.  

2. Medium-dice the tomatoes, reserving any juices that ooze out while you chop them.  

3. Either grate the garlic cloves or finely mince them, then saute them with the onions for about a minute.  

4. Once the onions and garlic are fragrant, add the tomatoes and juices into the pot.  Turn the heat on medium-high, salt the pot liberally, and bring to a boil.  (The salt will help the tomatoes release their juices.)

5. In the meantime, finely mince half the basil.  Add to the pot, which should be very juicy.  Add about a quart of water and bring back up to a boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer.

6. Combine the cottage cheese, parmesan, and the other half of the basil (minced fine), along with some freshly-ground pepper, in a separate bowl.

7. Once the soup has simmered for about 10-15 minutes, break the lasagna noodles into pieces and add directly to the soup.  Cook until the noodles are al dente.

8. To serve: dish up the soup into a bowl and take a heavy dollop of the cheese-basil mixture in the middle of the bowl.  

Holds up surprisingly well as leftovers, too.

Not that much time?  Try it this way.

Lasagna soup, level two

1 medium onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

1 jar pasta sauce

basil, fresh or dried

cottage cheese

grated parmesan

lasagna noodles or other pasta

S&P

1. Dice the onion and saute.  Mince the garlic and saute with the onions for a minute until fragrant.

2. Add the jar of pasta sauce and 1 jar's worth of water.  Bring to a simmer.

3. Add some basil to up the flavor.

4. Make the cheese garnish as above.

5. Add the noodles to the soup and cook until al dente.

6. Serve garnished with the cheese mixture.

This version leaves out the work of fresh tomatoes, but throws in a little prep so it's half-homemade.

Used up your food budget for the month? Haven't been shopping in weeks?  Here's a pantry items-only version.

Lasagna soup, level one

1 can tomato soup

dried basil

garlic powder

noodles of choice: macaroni or shells or lasagna noodles

Optional garnish: cottage cheese, or just parmesan

1. Prepare tomato soup as directed on the package.  Add dried basil (or Italian seasoning) and garlic powder.

2. Add noodles to the soup and cook until al dente.

3. Garnish if desired/available.  Enjoy!

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

If you have a garden, and if you planted tomatoes, then when August hits you know that you are in for a LOT of bounty all at once.  There will be more tomatoes than you will know what to do with; there might even be more tomatoes than you can give away to grateful or unsuspecting neighbors.

All this came out of my garden in...about 3 days.  See the monster
squash in the top left corner?  And see how big the tomatoes are?
Seriously.  Bigger than baseballs, only barely smaller than softballs.

I only planted three tomato plants: two "Early Bird" and one "Cherokee Purple" (heirloom) variety.  The Early Birds have lived up to their name: they started flowering almost as soon as I put them in the ground, and now for the past month or so they've gradually sped up production.  At first, it was one or two tomatoes a week.  But this weekend, I pulled 5-6 tomatoes off of one plant and left at least that many in varying states of orange behind (they should be ready soon!).

I ate tomato sandwiches, and I sliced tomatoes into wedges and ate caprese salads, and I made a small batch of homemade salsa.  And then I still had tomatoes left over.  Since I'm on my pediatrics outpatient month (and basically have a month of vacation), I thought I'd make tomato sauce.  Turns out, that's pretty damn easy and I would've been able to make it even if I weren't on an easy rotation.  Once it was done, I portioned the sauce into single-serve containers and froze it for an afternoon, then popped them out and kept all the blocks in a freezer bag (to free up the valuable tupperware containers).

Tomatoes: into the skillet they go!  Plus some salt.

Easy Tomato Sauce: makes 3 single-serving portions

Ingredients (all fresh is best):

-tomatoes

-garlic

-basil

-salt

Method:

1. Chop the tomatoes.  I used 3-4 large tomatoes from my garden.  They each probably weighed almost a pound...they were about the size of grapefruit!  If you have smaller tomatoes, I'd use 5-6.  The amount of tomatoes I used filled a 10 inch skillet basically to the brim

2. Throw all these tomatoes in the skillet over medium heat.  Using a wide skillet is actually helpful because it gives you a large surface area for evaporation; this makes the sauce reduce more quickly.  Add a few sprinkles of salt (I used about a good pinch per tomato) to help them release their juices.

Adding salt was the right idea.  See how juicy they got?

3. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, while the tomatoes start to break down.  Finely mince or grate some garlic into the cooking tomatoes.  I used two fat cloves of garlic for my panful of tomatoes, but you could use more or less to taste.

4. Next, chop the basil.  I usually chiffonade basil, then cut it cross-wise, to mince it easily.  Add this to the pot of tomatoes.  (They should be pretty juicy and watery now.  The liquid in my skillet went almost all the way to the top.)  You can also turn down the heat to medium-low at this point.

Garlic and basil have joined the party.

5. Keep watching the tomato sauce and stir it occasionally.  It needs to bubble gently (not boil rapidly or anything) and should be giving off plenty of steam, which means it's reducing.  The tomatoes will also gradually become less chunky and more like a thicker tomato sauce.  It's important to stir, too, because the thick tomato-paste-stuff will sink to the bottom while the tomato juice reduces on top, and you don't want the sauce to scorch.  Taste the sauce every now and then to make sure there's enough salt, or the basil flavor isn't too strong, or that there's enough garlic for your liking.

Now it's all reduced.  It's a little hard to tell, but it's much
thicker and more sauce-like than tomato juice-like.

6. In about 30 minutes, the sauce should be reduced enough to be finished.  The key here is to check for the consistency that you like, not to just time it.  Turn off the heat.  You can either puree the sauce and run it through a sieve to make it extra-smooth, or you can be like me and just pour it into containers.

Ready to freeze!  Now I'll have fresh tomato sauce stowed away
for the cold, bleak days of surgery rotation.  Or just winter in general.
Be sure to leave a little room for the sauce to expand when it freezes.

Tomato Sandwich

Ingredients:

-fresh tomato

-cheese (mozzarella or farmer's cheese or provolone would all work)

-basil

-mayonaise

-bread

Method:

1. Toast the bread.

2. In the meantime, slice the tomato.  I like my tomato slices about 3/8 inch thick (I know that's pretty exact, but it's more than a quarter inch but less than half an inch).

3. Slice up your cheese of choice.

4. Make sure your basil is ready to go (leaves picked off stems, chiffonaded if you prefer)

5. Spread mayo on your toast, thinly.  This protects the bread from tomato juice.

6. Assemble the sandwich: toast-mayo-cheese-basil-tomato-mayo-toast.  Oh, and you can throw some S&P on the tomato before you close it up.

7. EAT very messily and think "YUM THIS IS WHAT SUMMER TASTES LIKE!"

Enjoy the tomatoes while you can!  THIS is when they absolutely taste the best--forget fresh tomatoes in December, you don't even want to know how far they've traveled (you can taste it in their mealy texture).

Go!  Make sauce!  Or Bloody Marys! Or just eat them sliced and plain!

Things to Eat when It's Hot Out

Even in an air-conditioned apartment, summer heat leaks in through windows and the cracks under the door and the closets under the eaves.  So, having moved in the middle of summer, I have hardly given my new kitchen a proper christening.  Yes, I've cooked a few times, but really I've been eating lots of cold meals.

Here's what I eat when it's too hot to stand by the (turned off) oven or stove:

-Peanut butter sandwiches and milk

-Crackers and {peanut butter, cheese, hummus, tuna salad}

-Salads

-Cherries (yes, sometimes just cherries for dinner)

-Cottage cheese and nectarines

-Cottage cheese and walnuts and a drizzle of honey

-Cheese roll-ups (large tortilla with some shredded cheese, microwave for a minute until gooey)

-Yogurt

-Cereal (even for dinner)

-Pasta with a no-cook sauce (minus points for boiling water, bonus points for no-cook sauce). I like a creamy yogurt + pesto combo, or carbonara (shredded parm, garlic, and a beaten egg, plus a tiny bit of pepper and pasta water), or chopped tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil.  Throw in a big bunch of arugula and it's like pasta and salad all together.

-Peanut butter (yes, it's on here again.  I eat lots of peanut butter.)

-Ice cream

I love to bake my own bread, but when you don't want to turn on the stove, setting the oven to 450 degrees for any kind of bread is madness.  I did find this recipe for Crock Pot Bread that actually worked like a charm--the end result was really tasty and I didn't heat up my apartment hardly at all.

Here's to staying cool, even in July!

Cheater French Onion Soup

If I had to pick one soup to eat for the rest of my life...it'd probably be French onion.  (It might be tomato soup, but I think it'd depend on the day you ask.)  There is something fantastic about the simplicity of it: onions, cooked slowly until they turn a dark, caramel brown; a few simple seasonings; a rich broth; and of course, a toasted, melty, cheesy crust of bread on top sopping up the juices.

There's just one problem.  French onion soup takes a long time to make.  I mean, caramelized onions are no joke--you have to cook them over low heat for half an hour or forty-five minutes before you're even close to ready, and then you have to add everything else and give it some time to simmer together....By the time you're lapping up the dregs from the bottom of your soup crock you've been hungry (and smelling soup-makings) for hours.

Well, I offer you a simple solution: cheat.

That's right, I said it.  Cheat.

Last year I was perusing foodgawker and the like and came upon a wondrous claim: that, by employing the miracle machine that is the crock pot, one could make caramelized onions without any effort or waiting or constant attention.  Turns out, it's really simple.  Combine pre-caramelized onions with a little vegetable (or beef, if you're into that) broth, some thyme, salt, and pepper, and a cheesy toast-thing for dipping, and you're good to go.

Caramelized onions
6-8 large yellow onions
2 T butter

-Halve and peel the onions, then slice evenly in the direction of your choosing.  (I went cross-grain, but you could julienne, too, if you prefer.  Not sure what difference, if any, it would make.)
-Put the butter in the bottom of a large crock pot. Throw all the onions on top of the butter, until the crock pot is full.
-Cook on high for a few hours to get things going, then turn down the heat.  Cook until the onions are caramelized to your taste.*

Yield: about 6-7 cups.  I put a jarful in the fridge, used some immediately, and froze two containers' worth.

*Note: I foolishly started mine at around 6pm, so at around 9 they were just starting to turn pale beige.  I turned the heat to low and went to bed, and they were perfect the next morning.

Cheater French Onion Soup
serves 1
1/4 to 1/2 c. caramelized onions
1 tsp vegetable bouillon mix or 1 veg bouillon cube
S&P to taste
dash of dried thyme
1 to 1 1/2 c. water

Combine all ingredients in a pot.  Simmer until warmed through.  Serve with cheesy toast things. 

Ready to be packed for lunch: in the bottom, caramelized onions.
Top right, dried thyme; bottom right, bouillon paste.

Cheesy toast things
favorite cheese
bread

Put cheese on bread.  Broil until bubbly.

Added hot water, stirred it around, and
let it sit for a few minutes.  Instant soup!

***
Here's how I cheated even more.  I packed this for lunch--our cafeteria has a hot water dispenser, so I put my onions and seasonings into a jar, packed cheese and crackers to eat on the side, and added hot water when I was ready to eat.  No fuss, plus it's warm and comforting when the weather has finally decided it's fall outside and should therefore be drizzly and gray all day.

That time I set the pot on fire

We had a pub crawl yesterday, and as a result I was severely hungover today. Watching a Jersey Shore marathon and consuming variations on the theme of "bread and cheese" for meals were the order of the day.  At least the weather was cooperating: drizzling mist alternated with purple rain clouds and outright downpours all afternoon.

So when I decided dinner was going to be sweet cheese wontons washed down with OJ leftover from yesterday's festivities, I got to work. The first thing I did was make the filling: one ounce each of goat cheese and neufchâtel, blended with a couple teaspoons of honey. Next, I got out the tiny pot I use for frying things, namely because it cuts down on oil waste and nutrition guilt. I put it on medium heat and started filling wontons.

I had filled about eight wontons when I realized I could hear the heat in the oil. Thinking I just needed to turn down the heat, I turned around to see the oil smoking profusely.  I turned down the heat and dug frantically through the "clean" side of the kitchen sink for the lid, then remembered it was still in the
cabinet. When I turned around, this was what I saw:

FIRE!!!
For obvious safety reasons, I opted for an illustration rather than a photograph of this moment.

There were FLAMES coming out of the pot.  I dropped the lid on as fast as I could and moved it to a cold burner.  The kitchen and the living room were both hazy with smoke now, so I opened up the windows and set up my bedroom fan to circulate the air (alarmingly, the fire alarm did not go off, even though it will sometimes rebel at baking cookies or sauteed onions).

A little taken aback but unsure of what else to do, I went back to filling wontons until I had used up the cheese mixture, about a dozen of them total.  I greased a baking sheet, spaced the wontons out on it, then brushed the tops with a little oil.  Fifteen minutes at 375F and they were done.

The wontons were probably too rich for dinner, and the cheese oozed out the sides, but they were delicious.  Also, my apartment smelled for several hours and still isn't completely cleared of burnt oil-aroma.

At least I didn't burn down the apartment, though!

~Lindsey

Margherita pizza

I think if I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life, pizza would be near the top of the list.  It's versatile, you can put anything on it, and at its most basic level, you can't get any more sublime than bread and cheese.  Throw in some tangy tomato slices and some fresh basil bits and whoa.

Those red things are tomato slices, not ginormous pepperonis.

When I make pizza, I like to go ahead and make a whole pan's worth.  If I'm going to mix up the dough, grate the cheese, and prep toppings, I might as well get dinner and a couple lunches out of it.  This recipe fills up a half-sheet pan (or your basic cookie sheet).

Pizza dough

3 c. flour (I like to use 50:50 whole wheat and AP flour, or 33:67 WW:AP for a slightly lighter crust)

2 t. salt

1.5 tsp yeast

about 1 1/4 c. warm water

optional: 2 T oil, 1-2 T honey

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and yeast together.  Add 1 c. water and the oil & honey, if using.  Mix with a spoon or spatula until the dough forms a shaggy ball, adding more water if necessary.  Once it's kind of shaggy, start to knead with your hands.  (To save on clean-up, I use a wide bowl and just knead the dough in the bowl, rotating the bowl to get all the crumbs worked in.  I learned this tip from my mom!)  Once all the flour is incorporated, knead for about 5 minutes or longer if you want until the dough is smooth and slightly elastic and just barely tacky.  If it's too wet, work a little more flour into the dough.  If it's too dry, sprinkle on some water about 1T at a time.  Once it's kneaded, drizzle a little olive oil over the top and roll the dough in it, using the dough to spread the oil over the bowl and make sure the dough is completely covered.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for a couple hours or until doubled.

Margherita Pizza

1 recipe pizza dough

cornmeal

mozzarella cheese

1 awesomely-ripe tomato

fresh basil, cut into chiffonade

parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Take out your pan and sprinkle some cornmeal on it to keep the crust from sticking to the pan.  Be liberal.  Pat the dough into the pan and smush it to cover the pan.  Spread shredded mozzarella cheese to cover the surface of the dough.  I like lots of cheese, so I make sure there's thick, even coverage of the crust.  Take the tomato and use a serrated knife to make nice, thin slices--I cut mine about 1/4 " thick.  Chiffonade the basil and sprinkle it around on your cheese.  Then take your parmesan and grate it over the top of everything.  I added a pretty liberal amount of parmesan, too, because I like cheese a lot and because the parmesan helps it brown up nicely.

Bake the pizza for about 20 minutes or until the cheese is the right shade of brown for you.  Let it sit for a minute or two if you can help it, then slice and enjoy!

This is perfect for a lazy weekend day, but if you think ahead you can make it on a weeknight pretty easily, too--if you mix up the dough before you go to work/school, leave it on the counter all day, it's ready to go when you get home (in fact, that would make for a pretty airy, easy-to-crisp crust, especially if you rolled it thin with a rolling pin).

~Lindsey