Butternut Squash Pizza with Pancetta, Goat Cheese, and Sage
December 15, 2008 by Andrea
Filed under Breads, Grow Your Own, Vegetables
How embarrassing that I’m almost late for my own event! This month has been busy with cookies, cookies, and more cookies, and somehow along the way I forgot that I needed to post for Grow Your Own. It would have been doubly embarrassing since I’m hosting this round. The deadline for posting is December 15, and as long as I get an email from you with all the appropriate information you can still join us.
My inspiration for this pizza comes from my adopted blogger Jennifer at Palate to Pen. She made a butternut squash pizza with prosciutto and white sauce, and the very thought of it had me drooling and dreaming up what else to do with a butternut squash pizza topping. For this pizza I cut the squash into small chunks, thinly sliced a few shallots, tossed it with fresh from the garden sage chiffonade and some olive oil, then roasted it for about 15 minutes in the convection oven until the squash was soft and the shallots glistened. While that was roasting I cooked up some Pancetta and drained it on a paper towel. I cooked it about one minute too long, and I suggest watching it carefully. You want it to render a good amount of fat so it doesn’t linger on the pizza, but not get it too crispy before it goes into the oven. About any pizza dough will do, though I like to use either Peter Reinhart’s dough or a quick whole wheat dough, and we prefer our pizza cooked on a baking stone or on the grill for a nice crispy crust.
Grilled Eggplant Lasagna
September 25, 2008 by Andrea
Filed under Italian foods, Main Course, Vegetables
When I started the South Beach Diet a few weeks ago, I had to rethink some of our meals, and less pasta was high on the list. It’s easy to get good fresh vegetables at this time of year, and we’ve kept the refrigerator stocked. I’ve had eggplant lasagna on many occasions, but always with the noodles, so this time I decided to use the eggplant in place of the noodles, thus keeping the hearty comfort food a little healthier.
Grilling the eggplant lends a nice smoky flavor to the lasagna, and I left the skin on to help hold the slices together on the grill. The sauce is our favorite spaghetti sauce from Michael’s mom, and the rest is just easy layering and baking. I made this on a weeknight after simmering the sauce all morning and afternoon, but you could also make this a weekend family meal or even for company in individual portions.
Equipment
grill
9×13 baking pan
medium mixing bowl
Ingredients
1 recipe spaghetti sauce
1 eggplant, 16 ounces (~454 g) or larger
olive oil
15 ounces (425 g) part-skim ricotta cheese
1 egg
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan + more for sprinkling on top
2 teaspoons dried basil or 3/4 cup (~30 g) fresh basil leaves, torn
8 ounces (227 g) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
Preparation
1. Prepare the sauce according to the directions. You can make this ahead and store in the refrigerator or freezer. If frozen, thaw before using.
2. Preheat the grill to medium, about 350° F/175° C.
3. Slice the eggplant into 1/4-inch (0.5 cm) rounds with the skin still on. Brush with olive oil. Grill for about 3 to 4 minutes per side.
4. Preheat the oven to 350° F/175° C.
5. In the medium mixing bowl, stir together the ricotta, egg, grated Parmesan, and dried basil. If using fresh basil, leave it out for now.
6. Spread a ladle or two of the prepared sauce in the bottom of the baking dish. Lay down a row of the grilled eggplant, then spread about 1/3 of the ricotta cheese mixture. It doesn’t have to look pretty, just make sure that it is evenly distributed, even if it’s in clumps. If using fresh basil, add 1/2 of the leaves in a layer.
7. Add about 2 more cups of sauce, then half the remaining grilled eggplant, 1/2 of the remaining cheese mixture, and the rest of the fresh basil (if using).
8. Add another 2 cups of the sauce, the rest of the grilled eggplant, and the rest of the ricotta cheese mixture. Spread the remaining sauce on top then top with the shredded mozzarella and some more Parmesan.
9. Bake uncovered in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until the lasagna is cooked all the way through and the top is bubbly and golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for about 5 to 10 minutes before serving.
More Italian Recipes
More Lasagna Recipes From Around the Blogs
101 Cookbooks – Thousand Layer Lasagne
Ms. Adventures in Italy – 3 Cheese Pesto Vegetable Lasagna
Kalyn’s Kitchen – Grilled Zucchini Lasagna with Italian, Sausage, Tomato, and Basil Sauce
One Hot Stove – Roasted Squash Onion Lasagna
Roasted Eggplant with Gruyere
September 10, 2008 by Andrea
Filed under Vegetables
When Michael goes on travel I find myself craving comfort food. I’m sure the phenomenon is related to my energy levels, which take a dip during the weeks he is gone and are in direct correlation to the high energy my boys possess. Top that off with being awake way into the night trying to take care of all the chores that don’t get done during the day, and I start each morning with a sleep deficit and a craving for foods that taste good and give me a warm, fuzzy feeling on the inside.
Last week while he was on his latest trip, I found myself craving roasted eggplant, so I pulled out a comfort food recipe. This is another one of those dishes that doesn’t look like much when you prepare it, but the good, simple ingredients promise something more. The garlic slivers roast right along with the eggplant and infuse it with flavor, and the texture is smooth and creamy. Preparation is pretty easy and you can even do it in stages if you need to. You can roast the eggplant and process it the night before, keep it in the refrigerator overnight, warm it the next day while sauteing the mushrooms, then assemble and bake just before serving.
More Recipes You Might Like
White Grilled Pizza
First things first: there’s still time to enter the Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas cookbook give away! Visit the original post and tell us about your favorite pizza toppings to enter!
The dessert pizza with the cinnamon and ice cream was delicious, but then so were the savory pizzas we made. I chose to top one with a homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, and fresh basil from our indoor garden (photo below), a pizza I knew the boys would like, and the other was based on The Biancan pizza recipe in the book with a few differences. This white pizza (photo above) is brushed with herb- and garlic-seasoned olive oil, sprinkled with Parmesan, and topped with sauteed spinach, mushrooms, red onion, roasted garlic, feta, and a sun-dried tomato pesto that we make every year with our homegrown basil. The boys snubbed the white pizza, but Michael and I really liked it.
Orzo with Parmesan and Basil
Orzo is a rice-shaped pasta traditionally used in Italian soups, but it’s very versatile and can be used as a main ingredient for side dishes or in cold salads. We love it because it’s easy to fix for a fast weeknight meal and it dresses up nicely with simple ingredients. This time we had it as a hot side with our chicken with sun-dried tomatoes, shallots, and thyme, another simple dish.
In this version, I browned the orzo lightly in unsalted butter, then added low-sodium chicken broth and water and brought to a boil. After simmering, I stirred in the Parmesan, basil, pine nuts, and seasonings. I recommend preparing the dish right before serving because it tastes better fresh rather than warmed over, though I have been known to enjoy the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. Read more
Pretzels to Celebrate My Blogversary
Although my first post on this blog is from November 2005, I really count my blogging anniversary as January 7. Why, you may ask? Because January 7, 2006 is the day I realized that someone had left a comment on one of my posts. For the first time I understood that people were coming to visit, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why anyone would be interested in my ramblings about recipes! Didn’t they know that I was just a rank amateur who enjoyed playing in the kitchen and that this wasn’t supposed to be a blog, it was just an online database for my recipes? I wasn’t writing this for anyone other than myself, though I hoped it might be useful to the boys when they grew up and left home.
Fast forward two years…
Now I’m having a fabulous time playing with food, photographing the successes and failures, and sharing both with all the great people who visit. I’ve made some wonderful blogging friends and found some awesome cooking blogs! Every day I’m just amazed at and inspired by the talent in the cooking blogosphere and I keep hoping that some of it will rub off on me. Thanks to all of the readers and other bloggers for making the last two years really fun! Read more
