Cooking with Eowyn
Feb. 18th, 2010 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Ha, so I finally managed to eat all my leftovers, and I finally dug my car out on Monday so I could go food shopping. I did what I'm not supposed to do and just bought lots of things (like meat... I haven't even eaten meat in forever) without any real plans of what to do with it. So now I get home from work and I'm like, "Um, so what should I do for dinner?" I was doing so well with the planning ahead. *sigh*
Anyway, I made this casserole dish to use up the half a package of frozen spinach I had left over. Its official title is Spinach and Hot Ham Fake-Baked Pasta with a Crispy Top. Seriously? Only Rachael Ray could come up with a title like that. I didn't have any ham, hot or otherwise, so I just left it out. Also, FYI, she claims the recipe makes about four servings "among big eaters like me and my family." I don't know if her family has a lot of extraordinarily large people in it, or maybe a hollow leg runs in the family, but I cut the recipe in HALF and still got four decent-sized servings out of it.
I added some extra milk, though, since the mixture seemed rather dry with only 3/4 cup. Also, I've made bread crumb toppings before, so I know how they're supposed to look, and you need way more than 2 TB of olive oil for that amount of bread crumbs. Personally, I prefer to use butter instead of olive oil, but I followed the recipe this time, and the bread crumb/cheese mixture was basically dry. Didn't taste like I'd added anything at all, and sprinkling dry bread crumbs over a casserole isn't very appealing to me (it also makes a big damn mess when you try to serve it - the bread crumbs go everywhere).
I loooove French onion soup, so I was really excited to make this French Onion Tart. It came out pretty decent, but definitely needs a few warnings. First, the "crust" on the puff pastry is completely unnecessary, especially if you're planning to cut it up and serve it as an hors d'oeuvre. You end up with some pieces that are all crust and no topping. Just leave off the extra strips and spread the onions almost to the edges. Also, I added some grated gruyere cheese on top of the onions before I put it back in the oven, since that is an essential element to the soup.
I ended up with a few strips of leftover puff pastry, so rather than let them go to waste, I baked them and made some dessert. It was kind of a cross between a cannoli and a profiterole, which is a French pastry sort of like a cream puff, but with an ice cream filling. I had leftover ricotta, so I used the cannoli filling (recipe here) instead of ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. It was yummy.
I also had a chocolate chip cookie craving over the weekend, which resulted in what I am calling "multi-chip" cookies. I used the good old Tollhouse cookie recipe, but I didn't have enough chocolate chips, so I just used whatever I had leftover from other recipes. I ended up with chocolate, white chocolate, and butterscotch chips all mixed in. The combination of the white chocolate and the butterscotch makes them very sweet, but you can't go wrong with the Tollhouse recipe. I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but when I was a kid, my mother - who is an excellent cook in all other ways - would totally fail at making chocolate chip cookies. They always came out hard and flat as a pancake. But these were nice and fluffy and soft on the inside.
Anyway, I made this casserole dish to use up the half a package of frozen spinach I had left over. Its official title is Spinach and Hot Ham Fake-Baked Pasta with a Crispy Top. Seriously? Only Rachael Ray could come up with a title like that. I didn't have any ham, hot or otherwise, so I just left it out. Also, FYI, she claims the recipe makes about four servings "among big eaters like me and my family." I don't know if her family has a lot of extraordinarily large people in it, or maybe a hollow leg runs in the family, but I cut the recipe in HALF and still got four decent-sized servings out of it.
I added some extra milk, though, since the mixture seemed rather dry with only 3/4 cup. Also, I've made bread crumb toppings before, so I know how they're supposed to look, and you need way more than 2 TB of olive oil for that amount of bread crumbs. Personally, I prefer to use butter instead of olive oil, but I followed the recipe this time, and the bread crumb/cheese mixture was basically dry. Didn't taste like I'd added anything at all, and sprinkling dry bread crumbs over a casserole isn't very appealing to me (it also makes a big damn mess when you try to serve it - the bread crumbs go everywhere).
I loooove French onion soup, so I was really excited to make this French Onion Tart. It came out pretty decent, but definitely needs a few warnings. First, the "crust" on the puff pastry is completely unnecessary, especially if you're planning to cut it up and serve it as an hors d'oeuvre. You end up with some pieces that are all crust and no topping. Just leave off the extra strips and spread the onions almost to the edges. Also, I added some grated gruyere cheese on top of the onions before I put it back in the oven, since that is an essential element to the soup.
I ended up with a few strips of leftover puff pastry, so rather than let them go to waste, I baked them and made some dessert. It was kind of a cross between a cannoli and a profiterole, which is a French pastry sort of like a cream puff, but with an ice cream filling. I had leftover ricotta, so I used the cannoli filling (recipe here) instead of ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. It was yummy.
I also had a chocolate chip cookie craving over the weekend, which resulted in what I am calling "multi-chip" cookies. I used the good old Tollhouse cookie recipe, but I didn't have enough chocolate chips, so I just used whatever I had leftover from other recipes. I ended up with chocolate, white chocolate, and butterscotch chips all mixed in. The combination of the white chocolate and the butterscotch makes them very sweet, but you can't go wrong with the Tollhouse recipe. I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but when I was a kid, my mother - who is an excellent cook in all other ways - would totally fail at making chocolate chip cookies. They always came out hard and flat as a pancake. But these were nice and fluffy and soft on the inside.
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Date: Feb. 18th, 2010 08:41 pm (UTC)*weeps*
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Date: Feb. 18th, 2010 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 18th, 2010 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 19th, 2010 03:51 am (UTC)