"Lobster" Mac and Cheese

Ok, so you may notice that the word lobster is in quotes above. That's because we didn't really use lobster — we used monkfish.

What's monkfish, you ask? Click here if you really want to know.

Yeah, disgusting. But it tastes really good — surprisingly like lobster. That's what they call it, anyway — the poor man's lobster. We're pretty poor, and we love us some lobster, so we gave it a shot.

Plus, it was already filleted. I actually had no idea monkfish was that terrifying until I Googled it just now.


Anyway, on to the recipe.

Ingredients
1 lb short pasta, like penne rigate
1 quart milk
2.5 tsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp Soulard Grill seasoning (or your favorite seasoning)
1/2 tsp ground chipotle + more for topping
Salt
1.5 cups shredded cheddar cheese + more for topping
1.5 cups shredded jack cheese
1 lb monkfish

Preparation
1. Make the cheese sauce: melt the butter and flour together to make a roux. Add the milk slowly, whisk together. Let this simmer until it becomes thick. Add the Soulard Grill seasoning and chipotle.
2. Turn off the heat. Add the cheeses and stir until melted.
3. Boil the pasta until done.

IMPORTANT: Drain and rinse the pasta. That's right, rinse. You'll never hear me say that again, but rinsing pasta for mac and cheese makes the sauce not gummy or too thick and starchy, which is something about homemade mac and cheese I don't like.
4. Mix the sauce with the pasta. Transfer to a baking dish, top with additional cheeses and chipotle, then bake at 375 for 20 minutes until bubbly.
5. Bake the monkfish in a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes or so until you can flake it with a fork. Top the baked mac and cheese with the fish. Bacon optional.

-Katie

Butternut Squash Lasagna with Sausage, Mushrooms and Broccoli Rabe

I'm something of a lasagna freak. I love trying new things with it — Mexican lasagna with tomatoes, black beans, and cheddar; artichoke lasagna with béchamel; classic bolognese lasagna — you name it.

This was probably the best we've ever made.

The sauce is a silky butternut squash puree. The homemade lasagna noodles are layered with spicy Italian chicken sausage, sauteed shiitake mushrooms, broccoli rabe and ricotta cheese.

This is a very complex recipe — something for lazy Sundays or Saturday. Really, though, nothing in the world is better to me than spending my days off investing in an hours-long meal that will cook in the oven for an hour or so. No kidding.

Take the time to make this for a special occasion. You will not be disappointed.



Ingredients
For the butternut squash sauce:
1 medium butternut squash
1-1.5 cups chicken broth
Salt & Pepper
1 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil

For the sausage & mushroom filling:
1 lb spicy Italian chicken sausage
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1/2 tsp each: bacon fat, butter, olive oil
~1 lb shiitake mushrooms, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Pinch thyme
Pinch red pepper flakes
Pinch salt & pepper
Optional but strongly encouraged: 1 cup dried shiitake mushrooms, 1.5 cups chicken broth

For the cheese mixture:
1 bunch broccoli rabe, chopped
1 container whole-milk ricotta cheese
Pinch red pepper flakes
Pinch salt

Homemade pasta sheets (or you can buy them - about a pound. We made the whole wheat version.)

Pecorino Romano cheese

Preparation (Written by Justin)

1. Chop half of a yellow onion and cook on medium heat in a combo of bacon fat, butter, and olive oil (or just one of the above). Add about a pound of sliced shiitake mushrooms, a couple cloves of chopped garlic, thyme, and crushed red pepper. Season well with salt and pepper and cook for another 7-8 mins. 

2. This next part is optional, but makes a BIG difference: we took about a cup of dried shiitake and rehydrated them in hot chicken stock and let them sit in it for about 20 mins then blend until smooth. Add this mixture to the mushrooms and cook until the liquid is almost completely reduced; it should look like gravy.

3. Sauté a pound of spicy italian chicken sausage or whatever ever ground meat and add it the mushroom sauce.

4. Next, blanch chopped broccoli rabe in salted boiling water for about 10 mins. Drain, rinse under cold water and squeeze out all the extra water. Add this to ricotta cheese. Add salt and crushed red pepper.

5. For the butternut squash sauce, cut a squash in half longitudinally, douse with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast skin-side up for about 45 mins at 375 degrees. Once cooled, blend the squash with chicken stock and garlic oil until smooth.

6. Make the pasta (or buy some); if the pasta is fresh, blanch it for 2 minutes in boiling water. If dried, cook them until they're al-dente. 

7. Time to assemble: Add a layer of butternut squash sauce to the bottom of the pan. Layer on the pasta.  Add the ricotta-broccoli rabe mixture, then the sausage-mushroom mixture, then a layer of Pecorino Romano cheese. Then add another layer of squash sauce, pasta, ricotta, mushroom-sausage sauce, 

Pecorino. Repeat until you run out of ingredients.

8. Bake at 375 for about an hour. Let it rest for 10 minutes (if you can wait that long!)

-Katie

Venetian Artichoke Pesto

A lot of my food inspiration comes from the places I've been — namely, Italy. Spending four glorious months there changed my life intellectually, spiritually, and of course, gastronomically.

Early on in our study abroad experience, Justin and I made the trip to Venice. You can't go to Italy for a length of time and not see Venice. It's hauntingly beautiful, full of strange and wonderful nooks and crannies and crooked cobbled streets. The canals are beautiful, of course, but what struck us the most was the fog that settled over the ancient port town like a veil.

Yep, we fed the pigeons. They are terrifyingly unafraid of humans.

One of the single best things I ate in Italy was an artichoke pesto penne that we had in the old Jewish ghetto in Venice.

This was a close second to an otherworldly eggplant parmesan that I had a tiny waterside restaurant called Timon — but I'm still trying to figure out that recipe. So you'll have to make do with artichoke pesto. For now.

This recipe is the closest I could get to the pasta I had in Venice. Smooth, creamy, and somehow still bright and light. The best thing is, this recipe is super duper easy — no peeling or trimming artichokes. Yup, we're using the canned version.

Ingredients
1 can artichoke hearts, drained
zest & juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
3-4 tsp water
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2-1 cup chicken broth
1 lb pasta (penne, rigatoni, whatever you like!)

Preparation

1. Drain the artichokes. Put all the ingredients EXCEPT the chicken broth and pasta into a blender, and give it a whir until smooth. If you need to thin it out a little, add a little bit of water in intervals until it blends.

2. Boil pasta in heavily salted water. Drain. Toss with pesto. Thin out the pasta/pesto combination with a little bit of chicken broth, until it's the consistency you like.

-Katie

Grandpa's Beef Noodles

There are only a few dishes in everyone's mind that revive childhood memories so potently that you can just close your eyes and be 7 years old again.

This is one of those.

Kind of like my mom's chicken cacciatore, this recipe was a frequent occurrence when I was a kid and spent time at my mom's parents house. My grandpa was the cook in the family, and when my cousins and I visited, there was always a wealth of old-fashioned foods meant to fatten up us grandkids: chili, buttered potatoes, bologna sandwiches, and beef noodles.

Richard Meier, ~30 years old. Handsome fellow, no?

Grandpa didn't leave behind too many recipes, so I had to go on memory with this. It's very simple, but very rich. I think because my grandpa grew up during the Depression he enjoyed foods high in calories and low in cost.

{Printable Recipe}

Ingredients
3-4 large short ribs
1 box beef broth
1/2 lb elbow macaroni or Pipe Rigate
1 bay leaf
1-2 cloves garlic
Salt & Pepper

Procedure


1. If you like, you can trim off some of the fat off the short rib. Otherwise, season with salt & pepper and brown the meat on all sides in a heavy-bottomed ceramic pot in some olive oil.
2. Pull the meat out and pour off some of the grease in the skillet. I saw on Pinterest this trick: Line a small ramekin with foil, pour the fat off into the foil, and when the fat hardens, you can just ball up the whole thing and throw it away. Genius!



3. Peel the garlic and throw it in the pan with the bay leaf. Pour in the box of beef broth. Add the short ribs back into the pot.
4. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce to a slow simmer for 3-4 hours until the short ribs are fork tender and pull apart easily.

After several hours of braising

5. Take the ribs out, shred them with a fork. If there's any excess fat, you can peel it off and throw it out.

They should pull off the bone easily.

6. Add about 4 cups of water to the beef broth — it will have reduced quite a bit during the braising process. Bring the broth to a boil. Cook your noodles in the broth for 7-8 minutes until they're done.





They'll soak up a lot of the broth so it's more like a sauce rather than a soup by the end of it.



7. Add the beef back into the noodles. Serve with bread, Parmesan cheese, and extra salt + pepper to taste.

This sort of humble, simple food is always the most delicious, probably because of what it means to us when we indulge in it. What's your favorite childhood food?

-Katie

Anniversary Dinner: Spinach + Ricotta Ravioli

Hey all - it's been a while since my last post, what with school finally wrapping up, graduation, an out-of-town wedding of a dear friend, and now Justin and my 2nd wedding anniversary.

Man, time really flies. These past two anniversaries we spent at Innsbrook, a small lake community about an hour outside of St. Louis. On the way out, we stopped by Annie Gunn's Smokehouse market to pick up a few things. This place is awesome.

Justin's parents have a lovely cabin out at Innsbrook, with a boat and everything. And by everything, I also mean a fully functional kitchen. Justin and I like to celebrate by cooking for each other.

This kitchen is larger than the one we have at home, so we have extra room to maneuver. Last year I tried making homemade ravioli, which ended up a huge disaster. We didn't have a pasta roller, so we tried rolling pasta out with a wine bottle. Not pretty.

This year went much smoother, and the ravioli turned out well. We did a twist on the traditional spinach and ricotta ravioli by making spinach pasta. It looks and tastes gorgeous.

{Printable Recipe}
Ingredients
For the pasta:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs +1 egg yolk
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup olive oil
dash of salt
1 bag baby spinach

For the filling:
1 container ricotta cheese (about 2 cups)
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp chopped basil
1 tsp salt
1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
dash garlic powder

Procedure

I didn't really get any good pictures of this, because, well, it was my anniversary and I wasn't thinking about blogging (sorry guys).

Blanch the entire bag of spinach in a bit of boiling water. Drain it out, let it cool, and then squeeze out all the water with a towel. Put the spinach and a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a blender or food processor and blend until very smooth.

Follow the basic directions for making pasta dough, but also add in the wilted, chopped spinach. Knead it around, wrap it up in some plastic film, and let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours.

For the filling, just mix everything together and let it sit to incorporate the flavors.

When you're ready, roll out the pasta dough with the pasta maker. I like to stop at the #5 setting so that there's a little extra firmness to the pasta and it holds its shape. It's the third to last thinnest setting. 

Drop little tablespoons of ricotta mixture on one half of the pasta dough, about an inch apart from each other. With a different sheet of pasta, brush some egg wash on one side, place carefully on top of the pasta sheet with the filling, and press around the edges of the ricotta so that not much air is in there.

Trim around the edges of the ricotta lumps, leaving enough room so that you have a nice edge. If you want, press the edges down lightly with a fork to crimp them.

Boil them for one minute, and serve with a simple marinara sauce. We had these with grilled steaks.

-Katie

Family Recipes: Chicken Cacciatore

Yesterday, I edited my thesis. Evidently, passing the oral defense is not enough: I must then go back and edit certain parts that my committee thought were less than perfect. I'm not complaining, but it sort of puts a dent in the celebratory process when you still have a ways to go in graduation.

Still — I'm so close to being done! I sifted through all 125 pages of my paper yesterday, fixing each edit. With so much busy work to do, you know I was itching for a good distraction. Over the weekend I procrastinated by scrubbing down the tops of our kitchen cabinets, which were somehow amazingly filthy. Yesterday I didn't afford myself such a luxury (ha), but instead made an old family recipe that's one of those "set it and forget it" kind of meals.

Using the Crock Pot is perfect for when you don't have time to stir a pot all day. While I drove myself crazy erasing extraneous commas and adding more sources to my paper — and while Justin started his 6-week-long study crusade toward his Step 1 boards (eek) — a pot full of my mom's chicken cacciatore simmered in the kitchen. It made the whole house smell like my home growing up, which is a wonderful thing when you're trying to stay calm.

{Printable Recipe}
Ingredients
2 chicken breasts + 2 thighs/legs
2 small onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup white wine
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil
2 sprigs thyme
1-2 bay leaves
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Procedure

This is the best part — it's one step. Throw it all into the Crock Pot.

Simmer on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. 

Serve over hot buttered spaghetti, rice, or polenta
(we did the latter this time, but I grew up eating it with spaghetti).

Taking it easy and eating well are not mutually exclusive concepts —
even when you're a grad/medical student.

-Katie

Spicy Pasta e Fagioli con Tonnino

Remember when I bought way too much stuff at World Market? Some of the things I got included imported tuna packed in olive oil, capers, and anchovies. These ingredients, as delicious as they are on their own, begged to be combined into a spicy tomato sauce for a pasta. It's sort of like puttanesca or a pasta e fagioli, one of my favorite meals. I LOVE canellini beans.

We tossed this with penne rigate, but you can put this on fish, chicken, polenta, or rice.

{Printable Recipe}
Ingredients
1 can high quality tuna packed in olive oil
1 8-oz can cannelini beans, drained and lightly rinsed
1 small onion, diced
1 16-oz can tomatoes
2 tbsp capers
2 anchovy fillets, crushed
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp red pepper flakes
3 cups spinach
1 lb short pasta
1 cup chicken broth

Procedure

Saute the onions in some olive oil with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Add garlic, anchovy, chicken broth and tomatoes. Let this reduce for fifteen minutes until combined.

Run it through a food processor until smooth. We strained our sauce, but you don't necessarily have to. 

Return to the heat. Add beans, spinach, tuna, and capers. Warm it through until the spinach is wilted.

Toss the sauce with the pasta. This is warm, comforting, and filling. It also makes great leftovers (and when you make a full pound, you get a LOT).

-Katie

Truffled Mushroom Ragout

The past week has been really strange for me. I'm done writing my thesis and another paper I had to write for my internship this semester, leaving me with only my research assistant duties and actually going to said internship at the Saint Louis Art Museum. So yesterday, Sunday, I had no papers to write, no pages to edit, no journals or articles to read, nothing.

Is this what Sundays are like for normal people?

I didn't know what to do with myself. I had this whole day, wide open — something that I haven't had in, well, forever. At least not in a way that looked like it might be a consistent occurence. My thesis has filled up every little nook and cranny of my life for the past year, and now it's done and I feel like an empty-nester.

I did some laundry,  half-heartedly dusted the floors, and stood around aimlessly. Darla suggested I play fetch with her, but after ten minutes of that, I still didn't have anything else to do.

So by the time the acceptable time rolled around to make dinner, I pounced on the chance. I really need to get another hobby now that there is more time in the day.

The day Justin and I got engaged, we were on our first trip outside of Rome while studying abroad in Italy. We were in Assisi, possible the most enchanting little village on Earth. It's a town wedged in a perilously steep hillside surrounded by Tuscan countryside. It's narrow cobblestoned streets hide tiny restaurants and shops that you practically need a map to find.

After getting engaged here —

— We ate dinner in one of those itty bitty restaurants. I got truffled mushroom pasta. I'm not sure if it was the high of getting engaged or if the pasta really was that good, but it was unbelievable. I've been trying to recreate it ever since, with no success.

So I was trying, for the millionth time, to make this pasta on this lazy Sunday. It still isn't the same thing, but it's still pretty tasty.

{Printable Recipe}
Ingredients
1 package button mushrooms, sliced
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup half-and-half
1 tsp chopped black truffles (available at Whole Foods in the gourmet cheese/olive section, or online at Amazon)
pinch red pepper flakes
1 sprig thyme
1/2 lb short pasta (we used Casarecce)
2 chicken thighs, shredded

Procedure

Michael Pollan says that mushrooms are symbolism for decay and rebirth due to their nature of breaking down forests and plant life so that others can flourish. Pretty deep for a fungi.

Slice the mushrooms. Saute them in a tablespoon or so of butter along with the red pepper, some salt, and the thyme.

Cook until nicely browned.

Meanwhile, boil the noodles.

Add the chicken broth to the mushrooms and let it reduce for five minutes. Add the half-and-half, chicken, and truffles. Let it simmer while the pasta is finishing up; then add the noodles and cook for an additional five minutes so that the sauce gets nice and soaked up.

Top with Parmesan.

This brings back really good memories for me. Food can do that — especially when you share it with someone you love deeply. So try to remember what you ate on a really good day, and make it for yourself and your honey when you're feeling kind of lost.

You'll feel better. Promise.

-Katie

Fettuccine with Tomato-Clam Sauce

Remember when Justin and I went to World Market the other day? There will be a lot of posts stemming from that trip, I can tell you. We picked up a can of clams and some anchovies, and this is what resulted.

It sort of reminds me of one of those seafood pastas you get at a restaurant will tons of mussels on top — but without the shells. I'm still sort of terrified of making anything in a shell since the last time I tried we ended up with extremely sandy clam chowder. Another day, maybe.

For now, canned clams will do very nicely — in fact, it's amazing what you can do with something so seemingly humble. If you know how to use it, canned seafood can be truly delicious.

Ingredients
{Printable Recipe}
1 can chopped clams packed in water, do not drain!
1 8-oz can chopped tomatoes without salt
1/4 cup white wine
8 oz vegetable broth (I measured mine out in the tomato can)
1 bay leaf
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, minced
1 anchovy fillet, minced
pinch saffron
pinch oregano
pinch tarragon
Salt
3/4 lb fettuccine, fresh is best!
Procedure

Saute the onions, garlic, anchovy, salt, oregano, and tarragon in some olive oil until nice and soft.

Add the tomatoes, vegetable broth, wine, saffron and bay leaf.

Let this simmer until it's reduced by half. 

Add the clams and their juices and let this cook another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the fettuccine according to the box (or blanch your fresh noodles for 3-5 minutes)

Toss in the sauce. Let this simmer again for another 5-10 minutes until the sauce has been soaked up into the pasta. 

Light and flavorful. Some chefs say don't put cheese on seafood, but some chefs are also crazy. Go ahead and put some Parmesan on that if you want ;-)

Stay tuned for what we do with the canned tuna.

-Katie