My girlfriend, Lorie, was recently in town from California; along with her sister, Kathy, who was in from Indiana. We had a great night out and Lorie was raving about a roasted vegetable and polenta lasagna she had ordered at a Los Angeles area restaurant called Zinc Café & Market. Let me tell you, I am a fool for polenta and there aren’t too many things more fantastic than roasted vegetables! Since I won’t be getting to LA in the near future, I had to make my own concoction! The polenta fills in as the “noodle” layers in this healthy, gluten-free, and vegetarian lasagna. You can purchase prepared firm polenta in a tube at most grocery stores and always at Trader Joe’s. Thank you Lorie for a great night, dinner, the cute little glasses you gave me, and the idea for this scrumptious lasagna. It was a bona-fide hit with Dave, me, and (believe it or not) even my Dad!

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Yes, it’s true, I’m still talking about our gorgeous Sunday Valentine’s Day at the Queen Creek Olive Mill, hope you don’t mind ~ because I really love that place! I picked up a bottle of one of their new flavored balsamic vinegars. Fig Balsamic – delicious!

You too can have a bottle of the balsamic or any one of their amazing olive oils… just click here and mail order.

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My darling daughter, Marissa, requested I post some yummy and easy sides. How about an outline – sort of a guide on how to make quick improvisational sides anytime you want? I made this dish with what I had on hand in my produce drawers. You begin by gathering your hard vegetables together; such as onion, carrots, celery, bell peppers, fennel, parsnips, squash, etc. Clean and chop.

Next pull out your soft vegetables; things like spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, leftover cooked potatoes, etc. and prep them. Sauté the hard vegetables together until soft, add in the soft veggies and season, that’s all there is to it! You can add in other items too, such as canned drained beans, chickpeas, frozen corn, chopped olives or artichoke hearts…getting the idea?

Once you have the vegetables cooked, use them in pastas, salads, quesadillas, wraps, or on their own as a nutritious, colorful side dish.  I like to keep a small bowl on hand to add into scrambled eggs for a quick, satisfying, and ”no-brainer” breakfast. (because who wants to think too hard in the morning?)

Here, I am adding them to some brown rice as a side. Instead of the rice, mix it up by serving on top of couscous or quinoa. Also pictured at the bottom, I’ve chilled the rice and veggie mixture, formed it into a patties (mix in a tablespoon or two of sour cream, mayonnaise, beaten egg, crème fraîche, or soft cream cheese to help bind the mixture, if needed). Bread the patty with a mixture of Parmesan cheese and panko, chill the breaded rice cakes for a couple hours, then cook in a little olive oil, to brown and crisp them, and serve on their own or with a little bit of hot marinara sauce. Versatile, right?

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Quiche is such a versatile dish. It is perfect for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. It’s wonderful on it’s own or alongside a salad, drizzled with a vinaigrette. Delicious served hot from the oven or at room temperature… No wonder real men not only eat, but love quiche! Bake this the day ahead, reheat and enjoy on Christmas morning as gifts are being opened.

Believe it or not, I’ve never used a frozen piecrust before. I really enjoy making crust from scratch, but a friend told me that the new pie crusts at Trader Joe’s were as good as homemade, so thought I’d give them a try with a quiche recipe.  Here’s what I’ve discovered; the frozen crusts look great, you can see the little bits of real butter in the dough, just as with a homemade dough, a good start! After reading the ingredients, found there is palm oil… not good… but it is the third to the last ingredient listed with only water and salt after it, so I’m hopeful there isn’t too much in there. The crust shrunk quite a bit more than a homemade one would during the blind bake, but the real test – the taste? Pretty darn good, I’d give it about an 8 out 0f 10, with homemade crust being a perfect 10.

So what exactly is blind baking? It is when you bake and brown a crust without the filling. Blind baking a crust is necessary when it will be filled with an unbaked filling or when the filling has a shorter baking time than the crust needs to become cooked through.  Blind baking also helps prevent the crust from becoming soggy from its filling. To accomplish this you can either poke the uncooked pastry with a fork, or line the pastry shell with foil or parchment paper and weight it down with ceramic or metal pie weights. This allows the steam created by the butter to escape in the case of poking, or prevents the crust from puffing up, when weighted. If you do not want to invest in pie weights, no problem, just weigh down the shell with dry beans or raw rice.  You can use the beans or rice a couple times for this purpose, but after that, toss them in the trash. As they bake over and over, they will loose their natural moisture and no longer be heavy enough to be effective.

The technique for caramelizing the onions for this quiche is different than the methods I’ve posted here before. Adding water and bringing the onions to a boil, allows the onions to completely soften without a chance of burning. Once the water has dissipated, the onions caramelize evenly and easily.
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A perfect Thanksgiving side dish inspired by a recipe in a 2002 issue of Bon Appetit. Pictured above are the two main parts of the dish, the creamy corn mixture and the topping consisting of breadcrumbs, bacon, green onions and fried onion rings. They may be made a day ahead, covered and refrigerated separately.  Also pictured is a package of the instant or “quick-cooking” grits used to thicken the corn mixture.

The fried red onion rings are delicious and well worth the effort, but if you wish to take a shortcut – substitute with the prepared fried onion rings you find in the grocery store. You know, the ones used in the classic Green Bean Casserole. If used, eliminate the 1/4 cup flour, the red onion, and the 1/2 cup olive oil from the ingredient list and also eliminate the 3rd paragraph from the procedure portion of the recipe. Use 1 1/2 cups purchased onion rings in their place.

Triple Onion Creamy Corn Gratin with Bacon

6 bacon slices, chopped
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 medium red onion, peeled and thinly sliced into rounds
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups Panko breadcrumbs
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced (white and green portions), divided
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large white or yellow onion, peeled and diced
8 cups frozen corn kernels (about 2 1/2 pounds), thawed
2 cups whole milk
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup quick-cooking grits
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 packed cup grated Monterey Jack  or Pepper Jack cheese

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Recycling is a wonderful thing… not only with paper and plastic, but with food too. Of course, the most basic form of food recycling is reusing leftovers, taking the leftover beef from a roast and making burritos, for instance.  Or in this case, using the red wine poaching liquid from the poached pear post on 11/18/09 and using it to flavor this wonderful Thanksgiving side dish. Don’t fret if you didn’t make the poached pear recipe but want to make this, just use red wine in place of the poaching liquid.

I’m using frozen “petite whole onions” also known as pearl onions for this recipe.  Until about a month ago, I did not even know that pearl onions were sold peeled and frozen. What a find, all these years I’ve been meticulously boiling and peeling them myself!

The soaking liquid for the dried mushrooms is also reused here.  If you have any left after using the 1/2 cup asked for in this recipe, freeze it and use to enrich sauces or deglaze pans in the future. And be sure to recycle those Thanksgiving leftovers too! I’ll post plenty of ideas after  Thursday.
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There are so many Thanksgiving recipes to get posted before the big day!  I figured, I better get the star of the show up soon, as in today!

The turkey here is trussed, which means the wings and legs are bound closed. When you truss a bird, the wings and legs stay close to the body; the ends of the drumsticks cover the top of the breast and keep it from drying out.  Trussing helps cook evenly, reduces shrinkage by about 15% and it also makes for a more beautiful roasted bird.

The pictures here are lifted from the internet, and will be replaced with my pictures when I actually make my turkey next week. Until then….
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