Fabulous French Toast Casserole

French toast is a delicious breakfast treat. I was not a fan for most of my life. NJ diners have pretty good French toast made with challah. I've ordered it occasionally but when I'm out for breakfast I order a big, giant omelette. I am an eggs for breakfast gal. Eggs, toast, and a cup of joe and I'm all set for the day. 

And then I discovered "French Toast Casserole" and I was sold. I tried a few versions and recently came up with my own flavorful recipe. It's fragrant, creamy and delicious! 

Here's what you'll need to get started: 

8x8 baking dish

4 oz Butter (1/2 stick)

2 cups Buttermilk

3 Eggs

12 slices of Brioche bread

Cinnamon

Cardamom

100% pure Maple Syrup

Salt

A note about the ingredients: I use unsalted Land O' Lakes butter; real, full-fat buttermilk because it actually has flavor, unlike supermarket low fat buttermilk. The brioche bread I buy at Aldi supermarket. It is delicious, not only for this recipe but also for grilled cheese! Saigon cinnamon is a very flavorful cinnamon, a bit spicy and I love it. 

Begin by buttering your baking dish. 

Mix the eggs with a pinch of salt and the buttermilk.

Place one layer of bread in bottom of dish. Top with dots of butter, sprinkle with cinnamon and a couple of pinches of cardamom. Pour some maple syrup over the layer. Pour 1/3 of the buttermilk mix over the bread. Place another layer of bread in the dish, pressing down lightly. Repeat the steps above -- butter, spices, syrup, buttermilk mix.  Add a final layer to the dish, top the layer as before and finish with the rest of the buttermilk mixture. 

Cover dish with plastic wrap and let sit overnight in the refrigerator. In the morning all of the liquid will have been absorbed by the bread. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove plastic wrap and cover with foil. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for an additional 10 minutes until the top is golden brown. 

Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. 

Dig in and enjoy this creamy, custardy casserole. It is so full of flavor. 

Brioche bread waiting for the toppings! 

Butter, maple syrup, cinnamon and cardamom 

Buttermilk egg mixture poured over bread. This is absorbed by the bread and will create a light, custard-type consistency. 

All done, wrapped and ready for its overnight rest in the refrigerator. 

I forgot to take pictures the next morning when it came out of the fridge, and after it was baked. I can assure you it was beautiful and tasty!  

A Most Delicious Aromatic Rye

During the dreary months of winter, when the chilly gloom drips from the wooly grey skies, I like to spend time in the kitchen.  The kitchen is my happy place where whatever I'm concocting that day is always good! 

Yesterday I made a rye bread that is the very best recipe for rye I've ever made.  I like it because while it bakes it infuses my house with the most delicious aromas. This recipe uses anise seed, fennel seed, caraway seed, and orange peel. Doesn't that sound delicious?!  I can assure you, it most certainly is! 

Here's a pic...feast your eyes on that:

Crispy, fragrant rye bread boule

I'm telling you, this is the best rye bread recipe I've ever found.  I visit the Breadtopia website quite frequently and when I found this recipe I made it that very day.  That was quite a few years ago but it is still my favorite.  I do make a pain de mie that I like very much but that is, as you may know, a white bread loaf made in a pullman pan. This rye is a dough that is fermented in the refrigerator for a couple of days then left to rise at room temp, then baked in a pot.  

It's great for soup and sandwiches.  I made a sandwich today with it and it was perfect! It holds up well, is so fragrant that when you go to bite it you detect the molasses and orange peel.  It's wonderful!

Follow the link to get the recipe.  As I said, I mix up the recipe in a 4 quart cambro container, which every cook's home should have in many different sizes, and put it in the fridge. I let it stay in the fridge, which retards proofing for as long as it stays chilled, but makes it so flavorful when I finally proof at room temp for 12 hours.  Bread recipes benefit from a prolonged proofing, I think.  It enhances the flavor.   

Try this rye bread recipe, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you like strong flavored dark breads.  The molasses adds the bitterness but the orange peel balances it out.  It's so good!

Mangia!

FRANOLA!

You like granola?  I make FRANOLA!  It is delicious!  Never heard of granola when growing up, never saw it, never ate it. Once I discovered it I've had commercially made granola and would put it in yogurt. The only reason I knew to do that was because the King & I (haha - get it?) went to DisneyWorld years ago, I think back in 2007 for our 30th wedding anniversary, and one morning we got to the Magic Kingdom, it was early, we were hungry and stopped on the Main Street somewhere and had cups of yogurt with granola and fresh fruit.  It was the first time I'd ever eaten granola or that parfait and it was DELICIOUS!  Every morning for the rest of the week I had one of those breakfast parfaits.  

So, when we got back home to NJ the first thing I did was buy strawberries and lowfat yogurt and granola.  Really good, but the granola was a bit 'dusty' and, now that I think about it, stale.  

Over the years I've tried different brands, to no avail.  Always stale tasting and dry.  Until I found the Cook's Illustrated recipe and made it one day and BAM!  It was great!  

Without further blabbing, here you go.  It is really delicious!  Of course you can adapt to your own liking, add any kind of dried fruit you want, just remember to mix it in AFTER it's baked and cooled. If you add dried fruit to the mix before it goes in the oven they will be like little pieces of leather...ick!

FRANOLA RECIPE

Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat to 325 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

While the oven pre-heats, gather your ingredients:

1/3 cup of maple syrup

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups raw almonds, chopped coarse

2 cups dried fruit, chopped - I use currants or raisins, Use whatever you want or have on hand.

Once you have everything in place, in the large bowl whisk the maple syrup, brown sugar, vanilla & salt together.  Whisk in oil.  Fold in oats and almonds until thoroughly coated. 

Transfer oat mixture to the prepared baking sheet and spread across the sheet into a thin, even layer (about 3/8" thick). Using the flat bottom of a measuring cup or a stiff metal spatula, compress the oat mixture until very compact.

Bake until lightly browned, about 40-45 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through baking.  Remove Franola from the oven and cool on a wire rack to room temperature, about an hour.  Break cooled granola into pieces of desired size.  Stir in dried fruit.

Can be stored in airtight container for about 2 weeks (if it lasts that long).

The Franola will be lightly sweet with a very light maple flavor.  This isn't strongly flavored but the bit of vanilla, maple and salt really make it delicious!

Enjoy!  

FETTUCCINE with SHRIMP and PEAS

On Wednesday night I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner.  I dragged in got home from work, opened the freezer, and a bag of raw shrimp was staring at me. Beside it was a bag of petite peas. I thought, "Bingo!"

I put the frozen raw shrimp in a colander in the sink to defrost a bit, put on the water for the macaroni and got to work.

I chopped 4 cloves of garlic and added them to the pan with 3-4 T olive oil. (Who am I kidding?! I just poured oil in the pan until I thought there was enough!)  Once the oil began to shimmer and the garlic was sizzling I added a couple of pinches of pepperoncini.  The oils from the dried pepper flakes turn the oil a reddish color which means it's time to remove the pan from the heat. 

By this time the frozen shrimp should have defrosted a wee bit so shell removal is easy. Quickly rinse shrimp in the colander with cold water, remove shells, pat dry with paper towels, and season with salt and pepper.

I put the pan back on the heat and turned up the flame.  When it was hot, lower heat to med-low and add shrimp in single layer. Keep heat on low. Cook until sides of each shrimp are pink, turn over and cook for about 30 seconds more. Add peas and stir all together.Add pan back to heat, turn it up and when it's 🔥 hot,  I lowered the heat to med-low/low and added the shrimp in a single layer. I kept the heat on low to slowly cook the shrimp.  You have to be careful here, don't cook too fast as the very middle of the shrimp are probably still frozen or just this side of thawed and you don't want rubber shrimp. I cooked them until the sides of each shrimp were slightly pink, turned over and cooked for about 20  seconds more. I added the peas and stirred it all together.  I then added about 1/4 cup of tomato sauce to the pan to give it all a tomato sauce base.  Instead of the tomato sauce you could add butter, lemon and white wine...whatever you like, or not add anything else.  The flavor of the garlic, shrimp and pepperoncini are enough with the pasta water and an extra shot of olive oil once it's off heat.

Using tongs, I transferred the al dente fettuccine from the pot of water and added it to the pan.  I used about 1/2 lb of macaroni, the rest I drained and put in a ziplock for use another day.  

I tossed the entire mixture in the pan and then served it immediately!

And how was it?  It was delicious!  Sorry I didn't think to take a picture on the dinner plate. Once it was served I didn't think about taking a prettier picture on the plate until after it was all gone! Ha!

Mangia!

Chicken Chow Mein for the win! Delicious!

Another hot, humid, rain, lightning, thunder, very frightened, dogs-shaking-like-a-leaf day in Happy Valley. Praise God that He gave someone the intelligence to invent air conditioning. I am always so grateful that a/c is in my car, in my house, in my office building, and in most places I go during the summer. The good thing about this weather is that it has brought the rain. The farm fields in the surrounding area were forlorn and turning brown rapidly. We've had a few days of thunderstorms and crazy lightning and that seemed to help a bit.  I hope it helped enough to keep the crops alive. I did notice and was told that the corn is too short for where it should be at this time in August.  We will see...

On to the recipe! I have been in such a mood for Asian flavors lately.  Mostly mee goreng and fried rice and lo mein.  In the recent past I've made all of the aforementioned items at home and then earlier this week we ordered take out from our favorite Chinese restaurant in town.  It was good, but it didn't satisfy my hankering for those strong flavors of ginger, oyster sauce, rice wine...

I came across a Chicken Chow Mein recipe from Cook's Country a while back and also saw the ATK show when they made it.  I have been meaning to download the recipe and make it myself but only got around to it last week. 

The most important element when making stir fry is mise en place - everything in place. It is the MOST important step before you turn on the stove. Prep is one of my most favorite things to do so this is easy for me. I also line everything up beside the stove so I can put it in the frying pan and move the empty dish to the other side of the stove out of my way. This assures no clutter or accidents. The more organized a cook you are the better the experience. 

Mise en Place for Chicken Chow Mein

You can see I have everything prepped and ready to go. Believe me, it's so much easier to cook like this. I used to be able to prep while cooking and it was all good, but that was before I started forgetting ingredients and questioning whether or not I added something. It's too stressful to cook like that now, for me. I'm getting older and get distracted more easily.  This method is well worth the extra time, in my opinion. 

The ingredients are as follows, clockwise from top:

Bowl of sliced chicken, marinating in dry sherry and a bit of cornstarch

Cooked noodles tossed with a bit of toasted sesame oil

Bean sprouts (in a bowl of cold water to keep them crispy)

Scallion tops

Slivered ginger and minced garlic

Shredded carrot bits, sliced mushrooms, the white part of scallions

A semi-frozen clump of red peppers

Sauce - a mix of dry sherry, chicken broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and cornstarch

Napa cabbage

The Cook's Country recipe is delicious, but I adapted it for what I had in my kitchen.  I didn't go out to buy any special ingredients for this.  I wanted to use up what ingredients I already had in my refrigerator/freezer.  This is a great dish for doing just that. 

Chicken Chow Mein

adapted from Cooks Country

1 (9 ounce) pkg fresh Chinese noodles -- I used leftover spaghetti

1 Tbs Toasted Sesame oil

1 tsp Baking Soda

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices -- I used a pound of chicken breasts

3 Tbs Chinese rice wine or dry sherry -- I used the sherry since that's what I had

1 Tbs cornstarch

1/2 cup chicken broth

3 Tbs soy sauce

3 Tbs oyster sauce

1/4 tsp white pepper

2 Tbs vegetable oil

6 ozs shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced thin -- I used what I had, baby portabellas

1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch thick matchsticks -- I used a large holed grater and just chipped away at the carrot on the grater.  It was less work than slicing up a carrot into matchsticks!

2 celery ribs cut on the bias into 1/4 in thick slices -- I am not fond of cooked celery and rarely have it in the house, so I used Napa cabbage. I ran out of bok choy or I would have used it in place of the celery.

4 scallions, white and green parts separated and sliced thin -- I used 2 scallions, it was enough for me.

1 Tbs fresh ginger, grated -- I peeled and thinly sliced a 1 inch piece of ginger because I like it very much!

3 garlic cloves, minced -- I used 4...or maybe 5 :)

4 ounces mung bean sprouts

1.  Boil water and cook noodles.  If you buy fresh Chinese noodles they cook in about 3 minutes.  If you use spaghetti or vermicelli then just do what you usually do to cook your spaghetti. After cooking, drain noodles, rinse in cold water then drain again.  Toss noodles with sesame oil in bowl and set aside.  If you use leftover spaghetti, just toss with the sesame oil and set aside.

2.  Dissolve baking soda in 1/2 cup of water and add sliced chicken (this step keeps the chicken tender) Let chicken soak for 15 minutes at room temperature. Drain, rinse under cold water, drain again then pat dry with paper towels. Combine 1 Tbsp rice wine (or dry sherry) and 2 tsp cornstarch and chicken in bowl; set aside.

3. Whisk broth, soy sauce, oyster sauce, white pepper, remaining 2 Tbs rice wine (or sherry) and remaining 1 tsp cornstarch together in bowl; set aside

4. Heat oil in 12-inch non-stick skillet over high heat until just smoking, then: 

Add chicken, stirring frequently, until opaque, about 2 minutes

Add carrot and mushrooms, stirring frequently, until tender, about 2 minutes

Add celery (or whatever substitute) and cook for about 1 minute

Add scallion whites, garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant

• what I did with the ginger slices was make a hot-spot with a bit of oil on the side of the pan and fried the ginger slices first, and when they were lightly browned I added the garlic and scallion whites and cooked for about 30 seconds

Whisk the broth mixture to recombine (the cornstarch settles to the bottom so mix well) and add to skillet.  Cook until thickened and chicken is cooked through, about 2 minutes. 

Add bean sprouts and noodles and toss until sauce evenly coats noodles, about 1 minute.

Transfer to platter or bowl and top with scallion greens.  Serve.

If you'd like to add a bit of heat, I use Sriracha or Frank's Red Hot Sauce or Sambal Oelek. They all work well with this dish.

I hope you try this recipe as it is so easily adaptable to whatever veggies you have in the house.  I have never bought rice wine, but I always have Marsala or some other dry sherry for other recipes, so I use that. It works perfectly!

After the Napa cabbage was added. You can see the carrots, peppers, mushrooms and chicken all bubbling away! 

Bean sprouts added

In the bowl, topped with scallions

A nice close-up! I wish we had smell-o-blog! 

Another horrible dining experience in Centre County

My husband and I celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary two days ago. Another year of attempting to go out and enjoy a nice dinner in this university town. Another year of incredible disappointment in the quality of food served in area restaurants.

We had a $50 gift card to The Tavern in State College, PA.  I ordered the sirloin, medium, he ordered the liver and onions. I received a hockey-puck-sized lump of meat very obviously overcooked. He received a flat piece of what looked like leather with overdone bacon, and onions that were barely recognizable.

Who does this to food?! Why?!

I attempted to slice my sirloin with the serrated knive provided and the meat shredded under the pressure. Completely shredded. It was disgusting. His thin slab of liver was no better. Overcooked, dry and inedible. Honestly, I am appalled at what they charge for food here. Appalled!

We began our evening with drinks that we had to send back because we were sure the bartender forgot the alcohol. Nope! They came back the same way, watery and flat. It was a taste of things to come.

This particular restaurant is a supposed beloved institution…why, I will never know. It’s crap. The interior is dark, dank and dingy. There were waterstains all over the ceiling. The faux colonial style brass hanging lamps over every table were filthy, pitted, and dusty. The floor was sticky. The Windsor style chairs we were sitting in were dirty, scarred and creaky. Do these people not clean their restaurant every day?!

When we owned our restaurant you could literally eat off of our floors, not just in the dining room but in the kitchen as well! They shone like glass, they were immaculate. The minute food or straw wrappers or anything landed on that floor one of our wait staff promptly cleaned it up. No one wants to eat in a restaurant with dirty floors or sticky tables. What does that say about the cleanliness of the kitchen? Do they leave food debris all over the place, possibly contaminating your dish? Do they care? This place certainly does not.

The Tavern also has a horribly insulting dining gimmick – unlimited sides. The list of sides was recited with such enthusiasm by our sweet waitress that I actually laughed when they arrived – it was an image I won’t ever forget. Teeny, tiny little monkey dishes with one or two tablespoonsful of food. Our forks were too big for the dish, they were that small.  No wonder diners around us were ordering 6, 7, 8 of the sides right away with their main courses. What a joke!

After six years of living in this area we have yet to find a restaurant that is worth the money paid for a meal.

I do not fancy The Tavern in State College, PA.  Not at all.

Unpinning Pins & Sloppy Joe's

After searching far and wide for a tasty recipe for Sloppy Joe's I finally found it, right under my nose the whole time at Cook's Country. On Pinterest I had repinned a plethora of pinned recipes relating to Sloppy Joe's and read all of them but cooked 5 of them over a few months. They were not good. Even the ones that boasted THE BEST SLOPPY JOE'S YOU WILL EVER EAT - THE BEST SLOPPY JOE RECIPE! - THE ABSOLUTE BEST SLOPPY JOE RECIPE YOUR FAMILY WILL LOVE! Nope, they were not good. Not good at all. 

I realize taste is subjective and we like what we know, what we grew up with, what is familiar when it comes to food.  But there does come a time when our tastes change and we want something that actually has good flavor. That's where I'm at these days. I don't know if it's my age, my food-snobbery rearing it's head, or what, but I couldn't stand the recipes I was making for Sloppy Joe's. Fully of sugar, salt, butter (?!) apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and on and on, it was all too much. Way too many ingredients for a single pound of chopped meat. And would we taste the meat? No. We would taste salt and sugar and vinegar and more salt. It was crazy. 

To be fair, I did not grow up on Sloppy Joe's. I grew up on Boar's Head deli meats on the best freshly made Italian bread bought at Moltisanti's bakery across the street from our apartment building. Or, a hero bought in one of the neighborhood delis. There was no Manwich in our apartment, nor in my house once I married until my husband (from a small PA town) asked me to make Sloppy Joe's one day. I bought a can of Manwich and made them. They were meh... I would rather take my meat sauce and ladle it over crusty Italian bread, or better yet, make a meatball hero. So much better! 

Anyway, I began searching for a recipe in old cookbooks, really old cookbooks, and read about the origins of the Sloppy Joe. Of course, there's controversy - The Heinz Co. says the Sloppy Joe originated in Sioux City, Iowa when a cook named Joe added tomato sauce to his loose meat sandwich back in the 1930s. Other's say the Sloppy Joe sandwich originated in Cuba. Then there's the NJ Sloppy Joe which is a triple-decker deli sandwich always made on rye bread, with either roast beef, corned beef, or pastrami, with Swiss cheese, coleslaw and Russian dressing. Oh, that sandwich is delicious! Memories of The Market Basket in Franklin Lakes, NJ..... they made the best!

The ground beef Sloppy Joe may have conflicting sources for it's birth, but it is a good sandwich and perfect for this time of year. It's cozy. It's warm. It's comfort food. It's fun to eat because it squirts out the sides and lands on your Trader Joe's Corn Dipping Chips and it's tasty on those little golden scoops as well! 

So, I made the pinned Sloppy Joe recipes a few times and the last time I made them the King & Princess said, "Ewwww...this has too much vinegar!" and I thought, that's it, no more with these ridiculously overdone recipes. Time to pare down the ingredients and overwhelming flavors and unpin those pins! 

Time went by and I thought, "Duh! Check if Cook's Country or America's Test Kitchen or Cook's Illustrated has a recipe!" I did and they do. I made it last week and it was clearly a nice, flavorful, clean recipe with minimal ingredients and delicious flavor. The meat was tender and juicy as well, not dried up little granules of ground beef drowned in tomato sauce. The sauce the recipe made was tasty and thick. Just thick enough to stay on the bun but if you 'just happen' to overfill the bun then some will invariably drop onto your TJ's corn dippers, and that would be just fine! 

Sloppy Joe's Recipe adapted from Cook's Country:

Tips: Cook the ground beef until just pink - not browned - before adding the sauce ensures the meat stays tender. Combining tomato puree and ketchup gives a sufficiently sweet, rich tomato base to build a nice complementary flavor with chili powder, hot pepper sauce and garlic. 

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine 
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 2 cloves of garlic - minced 
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 pound 85% lean ground beef
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 cup tomato puree
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• Ground black pepper
• 4 hamburger buns

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onion and salt and stir, coating with oil. Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook for about 10 minutes. 
2. Add garlic and chili powder and cook until fragrant.
3. Add ground beef, breaking up with wooden spoon, stirring until just pink.
4. Add ground black pepper, brown sugar, tomato puree, ketchup, water and hot sauce, and simmer until sauce thickens, about 8-10 minutes.
5. Spoon onto buns and serve with your favorite pickles or sides.

And don't forget those Trader Joe's Corn Dippers! 

By the way, this recipe is much tastier the next day, if you happen to have any leftovers.

Roasted Cauliflower Casserole with Tomatoes and Goat Cheese - Yes, goat cheese!

My daughter and I went to the Saturday Farmer's Market and I picked up a huge cauliflower. We all like cauliflower - roasted, sauteed, baked, etc. It took up a lot of space in the refrigerator for a couple of days and I would stare at it every time I opened the door. I kept wondering what I would do with it. The spousal unit wanted me to boil it and cover it with cheddar cheese sauce and breadcrumbs and bake it. That's my idea of ruining a completely beautiful cauliflower. But I did want to make something he would like, that would be comfort food-ish, without boiling the flavor out of a deliciously sweet cauliflower. 

While browsing my favorite recipe sites I found a recipe in the NYT for Roasted Cauliflower with Tomatoes and Goat Cheese. At first I wondered how that would work...would I roast the vegetable with tomatoes and goat cheese right on a baking sheet pan? Then I read through it and saw that it was a casserole.  Hmmmm....  sort of like what the husband wanted but ... not.

So, I sliced the cauliflower into thick slabs (sorry, "slabs" is not a very appetizing word) to get as much surface area exposed to the heat as possible.  I set the oven at 450* and doused the cauliflower in extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and pepper.  I laid the pieces out onto a baking sheet.  Many of the ends of the head fell apart into florettes, that's what you're seeing in the photo below. I forgot to take a shot of the large, intact slices of the head. 

Anyway, I roasted and turned half way through the 45 mins it spent in the oven. I let it cool a bit before removing to a large bowl. While it was cooling I sauteed some onion, garlic, thyme, cinnamon and crushed coriander seeds in a bit of olive oil until very fragrant, then added a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes.  As the sauce simmered and thickened I beat 4 eggs with 3/4 of a log of goat cheese. I use Laura Chanel goat cheese, I think it has a wonderfully balanced flavor. If you absolutely don't care for goat cheese you can use ricotta or cottage cheese as a substitute. But really, the goat cheese with the spices was just delicious.

I poured the tomato sauce into the bowl of cauliflower and mixed it all together then poured it into the baking dish. I then poured the goat cheese/eggs mixture over that and dotted the top with the remaining 1/4 of the goat cheese log.

Here is the 9 x 13 baking dish full of the cauliflower that was mixed with the tomato sauce.  Before I poured the sauce onto the cauliflower I saw that there were a lot of pieces of the coriander seeds and onion floating around along with pieces of tomatoes and I didn't like the way it looked. I could only imagine the mouthfeel of the sauce so I dumped the entire batch of sauce into my handy-dandy Vitamix and pureed away! It made the sauce a very nice consistency and got rid of the chunks of tomatoes and onions and pulverized the coriander seeds. When I gave it a taste it was perfect! All those spices made a great mix, the cinnamon was an outstanding addition to the tomatoes with the coriander and thyme. And the cloves of garlic gave it all a nice mellow flavor.

I popped it into the oven and turned the temp down to 375* and baked it for an hour until it was bubbly and browned. I must say it ate like a lasagna, I cut it into squares and it was oh so delicious! We all enjoyed it and because it was so substantial we didn't have anything else with it.  It was really great. Hot and cheesy (but not too much) and custardy and so full of flavor.  Very satisfying!

Here's my recipe, adapted from the NYT recipe:

Prehead oven to 450*. Cut away bottom of cauliflower stem and trim leaves. Slice cauliflower into 1/2 inch slices. Coat cauliflower with olive oil, salt and pepper. Arrange on baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes, turning half way through the bake time.

Meanwhile, grease a baking pan, heat some olive oil in a saute pan and add onion. Cook until tender, add salt, garlic cloves, thyme and continue cooking until fragrant. Crush coriander seeds (or use ground coriander) and add to pan, cooking until fragrant. Add cinnamon and 28 oz can of tomatoes. Simmer until sauce thickens.  Remove from stove and add to blender (if you prefer it blended and smooth). Pulse/blend until thoroughly mixed. Just take it to the consistency you would like. 

Set aside 1/4 of the goat cheese log, beat 4 eggs then add cheese and continue beating until smooth.  

Add cooled (somewhat) cauliflower to a large bowl, pour tomato sauce mixture over it and mix gently, then spread into greased baking dish. Pour egg/cheese mixture over the cauliflower and dot the top with the remaining 1/4 of the cheese log.  Bake for about an hour in a 375* oven until it's bubbling and the top is lightly browned.  Remove from oven to a cooling rack and cool for about 20 minutes. Then slice and serve.  It will slice up like lasagna and stay intact.  I know! I was surprised too!

We ate the cauliflower for three days. On the second day it tasted even better. On the third, wow. I made chicken cutlets with it the second day and yesterday, meatloaf.  A great accompaniment to a meat dish, for sure. 

Ingredients:

1 large head of cauliflower - trimmed and rinsed

Salt and Pepper

Olive Oil

1 large yellow onion

4 garlic cloves crushed

2 tsp dried thyme leaves

1 28 oz can tomatoes - if you're going to blend it like I did use any kind. If not, use either tomato sauce or diced tomatoes. Whatever you prefer in consistency.

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp coriander - if seeds, crush well

4 large eggs

1 8oz log of goat cheese

Of course, you can adjust the seasonings to your liking. I really liked the cinnamon/coriander mix so I added a bit more.  Let's just say I eyeballed the amount and didn't use a measuring spoon. 

                                             Mangia e statti zitto!

Voilà! Quiche!

I bought a hunk of Le Gruyère cheese, real Le Gruyère AOP cheese imported from Switzerland. There's nothing like it. So creamy, so savory, so delicious.  I decided to make a quiche since I've not made one in a very long time. I have an abundance of quiche ingredients -- broccoli, an assortment of other types of cheeses, ham, bacon, peas, onions, mushrooms, scallions, roasted peppers, etc. But the Le Gruyère was beckoning yodeling to me.  I could imagine those pretty cows grazing in their Alpine meadows with their beautiful bells around their necks, sending their sweet melody over the mountains to the kitchens of the world below, "Buy our cheese! Buy our cheese!" Here are the lovely ladies coming down from their verdant meadows to be milked.

http://www.cheesesfromswitzerland.com/cheese-assortment/le-gruyere-aop.html

So, getting back to the quiche, I had a box of Trader Joe's frozen pie crusts (gasp! yes, I used a premade crust, which really isn't all that bad, honestly...) and sauteed very thinly sliced potatoes. I chopped about 10 slices of cooked bacon, grated about 1 1/2 cups of the gruyère, and 8 large organic farm-fresh eggs (their taste is so different than eggs from the supermarket).  I beat the eggs with a splash of milk (from the dairy farm down the road, which tastes off-the-deliciousness-charts from supermarket milk), salt and pepper.  Then I built the quiche.

The pie crust had come to room temperature on the counter this morning so it was as easy as just pressing it into the pie plate. I used a deep dish 9" Pyrex glass pie plate.  Then I blind baked the crust for about 30 mins until it was lightly browned and cooked almost through. Quiche tastes so much better in a precooked crust. The crust holds up to the wet ingredients and doesn't get soggy or gooey.  

I then layered the thinly sliced potatoes on the bottom of the crust, added the cooked bacon, sprinkled the cheese in an even layer and sprinkled a couple of scallions on top.  Next came the beaten eggs and I popped it into a 350* oven for 50 minutes.  I used my Breville toaster oven to bake the quiche and it came out perfectly, see? 

The crust is a bit ragged, but it will be eaten shortly and no one will notice.  I notice, but no one I'm serving it to will notice, nor will they care.  When food is made with love for those we love no one cares about whether or not it looks picture perfect.  If I were in a retail business where I was selling the quiche then it would look perfect. Absolutely. But for my family and friends... I'll be forgiven and I forgive myself.  Better it should taste good than look good.  When you're home cooking I believe best efforts always count and are satisfactory.

Well, it's cooled sufficiently to gather my court to the table.  I've paired this quiche with a big salad of iceberg lettuce dressed with fresh lemon juice, a bit of roasted garlic I made earlier, sliced roasted peppers & olive oil.  Plain but oh so good!  

Time to mangia! 

Small Town Football Night and My Attitude Adjustment

Last night we went to a high school football game in the town where my husband grew up. It was a beautiful night -- cool with a nice breeze carrying with it the last tendrils of summer warmth and the faint smell of wood smoke. Most of the older folks had light jackets and sweaters in the crooks of their arms, ready to be draped over shoulders once the sun fully set behind the Bald Eagle mountain range close on the horizon. The younger crowd, and surprisingly most of the older crowd, were displaying all the glory of their hometown school spirit -- orange and black t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets and ballcaps. It was quite the sight to behold. Even our adult daughter wore her fathers 40+ year old team jacket. I'm used to seeing a large portion of the people I work with and the student body sporting the blue and white colors of the local university, but this was really something. It was fun and I felt excited to see all the support for the team in addition to the large turnout for the game.

The home team won the coin toss and deferred. It was only a few minutes to the first touchdown. The Golden Eagles scored and the bleachers began to rumble. Everyone in the bleachers stomping their feet and cheering! It was not only exciting but exhilarating to feel the cheering for the home team! What a great start to the game! And it kept on going from there... at half-time the score was 33-0. Poor Visitors.

We were seated on the first row of our section and as I watched the groups of boys and girls -- ranging in age from 9 or 10 through 15 or 16 -- running back and forth from the concession stand, from the rest rooms, from groups of friends, with their arms looped around each other, the girls laughing and eyes darting, wanting to be seen but not really...the boys in gangs, so cool, so clean, clothes neat, hair combed, I came to realize that these kids were really nice kids. The boys waited for the girls to clear the ramp onto the bleachers before going down, there was no yelling or screaming, no cursing, no pushing or rude behavior. There were quick hellos and lingering eye contact between the cute wrestler and the sweet girl with the giant orange and black bow in her hair. There was an abrupt, "Hi Mallory!" from the chisled faced red-headed boy to the blushing brunette. Her face was flaming red while her friends giggled and hugged her and each other as they scurried to the other end of the section all the while she and he were in an eye-lock.

The little ones were on the shoulders of their "Pap" held high above the crowds as they were taken to get treats. The babies were bundled up in orange and black blankets, their little squeaks and sounds helping to round out the big cheers. The young and very young parents, the grandparents, the dads who lined the fences at the end zones, and the elderly and infirm visitors from the local health care facility, these were the hometown spirit and heart of the team.

My husband tells me many of the last names of the players were the same last names of boys he played football with in that same high school four decades earlier.

After we left and headed for home I couldn't stop thinking about how much of a gift it is for my husband to be able to revisit his past and it still be such a positive experience.  Yes, the town is economically depressed and has been since the 1970s, but they hold a lot of community activities supported by their local churches and social agencies. They have a very good school system, and it's a safe place to raise a family with access to a beautiful community pool, acres and acres of community park, playground, rink, a stocked pond and stream for fishing, and a local library. What more could you ask for or need?

When we moved to the area five years ago I never thought I would develop such a soft spot for that dirty old town I'd been visiting since 1975, when my husband and I first met. Yet, when I think about what makes our country great, I certainly don't think about our government or our elected prostitutes politicians. I think about all the small towns across America just like my husband's small town. Small towns full of people who are doing the best with what they've got, who earn what they have, who teach their sons and daughters what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, and then let them have a go at the world without hovering over them or making excuses for their mistakes. They're accepting. Their temperament is one that is straightforward...what you see is what you get and if you don't like it, well, ok. Towns full of people who work very hard -- in chemical plants, glass factories, garment manufacturers, meatpacking plants, and in days gone by, for the Pennsylvania Railroad like my husband's grandfather and great-grandfather. These small town folks made this nation great, giving its best men to the armed services since the beginning of our country's founding. We have visited the cemeteries at the little country churches out on the back roads and dusty lanes during our Sunday drives and it was surprising to me how many of the headstones mark the remains of Revolutionary War veterans. Yes, you read that correctly, Revolutionary War.

For a long, long time I was not happy to be living here. I was "homesick" for New York/New Jersey. I missed my beautiful house, I missed my beautiful pool, my 10 month job with the great salary. I couldn't stand the "hickness" of this place called Central Pennsylvania. Everyone was a hayseed, a rube. Over time I've come to realize that here there is no pretense. What you see is what you get. Yes, they're plain, they're simple, they're ordinary. But, they love their country, their home teams and their families. And, I'd say they love God too, because the churches here are always full on Sunday and everyone is kind.  Living here reminds me of when I was a kid in the 60s. The family traditions are strong here and the ties that bind are strong as well.

I think I'll stop complaining in my head (I try not to vocalize my criticisms because I don't want to hurt people's feelings since everyone is so nice) about living here in "God's country" and just appreciate it for what it is... a great part of the country that still holds fast to traditional values and community.  It's the America I've missed for a long time and it's about time I quit the sulk and appreciate it.

 I can't wait for the next home game.