Here is the second baked pasta dish I made over the weekend (you can find the first one here). This one is more traditional, being that it uses sauteed onions, garlic and peppers. I made this one especially for the omnivores in the crowd, although I used turkey sausage instead of pork to keep the amount of fat a little lower. Especially since it used three different kinds of cheese.

The thing to remember about recipes like these is that you should feel free to make them your own. If you don't like peppers, leave them out. If you've got a friend who is allergic to ricotta cheese, use cottage or farmer's cheese instead. Feel like using three different kinds of cheese is sort of excessive? Cut out the parmesan. It's a technique more than an exact recipe and you can bend and shape it to your tastes.

For the last week or two, I've been feeling like my cooking mojo was off. It started with a sub-par batch of risotto. Then came the pizza dough that wouldn't rise and the dried cherry, pistachio and white chocolate chips that were inexplicably bitter. I was beginning to feel like I'd never cook successfully again. Until along came the baked penne pasta dish you see above.

Over the weekend I made two baked pasta dishes for a small dinner party (I'll post the recipe for number two tomorrow, as it was equally delicious). I realized that there were going to be some vegetarians in the bunch and so I plotted out two different sauces to accommodate the various eating styles. This one is the non-meat version and it was so good. It combines sauteed shallots, artichoke hearts, baby spinach, fresh ricotta cheese, pesto, whole wheat penne and fresh mozzarella. It got rave reviews and happily the leftovers have done nothing but improve while hanging out in my fridge. Follow the jump for the exact recipe.

Sunday night I pulled together an improvised baked veggie dish that took inspiration from ratatouille and the lasagna that my mom used to make when I was little. I thinly sliced half of a sizable zucchini, along with an eggplant that had been withering away in my fridge for the last week. I threw together a quick tomato sauce with several bruised tomatoes (I inadvertently squished half of my farmers market haul on the way home), a can of San Marzano tomatoes, a bunch of crushed garlic and a few minced shallots. Oh, and at the last minute I tossed a handful of chopped basil in to give it another hit of flavor and aroma.

I put down one layer of the sliced zucchini and eggplant on the bottom of a glass baking dish. Then spooned a layer of ricotta cheese down and poured half the tomato sauce down on top of that. A second layer of zucchini and eggplant when down, along with the other half of the sauce. This was the moment at which I dearly wished I had used a slightly deeper baking dish, as I was right at the edge. I covered it with tin foil and baked it at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.

I love Le Creuset, mostly because the products, as pretty as they are with their shiny, colorful enamel finishes, are actually really good.

However, this might be the cutest Le Creuset thing I have ever seen -- the Petite Blueberry Casserole. I know that Le Creuset has several other casseroles in vegetable and fruit shapes (e.g. artichoke, pear), but the Blueberry is adorable because it's a fat and round. The casserole is 5"x5"5" and is microwave- and dishwasher-safe. How perfect would the Petite Blueberry be to go straight from the oven to the table with a Blueberry Crumble?

Available from Amazon for $25.

[via: jsung at ThisNext.com]

On nights when you don't really feel like cooking, pasta is always an easy fallback. Now that people seem to be less terrified of having a few carbs in their diets, pasta is slowly returning to its position as a pantry staple. It only takes a few minutes to cook and you can make an infinite number of sauces, from 5-minute light tomato sauces to rich, slow-cooked ones. If you have an extra few minutes in your evening, it doesn't take too much more work to turn a regular bowl of pasta into a comforting baked pasta dish, with an oozy topping of cheese than gets browned and ever so slightly crusty on top. Just about any baked pasta dish is a welcome meal on a cold winter day.

The holidays tend to bring up a lot of food traditions and we all have at least one relative that wants to stick to the old standards, point-blank refusing to try any new foods between November and New Year's. But even if you're sticking with tradition, you can still improve on the original recipe. Alanna, from A Veggie Venture, made the World's Best Green Bean Casserole based on a recipe in the most recent issue of Cook's Illustrated. The recipe emphasizes using fresh green beans, not frozen or canned even though it takes a lot more time to prep them, and a fresh mushroom sauce that adds a bright, enticing flavor in lieu of canned mushroom soup. Even CI couldn't do away with the canned french fried onions, but as Alanna points out, the topping can be reduced by half and still be very generous. And you won't feel as guilty for using something canned and fried, but will still keep everyone in the family happy with a perfect holiday side.

I recently returned from a four day trip to Utah. My man, Matt, the children and I travel there about four times a year to visit the in-laws. Most of Matt's relatives are Mormon and they embrace just about everything that goes with that status.

Having grown up as a Catholic, these sojourns are always a fascinating cultural study for me. One of my favorite aspects of these studies involves food. Somebody is always cooking at a Mormon get together. There are always zillions of aunts, uncles, cousins and crawling babies and ordering out for pizza will just not suffice. Every function I have attended involves salads, both leafy and Jell-O,  white rolls, casseroles, meats, sauces, plenty of fruit juice and an array of desserts. In the past the kitchens have always intimidated me and I have stuck closely to the buffet line.  However, since I am now deeply entrenched in food research I decided to ask the various women, not be sexist but I have found the kitchens to contain only women at these gatherings, about their cooking secrets. I did not divulge to them that I would be blabbing their tips to the blogosphere, but I believe their knowledge just might benefit one or two readers. Following, in no particular order, are a few of the tidbits I learned this past weekend:

Bread pudding is more in the category of "comfort food" than something elegant, but that doesn't stop this serving of lemon-scented Bread-Pudding French Toast from looking both stunning and absolutely mouth-watering. Ivonne, the blogger who writes Cream Puffs in Venice prepared this as part of an relaxing Sunday brunch. It was made even more relaxing by the fact that the custardy casserole is prepared the night before and simply popped into the oven in the morning. She used fresh lemon zest to give the bread pudding a light, springy taste - the perfect pick-me-up for a gorgeous April morning. Of course, if you serve it with whipped cream instead of maple syrup, it can easily become a delightful dessert. Want the recipe? Look no further than her post.

 

Artichokes have been a favorite food for over 2000 years, first appearing as a popular aphrodisiac in Ancient Greece and Rome. They grew natively around Italy, but by the year 800, they were being cultivated in Spain and gradually spread to other areas of Europe. Today, nearly all commercial artichokes grown in the US come from California, where they are harvested year-round. There are more than 50 varieties of artichokes, but only a few are commercially grown. The ones in the United States are likely to be round and green Globe artichokes, but some varieties have brown or purple leaves. The small artichokes sold as "baby artichokes" are not a variety of their own, but merely an immature version of larger artichokes.

I've decided to finally approach my fears head-on and make cassoulet. I've searched high and low for a good recipe and found a couple of great blueprints. I linked to this extremely detailed post on cassoulet when I spoke of it before, and I'm printing it out to use as a guide through my adventure.

Before you can make cassoulet, you have to decide how you're going to handle the meats. Most cassoulets are centered around duck, and use several parts of the bird. A classic rendition has the chef roasting the duck, rendering the fat, and making a 'confit' of the leg and a demiglace (French for stock) of the carcass. What's more, after all that, you have to select which other meats to include.

I made a critical decision when faced with my favorite butcher's meat counter and decided to buy duck confit already made. Brilliant no? It's pictured here. I also decided to go without the authentic duck stock and just buy storebought chicken broth. Hey, I don't have 48 hours to make this thing. I need cassoulet to be easy, or it's not happening.

Want to cook this live with me tonight? You'll have to head to the market. Here's what you'll need:

Tuna casserole is, likely, the ultimate in American food. It's not hamburgers, no, it's not meatloaf, and it's definitely not apple pie. The French invented apple pie, after all, and the Viennese probably developed the precursor to meatloaf. They eat hamburgers everywhere.

But tuna, mixed with noodles, cheese and one of a variety of canned or frozen vegetables: that's got to be America's very own. Tuna casserole is to America what cassoulet is to the French: every homey cook has her own recipe, one of endless variations on a common theme (a blueprint, if you will).

Every tuna casserole has one thing in common: tuna. Let's say, for the sake of argument, two cans of the stuff - that's 12 ounces, or 1 1/2 cups, or about 350g. And let's say every casserole is cooked in a three-quart casserole dish, in a 400F oven for 25 minutes. For most of these recipes, you can basically follow my aforementioned tuna casserole blueprint; I'll point out differences in procedure along the way.

It is quite untrue to say that no casserole is a good casserole. After all, they have enjoyed fairly consistent popularity over the course of the last century, though the concept has been around much longer. If all casseroles were horrible, we wouldn't still be making them. Recipes for casseroles, however, can be downright scary. A can of sauce, a frozen chunk of miscellaneous meat and less than appetizing vegetables, possibly added to conceal a look of produce past its prime.

Like so many other cooking enthusiasts, I collect old cookbooks mainly for the kitsch factor. Here it is, Retro Day, and I am so pissed that my collection is sitting in boxes in our garage in Portland, Ore. as I type this from San Francisco.  (We moved back a month ago, but all our stuff is not with us yet.) I have the choicest collection of Fifties cookbooks and would have loved to share recipes.

I did have the forethought to bring one retro-y cookbook with me, the Stanford Golf Club Women's Section cookbook. It's type-written, mimeographed, and hand-bound, and from it, I pulled:

Tamale Casserole

7 x 11 glass baking dish

Following layers:

1 cans beef tamales, cut into pieces
5 oz tortilla chips
2 cans of chili without beans
2 bunches of green onions, chopped
1/2 pound of sharp cheddar cheese grated

Preheat oven to 350º. Bake 30 minutes uncovered. (copied verbatim)

[photo: Thom Hackett]

What exactly is a casserole?

It is a slowly cooked mixture of a number of foods, often including meats and vegetables. Pies both sweet and savory are the forerunners of the modern casserole. The word casserole comes from a French term meaning "served in the dish used for cooking."  While this does describe the modern casserole, it is much too broad a definition. Today, many meals are served in the same dish they are cooked in, from soups to baked and roasted chicken. To really pinpoint what defines a casserole, a more specific description is needed.

Cakes and other "baked goods" must be excluded, though they can be baked and served from casserole dishes. Cakes and brownies do not maintain the distinction of their various ingredients as they cook; they change to result in a wholly new product.

Dishes like tuna noodle casserole and lasagna are classic and familiar examples of casseroles. They both contain a mixture of ingredients baked together and are served straight out of the baking dish. The ingredients do not meld together in any significant way, remaining mixed, yet separate. Both dishes also hold their shape fairly well when cut, so many think of casseroles as having a high degree of  sliceability.

It may seem a bit early right now, but Valentine's Day is just around the corner and there is scarcely a moment to waste. If you are planning to cook for your sweetheart this year, you should really make sure your kitchen is properly outfitted for the task. What could be more romantic than heart-shaped cookware?

• A heart shaped tea kettle is a charming addition to the breakfast table or to serve tea with an afternoon snack.
• A heart-shaped Le Creuset casserole makes a beautiful cooking and serving dish.
• Heart-shaped pot holders will keep your hands safe and cool while you are cooking.
• Heart-shaped mini Belgian waffles are easy with this specially-shaped waffle iron, and just the thing for a romantic breakfast in bed.
• My favorite, however, is easily the heart-shaped fondue pot. Chocolate is a Valentine's Day necessity and few things are as romantic or fun to eat as fondue.