Filed under: Cheese
I’ve combined sauteed swiss chard and onions, Gruyere, and eggs before, in fritatta form. I don’t love swiss chard as a side dish, but folded into eggs (or mashed potatoes) I do like its flavor a lot (it is similar to spinach). I used the same ingredients for the quiche, but the flaky pie crust makes the already-yummy filling into a real treat of a summer dinner.
I used frozen Oronoque Orchards deep dish pie crusts, which are pretty decent but include a small amount of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, including cottonseed. Not that pie crust is a healthy thing to eat anyway, but I do try to avoid cottonseed oil in particular. I noticed whole wheat pie crusts in Mrs. Green’s the last time I was there, so I will have to check the ingredients on those brands as a possible alternative.
I love this quiche cold, straight from the fridge. I baked two of them, and then froze one for an easy meal another day.
July 27, 2010
I found the inspiration for this recipe from Cathy at Noble Pig. Noble Pig is a blog that makes me shake my head in wonder when I think about the time she puts into it. Lots and lots of posts, with tons of commentary, and lovely photographs. Oh, and she’s building a vineyard and winery, too.
I thought the kids would be amused by the rigatoni standing on end. I made my version cheese-only, rather than using meat and dairy. I only realized (after talking to Alison this afternoon) that I’d need to add some cheese to replace the beef just before I started to cook. So I used what I had: some low fat (1%) cottage cheese. Ricotta would have been much better. Regardless, I think the real secret to the flavor is the way the pasta is tossed with Parmesan before they’re arranged in the pan. Each bite you take has a delicious bit of sharpness from it.
I do have one warning: it turns out my spring form pan is 10 inches,
not 9 inches as the recipe recommends.Of course, I didn’t whip out my ruler until the pound of pasta had been loaded into the pan, and there was a sizable chunk of space left! I loosely balled some aluminum foil to fill in the blank space, and continued along. It turned out fine, and once the first portion was served you couldn’t tell there’s been a glitch. Measure your pan!
Everyone at the table ate this dish as prepared. Everyone. Including pickiest little G., who was so enthusiastic about it he asked several times that I save leftovers for him to eat tomorrow. I know he won’t eat it tomorrow — he didn’t even eat the second serving he asked for — but it is wonderful to hear nonetheless.
Meatless Pasta Pie
Adapted from Noble Pig’s Pasta Pie
1 lb. rigatoni (use the longest, widest noodle you can, like De Cecco)
1 Tbsp. olive oil
3/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
non-stick spray (or extra olive oil)
1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes (I like Muir Glen Fire Roasted)
1 c. part-skim ricotta cheese
1 tsp. garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
1 c. shredded part-skim mozzarella
Preheat over to 375° F.
Cook the rigatoni according to the directions on the package, but subtract a couple of minutes from the recommended time so they are slightly undercooked. Drain and rinse in cool water. Then return the drained pasta back to the pot. Toss the 1 Tbsp. olive oil and Parmesan cheese with the rigatoni until they are evenly coated, then set aside.
Lightly coat a 9-inch spring form pan with non-stick cooking spray. Stand each piece of pasta upright in the spring form pan, until the whole pan is filled. Set aside.
In the pot you used to boil the pasta, combine tomatoes, ricotta cheese, garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the sauce mixture over the upright pasta, and gently pat it down into the tubes until there is only a thin layer of sauce left on top of the pasta. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese evenly on top.
Set spring form pan on top of an aluminum foil-lined baking pan (to catch any leaks) and bake for 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven once the cheese on top is lightly browned and bubbly, and allow to cool for 10 minutes before unmolding. Cut into pie-shaped wedges to serve.
January 19, 2010
My parents gave us a gift certificate to artisanalcheese.com for Hanukkah, and we were very excited to use it! We both love to try new cheeses — I’ve written about some of them in the past: Cheese Saves Us from Expired Tofu, How to Build a Cheese Plate, and Cheese Tasting Gone Bad — so this is a perfect dinner for us.
Apparently I should have consulted my own blog before we ordered from Artisanal, because we duplicated a couple of cheeses we’ve tried before and didn’t adore (La Peral and Serra da Estrela).
Our first cheese tasting of 2010 included:
Catskill: This is a goat cheese from Stissing Mountain in upstate NY. J. and I both liked the different consistencies of this cheese — the rind was mild and edible, then the inside edges were gooey, and the majority of the it was drier and not as luscious as those edges. This was a nice, light goat, and it tasted a tiny bit lemony to me. Very nice, but not something we’d seek out again.
La Peral: We felt “meh” about this lightly-blued cheese once before, and though it is described as rare we don’t find it to be anything special. It’s not blue enough for me, for one. It has a slight celery flavor about it, and it is very light and easy to eat, but there is nothing about it that hooks us.
OCSC Hudson Valley Camembert: It’s hard to go wrong with triple creme! This is a local cheese from the Old Chatham Shepherding Company and 3 out of 4 people in this house loved it. Yep, A. kept coming back for more, and I was impressed with his pronunciation of “camembert” as well. This cheese is a little tangy and so smooth — it doesn’t taste heavy even though it is as buttery as can be. We will definitely seek this one out again.
Serra da Estrela: You can think of Serra da Estrela as a gateway sheep cheese — it’s not too barnyard-y, although I did get a slight ammonia smell off of it. I might have liked it more if we’d been drinking wine with it, so I will make sure to do that when we tuck back into the rest of it this weekend.
We had ordered one additional cheese (Dorset) that didn’t arrive at all, and after a phone call we found out it’s out of stock. They’re sending a substitution this week so we’ll get to add one more sample to the platter when we take these cheeses back out for another tasting.
January 4, 2010
The greens attached to last week’s CSA beets were really lush; I knew they needed to be more than compost.
I sauteed until golden half a small onion, minced, in a little olive oil, then added the washed and chopped beet greens (plus all the stems). I let the greens cook down until the stems were tender, then spread that mixture at the bottom of a round baking dish. I topped the greens with about 6 oz. of thinly-sliced Monterey Jack cheese, and then poured a well-beaten mixture of 8 eggs and a splash of milk seasoned with salt and pepper over it all. Into my toaster oven at 350° F for about 40 minutes — I had to cover it with foil so it didn’t get too brown. Let sit for 10 minutes to cool and set, then serve. It was really delicious, and these crustless quiche slices are great straight out of the fridge for a breakfast on the go.
For an extra beet-y experience, I also made my Mustard Vinaigrette Beet Salad on the side. Mmmm, beet-y.
July 7, 2009
Last night I made a salad platter, layering sliced tomatoes, basil, and fresh mozzarella (insalata Caprese) around the edge, with an avocado in the middle. We dressed our own servings with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and ate it with slices of ciabatta bread. This is a perfect summer meal — quick, cool, and light. I plan on making it often this summer.
July 7, 2009
The women in my family absolutely adored this pasta dish — it’s already been requested for another Thursday night dinner. I liked it a lot too, but I was still kind of surprised by how enthusiastically it was received. I think part of the issue for me is that it’s kind of bland-looking, although it is packed with lemony goodness and is not boring at all when it comes to flavor.
G. was horrified to even have this on his plate. A. preferred to eat string beans rather than try the pasta. And my eat-anything niece turned up her nose as well. No worries, we practically finished it off at the dinner table; then J. ate some of the leftovers.
I subbed in part-skim ricotta for half of the sour cream, which probably gives it less of a creamy texture than the original. I think you could use reduced-fat sour cream without any problem, and I’ll try that next time. Spinach or broccoli added before the pasta was baked would also work well.
Baked Lemon Pasta
Adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks’ Baked Lemon Pasta
1 lb. rotini or other twisty pasta
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 lemons
1 c. sour cream
1 c. part-skim ricotta
1/2 c. flat-leaf parsley, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese, grated
Preheat oven to 375° F.
Cook pasta in salted water, reducing the cooking time to about 2/3 of the time suggested. Drain well and return pasta to the pot.
Add remaining ingredients to the pot except for the Parmesan cheese, and mix well, making sure the butter melts. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Spread pasta mixture into a 9″x13″ casserole dish and top with Parmesan.
Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes, until top begins to brown slightly. Squeeze the juice of the remaining lemon over the top of the pasta and serve.
May 29, 2009
This savory noodle kugel comes from Gluten-Free Bay — it hadn’t occurred to me before this year that gluten-free food blogs would be such a great resource for Passover recipes!
I made a few changes to the original recipe: I left out the small amount of sugar, and reduced the milk to 1 cup (my noodles seemed watery, which is why I cut back on the milk). I used Manischewitz Passover Gold Fine Egg Noodles, because I couldn’t find the wide ones.
After being parboiled and then cooked in the kugel, the thin noodles mostly disintegrated into what was a pretty delicious, fluffy, potato-flavored base. Not surprising, since Passover noodles are made from potato starch. Add in the sauteed onions and garlic, and you have a kind of mashed potato kugel. What could be bad? All the adults enjoyed it, even if it was a bit a heavy. A side salad of tomatoes and roasted, marinated artichokes (from a jar) balanced it out.
April 15, 2009
With Passover looming and my food supplies for pre-holiday consumption dwindling, I decided to make quesadillas for dinner. I’d bumped them last week and still had the ingredients on hand. I mashed up some black beans, spread them on a multi-grain tortilla, and sprinkled shredded cheddar cheese over the beans. Another tortilla went on top, and I cooked the whole thing in a skillet with a little melted butter over low heat until the cheese melted. I thought it looked delicious, but the boys didn’t even let me get it out of the pan before they politely voiced their disapproval.
Normally my position is simple: tough. This is the dinner I made. But I was feeling generous because they have been so helpful to me in getting ready for Passover; both doing jobs themselves and more importantly being well-behaved enough to happily play independently while I cleaned or painted or whatnot. So they had yogurt and I ate the delicious quesadilla. Everyone was happy.
We are down to barely a bin full of chometz-based food now (my pantry is cleaned out and restocked for Passover already): (more…)
April 6, 2009
When I set about making dinner last night (tofu & broccoli stir-fry over noodles) I discovered the tofu I thought I’d bought fairly recently was actually a week past its expiration date and leaking. Not so yum, and into the garbage it went. Clearly the boys didn’t care — they had noodles and cheese with broccoli on the side.
Thankfully J. had stopped at Murray’s in Grand Central on a whim and brought home a winning bunch of cheeses that more than made up for the stir-fry that wasn’t.
We’d had two of the cheese before. The Rogue River Blue (top left) from Rogue Creamery in Oregon remains one of our favorites — it’s creamy, fruity, but still with the great pungency you expect in a blue cheese. And the Brillat Savarin (top right), which is a decadent triple creme (like a super brie) is always delicious, though I prefer Pierre Robert.
J. hit a home run with the two new cheeses. First we tried Tete de Moine (bottom left), a semi-hard Swiss cheese made from cow’s milk. Our eyes were rolling back in our heads over this one. It was very nutty and full-flavored, not at all reminiscent of a Swiss cheese you’d buy in the supermarket. Delicious, and we’d buy it again. We also enjoyed Le Chevre Noir (bottom right), which is unusual in that it is technically a cheddar cheese but it’s made of goat’s milk. It has those little tyrosine crystals that I adore and was not very “goat-y” tasting. It couldn’t hold a candle to the Tete de Moine, though!
All in all an excellent alternative to expired tofu.
January 29, 2009
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two boys, ages 4 and 6, and husband. Trying to feed my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more 