The Ultimate Tuna Noodle Casserole

The Ultimate Tuna Noodle Casserole

I have a strange weakness for casseroles. I’m not really sure where it originated. We certainly didn’t eat them growing up. In fact, I think they were almost banned. I seem to recall something about my dad being a little, er, overexposed to casseroles in his 1960s childhood, and the casserole subsequently enjoying least favored nation status in our house. The only childhood casserole I recall is the traditional Thanksgiving Green Bean casserole, but that almost doesn’t count, as Thanksgiving is incomplete with that dish. There were no hamburger pies, no cheesy chicken chili bakes, no turkey tetrazinnis in my past. So why do I get so excited by the thought of a Tater Tot Casserole now?

If you think about what most casseroles actually are, it’s hard for me to understand why people don’t like them. You basically have meat, pasta, and tons of cheese, all mixed together and baked into one-dish perfection. What could possibly be wrong with that? This was supposed to be the winter of casseroles, and it didn’t occur to me until this week that so far, there hasn’t even been one! Of course, there hasn’t really been winter until recently, either.

So tonight is the night. The night of the Ultimate Tuna Noodle Casserole.

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I’m making real bread; or, Laura Kneads Some Dough

Mmmm…bread 

I don’t know why I got it into my head that the Lahey/Bittman No-Knead Bread wasn’t real bread, but I became determined, after making two or three knead-free loaves, to make a more traditional loaf. I wanted to see how they compared, and to better understand how this No-Knead phenomenon actually worked.

Where else to go for a traditional, basic bread recipe but The Joy of Cooking. I know some people who shun this omnipresent kitchen staple of a cookbook, for being too basic, too boring, for being (how could they say it!) actually wrong. But I love my copy. Whenever I’m cooking something new, I first consult with Irma, just to get a handle on the basics. I suppose it’s true that I rarely follow the recipes from the book word for word, but the book helps me lay a nice foundation. It’s comforting, somehow, sitting up there on my shelf, full of instruction on just about any food item in existence. Obviously, I’m going to check in with The Joy of Cooking before I make my first loaf of “real” bread.

After reading page after page about using the right materials, and measuring properly, and kneading, and scoring, and batards, and couches, I finally felt ready to make some bread.

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Butternut Squash Lasagna

Butternut Squash Lasagna

Because I seem to be on a roll of concocting very messy things in my kitchen, why should tonight be any different? At first glance, Butternut Squash Lasagna doesn’t seem like it should be the messiest project, but you just try grating slightly mushy butternut squash pieces, and then we can talk. Oh, the squash eventually got grated, but so did my fingers.

I realized as I was constructing my lasagna that in all my reading about pasta, and traditional Italian foods, I’d never really come across any information about lasagna. Was it, in fact, an Italian dish, or just another American concoction for the red-checkered tablecloth crowd? I decided to do a little research.

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Artichoke Ravioli with Tuna Caper Cream sauce

Artichoke ravioli with Tuna Caper Cream Sauce

Friday night I got the chance to play executive chef a little bit, and order Mr. X around in the kitchen. Alright, I didn’t really order him around so much as tell him my idea and watch him expertly pull it off. And I mean expertly. This was a tasty dinner. I will do my very best to re-create his methods here, and hopefully, he will correct whatever I get wrong.

We made the artichoke ravioli last weekend. The filling for this was pretty damn simple, and aside from the minor problems I discovered earlier in the week (gummy pasta, not enough filling in each ravioli) they were lovely–light and lemony and almost summery. Which was nice, considering that it was something like 11 degrees here all weekend.

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Roasted Vegetable Risotto, or: Risotto, Take Two

Roasted Vegetable Risotto

I figured that risotto was one of those foods with an undeserved reputation for being near impossible to get right. I thought that with some patience, and time, and attention to detail, I could definitely handle risotto. My first attempt proved that it was harder than I thought. That was several months ago, and while it was edible, even delicious, it was not really…right. It wasn’t creamy, the grains had too much bite, it wasn’t…heavenly.

After some research, and lengthy consultation with other risotto cookers, I decided to give it another go. My problems seem to have been that I cooked it much too quickly, at too high a temperature. I thought this time around, I’d go very, very basic. I still had about a pound of leftover roasted vegetables from Tuesday night’s chicken roasting, which would add a bit more interest to a basic risotto without affecting the actual risotto cooking process, thus giving me a chance to perfect my technique.

I think it still needs a bit more perfecting.

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Balsamic Portabello and Brie Ravioli with Roasted Tomatoes and Broccoli and Truffle Oil

Raviolis and Roasted Veg

Homemade ravioli: simultaneously easier and more difficult than I expected.

We assembled our ravioli on Monday night, and I was surprised at how (relatively) easy it was to make the dough, and get it into the right shapes, and put all the yummy stuff in, and keep all the yummy stuff from falling out. They looked so lovely, and tiny, and the dough was silky, and it was all so tactile and fun. And good smelling.

Last night we decided it was time to cook up one of the two batches we made, and while they were very, very good, something was not quite 100%, and we all know what a perfectionist I am. I am now determined to master the art of ravioli making.

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Salami Roasted Chicken

Chicken and veggies

I have roasted a fair number of chickens in the past year, and I’m always looking for something a little different from the traditional herbs-butter-lemon method. I think I have found it. I would never have thought of roasting chicken with another kind of meat in it (well, other than in a turducken kind of way) but as I perused my cookbooks, trying to find something new, I happened across Jamie Oliver’s “fantastic roast chicken” recipe.

Jamie Oliver does not use salami. He uses prosciutto, but I didn’t have prosciutto. I had salami, so I thought I’d just run with it. Add in a bag of pre-cut root vegetables from Trader Joe’s, a couple potatoes and carrots, and voila–a roast chicken dinner. With salami.

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Homemade Pasta, or The Messiest Cooking Project Ever

Fresh Fettuccini

Last night we decided to embark on the messiest cooking project I believe I’ve ever undertaken: making fresh homemade pasta. Of course, we couldn’t be satisfied with just one big batch of fettuccini or spagetti, oh no. We decided to make three kinds of pasta, fettuccini, and two kinds of ravioli. Yes, two. We were going to go all the way.

Mr. X was doubtful about making pasta without a food processor, but I refused to let lack of machinery stand in my way. After all, people made pasta without a food processor for hundreds of years. If their hands were good enough, then dammit, so were mine! As it turned out, the dough ended up just the right texture for rolling, and wasn’t very difficult at all. It was, however, very messy, and anyone who knows me knows that I’m not always so good with messy. I soldiered through the gloppy flour-covered hands and squishy liquidy ravioli fillings, though, and we ended up with a pretty awesome dinner.

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Sugar High Friday: Scharffen Berger and Sourdough

Scharffen Berger Sourdough

I have been missing San Francisco like crazy lately. More than usual, in a fierce, more yearning kind of way. What, you wonder, could that possibly have to do with Sugar High Friday?

I’ve never before entered any of the many food blogger contests, and it seems unusual, even to me, that my first would be one centered around sweets, seeing as I’m not such a sweets kind of person. But when I saw this month’s theme, Chocolate by Brand, I instantly thought of Sharffen Berger, and San Francisco, and that sense of longing that comes upon whenever I think of San Francisco this time generated something like an idea.

When I was in college one of my favorite indulgences was dunking buttery pieces of sourdough toast into hot chocolate. It sounds weird, I know, but holy crap it tastes awesome. The butter and the chocolate are a perfect complement, and set off by the tang of the sourdough bread….uhhnnnhhh, you don’t even know.

So my idea? Capturing San Francisco and that awesome combination into a sweet and savory snack. What do people think of when they think of San Francisco (besides its total awesomeness)? Sourdough bread and chocolate.

Of course, most people would think of Ghirardelli, the quintessential San Francisco chocolatier for over 150 years. Ghirardelli Square is a constant attraction for tourists, and everyone knows: San Francisco chocolate = Ghirardelli. But the thing is, Ghirardelli isn’t just San Francisco now, its pervasive. You can get Ghirardelli in any grocery store anywhere in the country. Nothing about it anymore speaks to me of San Francisco. But Scharffen Berger?

Scharffen Berger doesn’t have quite the illustrious history of Ghirardelli, but, like many things, its relative anonymity gives it a special kind of lustre. Of course, its anonymity may be short lived, but its tastiness I’m sure will not be. This is some pretty superb chocolate.

But combined with sourdough? All I can say is don’t judge until you’ve tried.

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Whatever’s in the Pantry Pasta, or Cannellini Broccolini Pasta

Cannellini Broccolini Pasta

It has been a bit of a rough week for the kitchen. Around about Tuesday I realized that I was completely broke, AND had a nearly bare pantry. And the combination of winter, evening darkness, and a job I don’t exactly love put me in the mood to do nothing much but sit on the couch, reading Harry Potter and drinking hot toddies. But tonight I knew I would have to figure out the sustenance question eventually, and cobble together some kind of meal from the random remnants on hand.

I actually love this kind of ramshackle cooking. I’ve devised some pretty interesting meals based solely on what was at hand. I’ve also experienced some dinner disasters, but we dont’ need to speak of those. I will just say, stay away from any beet-garbanzo-spaghetti-feta combinations.

So what was in the pantry tonight? I still have those anchovies. In fact I’m beginning to suspect that they are reproducing, alone at night in the refrigerator, because it doesn’t appear I ever have fewer anchovies. I have a can of diced tomatoes, and a can of cannellini beans. I have some slightly bedgraggled looking broccolini, and I think, yes, that this might make a meal. Of some sort.

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