Spinach Arugula Pesto Lasagna

The first time I had pesto lasagna, I was in Rome.  It was amazing.  The kind of experience that ruins regular lasagna for you.  Handmade, fresh pasta, pesto, cheese...hello, lover.  I tried to duplicate it when I got home, but it just didn't work.  So this week, when our CSA share came in and we had arugula, garlic scapes, and spinach, I found a recipe for arugula pesto in Dishing Up Maryland.  I modified their pesto recipe a bit, and then was going to just do boring pasta, but we had lasagna noodles and I thought pesto lasagna might just be the ticket for a celebratory dinner after my first day on the new job.

Lasagna takes a long time to prep, so I probably shouldn't have decided that.  This recipe is inspired by a Cooking from the Garden recipe that we made for Valentine's Day and we didn't eat until nearly 10pm that night. Nonetheless, here is a great recipe for using up a whole heap-ton of veggies.  We were lucky to get ALL of Sister Barefoot's arugula (and far too selfish to share any of the delicious lasagna), but all is still a bunch, not a specific amount, so guesses are approximate here for quantities.

Ingredients:
For pesto:
1 bunch arugula
1/2 bunch spinach
4-6 garlic scapes (can probably use whole cloves of garlic)
1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted at 350 for 10 minutes
olive oil

For lasagna:
8-10 no-bake lasagna noodles
2 cups parmesean cheese
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3 cups milk
Salt and pepper, to taste

Process:

1. Wash all greens, put in a food processor.  Process until chopped up into tiny bits.  Add pine nuts.  Add olive oil until it looks like pesto.  
2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add flour. Cook for 1-2 minutes until smooth.  Add milk.  Stir frequently, wait for it to thicken.  
3. While waiting for the sauce to thicken, soak the lasagna noodles in water.  
4. Once sauce has thickened, line the bottom of an 8x8 pan with noodles.  Add pesto.  Add cheese.  Pour sauce over top.  Add more noodles, pesto, cheese, and sauce, until done.  If you run out of sauce at the top, just grate on some more cheese. 
5. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes with foil, and then another 15 without foil.  (Our 8x8 pan actually fits into the toaster oven, which cooks it much faster and doesn't create as much heat in the kitchen on really hot summer days, so that's another thing to love about this recipe.)  

Enjoy!  I would be interested in making this recipe with additional vegetables and maybe not quite so much cheese.  I was thinking zucchini or roasted eggplant, but what new and interesting vegetables would go well here?  

Thankful

Dear Matt & Heather: 

Thank you so much for the lovely cheese grater.  We really love it and it was so helpful with all of the cheese grating that we had to do for first Thanksgiving last night.  We had to grate several cups of cheese, and as we all know, fresh grated cheese > packaged cheese, especially when it has that powdery stuff that makes my mac and cheese get all clumpy.  So thanks again! 

XOXO, 

The Barefoots

Pasta Salad with Arugula

This is from my Mac & Cheese cookbook - Macaroni and Cheese by Marlena Spieler, for my friend Susan, who I told I would post this for, because she has a CSA share and a lot of arugula.  But you should try it too, because it is amazing.  (And amazingly easy - the best kind of amazing.)
Ingredients:
1 large unwaxed lemon
12 ounces orecchiette (I used those piccolini bow-ties the last time and I think shells before that. Any pasta is okay, but I'd go for something flat if possible.)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
8-10 ounces Bulgarian, Israeli, or Greek feta cheese (I use President from Costco.)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 cups loosely packed arugula leaves (washed)

Process:
1.) Zest the lemon, put in a small bowl.  Squeeze lemon juice into the bowl. Mind the seeds.
2.) Cook the pasta until al dente, drain.
3.) Put pasta in a large bowl (I love a stainless steel mixing bowl for pasta salad since it transfers heat so much better in the fridge.)
4.) Add lemon juice and olive oil to the pasta, set for up to two hours to cool.
5.) Before serving, toss with feta, salt, and pepper.  Serve w/ arugula at room temperature.

This is great for bar review lunches and dinners, btw.  Anything I can eat cold is fantastic.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! This year, Mr. Barefoot gave me an Eye-fi card, which hopefully means that the new year will be filled with delicious food photos from the Barefoot kitchen!
Today for lunch we're having cranberry brie en croute.
I've posted the recipe before, but now, with pictures! You need crescent roll dough, a round of brie, and a bag of Craisins. (for 13oz of brie or less, use one pkg of crescent roll dough, for 16oz round, use 2pkgs).

Steps:
1.) Cut brie in half. Fill with cranberries. 2.) Roll out crescent roll dough. I do this in two halves, and put one half on top and the other half on the bottom. I try to roll the bottom half out thinner so it cooks more evenly.
3.) Wrap brie in dough and put on a baking sheet. Stick in oven at 375 for 20-30 minutes (until crescent roll is cooked through - you'll want to flip it over and check that the bottom is thoroughly cooked.)
Enjoy! Things will be pretty quiet on the Barefoot homefront because we are off to Bonaire with my family. Have good, safe holidays and a happy New Year! See you in 2010! If you have a resolution related to cooking, please share in the comments!

Snow Day Fondue

So what do you do when you didn't believe the snow reports and you didn't stock up on extra food so all you have is some produce and a giant block of gouda that Papa Barefoot handed you when you went home earlier this week?
Oh wait, and it looks like this outside:


You make Snow Day Fondue! Sister Barefoot, who lives up the street, came down and brought her husband and a big block of swiss cheese, old and slightly moldy. I've gotten less squemish about moldy cheese and just chopped off the moldy bits. Then we cut it all up and made fondue.
Oh wait, for fondue, you need bread. French bread. Well, fortunately, on a snow day, you can't go anywhere, so it's the perfect time to make bread! I used the french bread recipe from the Joy of Cooking (I will repost shortly) and let it rise all afternoon. It made 3 loaves of delicious, crusty french bread.
As you can see, Sister Barefoot also brought some apples, and Mr. Barefoot did some last minute online Christmas shopping as we got dinner ready.

Snow Day Fondue:
1 cup dry white cooking wine
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
Approx 20 oz cheese, cut up into cubes or shredded, depending on level of laziness. We used Gouda, Swiss, and Parmesean, plus a tiny bit of cheddar. I would say the swiss is the most important, and then add whatever you want.

Recipe:
1.) Bring wine to a boil in a small pot.
2.) At the same time, melt butter over LOW heat. Add flour, and blend together until smooth and slightly cooked. You'll want to use a whisk for this.
3.) Whisk in dry white wine, a little at a time, keeping the mixture extremely smooth. This should take you about 2-4 minutes to accomplish. Whisk muchly.
4.) Add some cheese. Let it melt. Wisk. Add more cheese.
5.) Transfer to a fondue pot, or put on very low heat and have everybody stand around the stove.
6.) Dip delicious foodstuffs in melty cheese. Mmmmm. Fel warm and fuzzy.

Barbecue Mac and Cheese

I cannot believe there is no recipe out there for this. A few weeks ago, I first started adding barbecue sauce to mac and cheese. Now, I'm not sure I can live without it. So I thought, "why don't they just cook the barbecue sauce into the mac and cheese?" I don't know. So here, my friends, is the best vegetarian dish for a barbecue you've seen yet. I made it in the slow cooker, but I may do a baked version soon.
Ingredients:

• 1 lb macaroni
  
• 2 cups shredded cheese
• 1 12oz can evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 cups 1% milk (can probably use skim as well)
• 1 egg
  
• Red Pepper Flakes
• 1 bottle barbecue sauce (I used whatever Mark bought me, use whatever type suits your fancy - I'm not sure how vinegar based sauce will come out though)
• salt and pepper
• breadcrumbs
  

Eqiupment:

• 6 qt slow cooker (for smaller, halve or quarter recipe)
• small bowl
• pot, colander, slotted spoon
• not-slotted spoon
• 2 dishtowels (clean!)
  

Procedure

1. Cook macaroni until al dente. Drain. Grease slow cooker. Pour macaroni into slow cooker.
   
2. In a separate bowl, mix evaporated milk, milk, and egg.
3. Pour milk mixture over macaroni, stir to distribute evenly. Add red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Add one cup of cheese.
   
4. Place 2 dishtowels over slow cooker, then put on lid (this absorbs condensation so the macaroni does not get all soggy.)
   
5. Allow to cook for 30-40 minutes, until most of the liquid has boiled off. Add another cup of cheese and half a bottle of barbecue sauce. Stir to combine.
   
6. Allow to cook for another 30-40 minutes. It should start looking pretty mac and cheesy at this point. Add the rest of the cheese, more barbecue sauce, and taste test. Do not stand over the crockpot eating out of it because its just too delicious.
   
7. Once the sauce is a flavor and consistency of your liking, add breadcrumbs to the top and spray with vegetable oil or dot with butter if you want them to really brown.
   
8. You now have two options - allow the slow cooker to cook for another hour to crisp up the breadcrumbs, or throw the whole thing under the broiler. I picked option 2 because people were here and dinner needed to be on the table. It's done when the breadcrumbs are brown.
   

I'll be working on a stovetop version soon, but I think the crockpot is best for slowly adding more barbecue sauce and I wanted to test this recipe out.
Enjoy!

Mushroom parmesean risotto

Last week I did something a little impulsive. And, I'm not gonna lie, I did it because Mark wasn't here to tell me that I couldn't. So I scoured Craigslist and I bought myself a brand new rice cooker. Because what girl living alone in Michigan doesn't need a 14-cup rice maker? I agree, I should have asked what size it was and gotten a more reasonable size.
However, on Monday night I cooked myself 2 cups (four servings) of rice to go with the delicious sweet and sour tofu and yellow curry I was planning to make this week. It worked out very nicely - it took a little longer than the internet said it would to cook, but I put 2 cups of brown rice in and washed it thoroughly, and then put in two cups of water. I hit the on switch, and 45 minutes later, I had rice. I would recommend not starting the rice cooker when you have a slow cooker of food all ready to go though, because my sweet and sour tofu got cold.
It makes perfect sticky, fluffy, Chinese food restaurant brown rice. Brown rice is just better when it's fluffier, it's true.
So here I had 4 servings of rice, which it turns out, is a lot. So I actually got most of my meals for the week out of it. Last night I made an amazing risotto with the last of it. Here's the recipe, although feel free to play around. Quantities are not exact. Just pour.
Ingredients:

• 2 cups cooked brown (or other type) rice
• 6 small white mushrooms (because I only had six - go ahead, use more)
• chopped garlic
• olive oil
• half and half
• salt
• pepper
• veggies for a side
• parmesean cheese (probably about a cup, shredded)

Procedure:

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat, saute garlic until yummy.
2. Add mushrooms
3. Add half and half (I would say pour in at least a quarter cup)
4. Add rice. Mix into half and half until half and half bubbles and is absorbed.
5. Add cheese. Stir until melted.
   
6. Add salt, pepper, and other spices if you are lucky enough to have them.
   
7. Serve with veggies (I had brocolli and asparagus.)
   

Pretty darn good, and waaaaay quicker than a standard risotto.

Salad

So Mr. Barefoot is anti-salad. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like raw foods, generally speaking. But yesterday was his birthday, and I didn't make him a special dinner but I made him a nice salad. Well, I put the fixings for it in the refrigerator.
Because what does a nice salad require, when you are Mr. Barefoot, the anti-salad guy?
Bacon.
Also bleu cheese - but I went with feta for my own.
So I had to start by making bacon - I guess I could have bought those bacon bits, but I didn't. So I bought bacon - lean turkey bacon from Trader Joes - which I put in a pan on the stove, turned it to medium-low, and then let cook, flipped eventually. It looks like bacon, and smells like it. Yum.

My own salad did not have bacon, but was delicious. I used a bag of mixed baby greens, including spinach, and feta cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette. (Plus some croutons.)
We actually each had two salads last week. :)

Election Night Tricks & Treats

You may have heard that last night was election night. Apparently that elitist-terrorist-muslim guy won. While the relief I'm feeling should be much greater, the way it is for most people, and my sense of history and finality should be tingling, I am nervously waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm waiting for something. I don't know what. It seems unreal that an election can be resolved, these days, in a single night.
My good friends Mama Awesome, Baby Awesome, Papa Awesome, Mr. Redline, and my nonblogging friends, watched the returns and enjoyed Spinach and Artichoke Dip, Buffalo Chicken Dip, and baked brie in crescent rolls. For dessert, there was the best pumpkin pie ever and chocolatey-peanutbuttery-cookie bars, which were amazingly chocolaty.
I will hopefully get a guest blog post from Mr. Redline and DNA as to how to make their election night foodery. For now, here is a recipe for brie wrapped in crescent rolls. Because brie is the food of elitists, terrorists, and winners.

Ingredients:

• Brie cheese (I used a 6 ounce wedge, you can use any size. For a larger party, use a round.
  
• Crescent roll dough (if you are using a full round of brie, you may want to use 2 loafs)
• Optional - cranberries, chopped nuts, or apples
  

Equipment:

• Cutting board
• Rolling Pin (I made this at the Awesome's, so I didn't have access to one of these, but I wished I had had the foresight to bring my own. I spent very little time at home yesterday. I spent 23 hours out of the house.)
  
• Baking dish - I used an 8x8 pyrex dish, but I think I probably will go with a regular aluminum cookie sheet in the future.
• Oven at 375 (I will experiment with the temperature in the future)
  

Procedure:

1. Roll out crescent dough. Do not cut into little triangles. Instead, roll into a large rectangle or oval. (Probably about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch thick
   
2. Place brie in the center of dough.
3. Add cranberries, fruit, or nuts.
   
4. Wrap dough around brie. Imagine wrapping a gift, but instead of wrapping paper, you are using dough. Everything should be covered.
5. Bake for 20-40 minutes. I don't know how long it actually took to cook, because I had to leave the party.
   

I had it cold, which was less good, because I like cold brie less. But I was told that it was decent. It could have been by people trying to stoke my ego, but really, I think they generally think that I think highly enough of myself and my cooking that they don't need to do that.