A day off - Vegetarian Lasagna - Orange Scented Chocolate Cheesecake

Hey there. Hi there. Ho there. It's me. Thought I would drop in and say hi to any followers who might still be following me. :)

I had a day off today. A day off  from my house cleaning business and a day off from Starbucks. That meant I could sleep in and play in my kitchen. Playing in my kitchen makes me happy. In fact, playing in my kitchen makes me very happy. I knew ahead of time that I would have today off and had chosen a couple of recipes I wanted to try. One was for my Chocolate with Francois group and the other one was a practice run of an all vegetable lasagna. My beautiful daughter-in-law, who is pregnant with my first grand-child, is a Vegetarian. I am getting together next week with her and my son, my daughter and her hubby and we are going to have dinner together and play Quelf, a really fun board game. It will probably be the last time we can all get together before Baby Gulla is born. I plan on baking a pan of the vegetable lasagna and putting it in the freezer so that Sean and Katey have something they can just heat up and eat when they come home from the hospital with the baby. At least one night they won't have to worry about cooking dinner. :)

So, today I decided I would make a vegetable lasagna that I had come across a recipe for. It's from Italian Food Forever and it sounded easy and yummy. I even made the home-made sauce she links to. I used my submersible blender so that there wouldn't be chunks of tomatoes but kept to the basic sauce recipe.

I also bought my lasagna noodles. I do have a pasta roller, but I use it for my cake decorating business. Besides, I was more interested in what was going between the noodles rather than the noodles themselves. The recipe suggests using eggplant, roasted red peppers, fennel, and onions. I could not find fennel anywhere (and should confess here that I wouldn't know fennel if I bumped into it) so I decided to go with zucchini, eggplant, red peppers and onion. Knowing my hubby and his "it has to have meat or it isn't dinner" attitude, I bought some "Gimme Lean" sausage style veggie protein. I know, it isn't meat, but, I wanted to see if he would even notice.

I also cheated by buying roasted red peppers in a jar. I could have roasted some, but, I don't have a gas stove, it's electric. I do have a gas grill, but hated to crank it up to roast three red peppers. Thus, the jar of already roasted peppers.

I made the sauce first. It was super easy. Heat up some oil, drop in some minced garlic, pour in diced Italian style tomatoes, bring to a boil, lower heat, add salt and pepper and fresh chopped basil. And, any other spices or seasoning you would like. Super easy and really good.

I worked on the veggies next. Sliced the eggplant, brushed it with olive oil and grilled it under the broiler. Sauteed the onions till they were soft and light brown. Sliced the zucchini and sauteed that up. Fried the "sausage". Drained the roasted red peppers. Once I had all the ingredients cooked and on separate plates I began to assemble the lasagna.

A little sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. A layer of noodles. A little more sauce. Some "sausage", cheese and eggplant. Cover with noodles. Sauce. "Sausage". Cheese. Roasted red peppers. Noodles. Sauce. "Sausage". Cheese. Onion. Final layer noodles, sauce, "sausage", cheese, zucchini. Last layer of noodles, a little more sauce and a good amount of cheese. Covered the whole thing with foil and put it in a 375 degree oven and baked it for 45 minutes. The recipe on Italian Food Forever doesn't call for covering the dish with foil and it bakes for a shorter time, but I think that's because the noodles are fresh made rather than boxed.

The lasagna smelled fabulous while it was baking and looked wonderful when I took it out of the oven. I let it set for about 20 minutes before cutting and plating it.

I loved it!! So many flavors blending together. It was not greasy or overly heavy like some lasagnas can be. The vegetables were soft but not mushy. There was just enough sauce, not overpowering the dish or drowning the noodles, but just enough to enhance the flavors of the veggies and bind the noodles, cheese and veggies together. What was even better was that the hubby also loved it! At one point he asked about the ingredients, wanted to know if it was all veggies, besides the sausage. It was then that I told him the truth about the "sausage". He shrugged and kept eating. Success!!

Even if you aren't a Vegetarian, you should try this lasagna. Trust me when I say you won't miss the meat that's not in it. Or the ricotta cheese that's not in it. Or the eggs. Just roast or grill some veggies. Layer them with some shredded Mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. A little sauce and you are good to go. :)

In the title of this post I mention an Orange Scented Chocolate Cheesecake. That recipe is from my CWF group and it is my pick for the month of June. According to the rules of our group, I am afraid I can't post my review until the 30th of June. But, trust me (again) when I say you need to come back at the end of June and get the recipe for it. Wonderful! Light yet rich. Orange and chocolate flavors blending together. A tender, sandy, sable' crust. The cheesecake baked up tall and beautiful. I really liked it. The hubby thought it was okay. He said I have made better cheesecakes before. However, he is not a big orange/chocolate combination fan. Guess you will have the try the recipe and decide for yourself.

I will be back on the 30th of this month, if not before, to post the latest CWF review...Chocolate Tiramisu. This was unbelievably delicious! I kid you not when I say that the 11/2 quart bowl I made lasted just over two days. And, there were only two of us here to eat it. :] You can find that recipe at Seattle Pastry Girl's blog. It's worth the effort. Trust me. :)

Tuesdays with Dorie - Toasted Coconut-Custard Tart

Beryl of Cinemon Girl chose this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. It's a Toasted Coconut-Custard Tart, if you didn't already know. If I knew where she was, I would go kiss her! Coconut is one of those things that I love, but seldom get to have because the hubby isn't crazy about it. He will usually eat a small slice of his Mom's coconut cream pie at Thanksgiving, but other than that, it's not one of those things he asks me to make. And, I really don't need to make something I will have to eat by myself. I keep losing weight, but darned if it doesn't keep finding me!

So, when I saw this weeks choice I almost passed.  But, I reasoned, a tart is much smaller than a pie (yeah, right!) and I could share some with my mother-in-law and father-in-law, since they both like coconut. My mother-in-law is recovering from hip surgery so I thought making it and taking some to them would cheer them both up, and keep me from eating the whole tart by myself. With all that in mind, I forged ahead.

I preheated my oven and read over the recipe. Decided to toast the coconut while I worked on the tart crust. I sprinkled coconut over a sheet of parchment paper I put on a baking sheet. I placed it in the oven, telling myself not to forget it was in there and burn it. Then I started mixing up the dough for the tart. After several minutes (or 5 or more, I don't know) I smelled something cooking and realized it was my coconut! Yanked open the oven door and there was my baking sheet, full of what had been beautiful coconut, now full of almost burnt coconut! I think the only thing that kept the whole cup and a half from going straight into the trash was that it had gone into the oven frozen. The outer edges of the coconut was too dark to use, but all the coconut in the center was almost perfectly toasted. Whew! Lucked out on that one. I do stuff like that all the time. Put something in the oven and say "Now don't forget this", and then forget it! :}

After that little mishap, everything went as smooth as glass. The tart dough came together perfectly. Baked it and set it on the counter to cool. Made the custard. The only deviation from the recipe I made was to add about 1/4 teaspoon of coconut extract, to kick up the coconut flavor.  It seemed a bit thick at first, but I added a little milk to it when I took it off the stove until it was the consistency I thought it should be, then finished it with the butter and coconut. Set that in the fridge to cool.

After the crust was cool enough I spooned the custard into it. Smoothed it out and then I whipped up the whipping cream and piped it on top of the custard filled crust. I sprinkled some toasted coconut on top and stood back to admire my work.

Perfection! I cut a couple of slices to take to the in-laws and then cut a sliver to taste. Oh. My. Goodness! It was divine. The custard was creamy, rich, full of bits of toasted coconut with just a hint of the dark rum coming through. The crust was tender, but crumbly, "sandy" is the description in the book, and it fits. The whipped cream on top, with a tiny bit of rum, light and airy, is the perfect compliment to the rest of the tart. I can't wait till after dinner when I can have another slice, a bigger one this time!

If you would like to see what all the other bakers thought of this fabulous dessert, head over to TWD and check them out. Excuse me while I head to the kitchen. I think I am going to have that slice before dinner...life's uncertain you know. :)

Creme Anglaise

Next week's TWD is Chocolate Souffle. I was reading over the recipe and in the side bar where Dorie puts serving suggestions is this little blip "...but it's awfully good with Creme Anglaise". Since I plan on making the souffle I thought I would make the custard sauce, so, when I got home tonight, I gathered all the ingredients and gave it a go.

To say that I was a bit nervous about making this was an understatement.  I have never made anything custard like before. But, it was really easy to throw together. Bring some cream and milk to a boil. Add it to some beaten egg yolks and sugar. Cook to between 170 and 180 degrees. Add vanilla and chill.  I don't think it took 10 minutes (maybe 15) to finish. I think it got to the correct temperature pretty quick, and I may have heated it a tad over the 180 degree max, but it tasted great. 

I can't wait to try it over the souffle, once I work up the courage to bake it. :)