Spaghetti with Ricotta and Baby Artichokes - Bakespace Challenge

There's been a lot going on in Bakespace Land and it's been nothing but fun. I wish I had more time though, because I missed out on one of the challenges but I'll get to it eventually. For this challenge we were each assigned a bakespace member (who is also participating in the challenge) and we had to cook from their bakespace kitchen. If you're not a bakespace member yet (get over there and sign up!), the kitchen is our online recipe box that is filled with recipes that we have upload to the website. I got to cook out of Moni's kitchen. You can check out her kitchen here and check out her blog here. Moni (Monica) is a fabulous baker and is very much into Halloween treats. I was certainly nervous about this challenge and doubted myself the whole time (for no reason!). To help alleviate the stress a bit I decided not to bake and to make one of her savory recipes. The recipe that appealed to me most was her Rice Stuffed Artichokes. I love artichokes and stuffed artichokes often frequent my dinner table but the combination of ingredients in this dish were slightly new to me. I never had ricotta and artichokes together before and I have never stuffed artichokes with rice. It really does look delicious though! I realized that full size artichokes aren't in season right now but I was determinted to make this recipe work for me. So instead I bought the little baby artichokes. The little guys aren't really good for stuffing but I looked at her ingredients and thought that I could make a fabulous pasta dish with them. I feel bad about having to change the recipe so much but we were told we could make the dish our own and I didn't have much choice. I'm really happy with the result and I hope you try this one! My suggestion this time is to use the fresh artichokes. The frozen or canned artichoke hearts will not be able to stand the cooking time necessary for them to actually penetrate the sauce. This sauce has a delicious flavor. You can taste the artichokes even if you don't bite into one.

Spaghetti with Ricotta and Baby Artichokes

Inspired by Monica

Ingredients:

12 baby artichokes, cleaned and trimmed of outer leaves, quartered
1 onion, sliced
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
prepared pasta sauce (I had this leftover)
About 1 cup part skim ricotta
kalamata olives, halved (I had about 1/4 cup but you know how I love them so I would use more)
Approx 2 cups chicken broth
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
1 pound spaghetti

Directions:

1. In a large skillet, saute artichokes in oil with onions olives and crushed red pepper. Lightly season with salt and black pepper.

2. Once onions are cooked add chicken broth to just barely cover the artichokes and let cook. Add more broth as it reduced and cover. Cook until artichokes are tender, about 30 minutes.

3. Add sauce and some more chicken broth to thin out the sauce. Stir to combine. Cover and let artichokes cook in the sauce for another 20-30 minutes.

4. Cook spaghetti in salted boiling water until al dente. While pasta is cooking turn off heat from the sauce and add ricotta until it's a creamy consistency. When pasta is cooked toss with sauce.

4 Step Chicken and Individual Potato Gratins - Coast to Coast Cooking

Do you think YOU could be The Next Food Network Star? Melissa D'Arabian sure did and now she is this seasons winner of her own cooking show. On the final episode of the show the two remainimg contestans, Melissa and Jeffrey had to record an episode of their potential cooking show. I was impressed with both of finalists but I can see myself making Melissa's recipes regularly. This chicken dish is very easy and a method I use (and so does everyone else) all the time. It's funny that Melissa said she invented it but that's okay, I'll let it slide. I was more excited to try the potatoes that she made because they looked so cute when she flipped them out of the muffin tins. She definitely gets pointes for using muffin tins, who doesn't have at least one, right? I love to find new uses for items I already own, it's like getting something new without having to find space for it in my kitchen.

I bet your wondering what the Coast to Coast Cooking is and I'll get to that right now. Every day on Bakespace we discuss what the evening's dinner menu will be. Not only is it fun for us to see what's going on our friends' kitchens but a lot of us use this thread for ideas when we're stuck. Last week my friend Danielle from Cooking for my Peace of Mind was stuck. I told her that I was making Melissa's dish and told her she should make it with me. The idea caught on and Shane of Culinary Alchemy and Spryte of Spryte's Place decided to join in. Dani thought it would be cool to call this Coast to Coast Cooking. She and Shane live in California and Spryte lives in Pittsburgh and of course, I live in New Jersey. We thought it was a great title and a fun idea, so here we are now all blogging about the same thing. We are all putting out own spins on the dish so make sure you check out their blogs to see how theirs turned out!

Spryte's Individual Potato Gratins

Shane's 4 Step Chicken Stroganov

Dani's 4 Step Chicken and Individual Potato Gratins

I pretty much followed Melissa's recipe exactly but I used less lemon juice, a vidalia onion and added artichoke hearts. Melissa was on the money with the red onion. My dish is lacking color with the Vidalia. I should have browned them longer to get more color. The chicken is served on a bed of spinach which she did have a recipe for. I prefer to cook my spinach in garlic and oil so that's what I did. For the potatoes I used a combination of swiss cheese and fontina cheese. I seasoned my potatoes in a bowl before layering them. That was both good and bad. I put in a little too much salt (the cheeses are salty!) but I loved the smoked paprika and Mrs. Dash. They potatoes were very flavorful. I don't know why the potatoes are called 5 Minute Potatoes, according to the recipe the prep and the cooking time are longer than 5 minutes. It doesn't take too long to prepare them though.

Give this a try and see how you can make this different and unique to your own house and your own pantry!



Flexible 4-Step Chicken for Family and Company - Rustic Lemon-Onion Chicken

Recipe courtesy Melissa d'Arabian
Prep Time: 30 min Inactive Prep Time: -- Cook Time: 30 min Level:
Easy Serves:
4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced in half crossways (butterflied, cut all the way through)
1 teaspoon dried thyme, plus 1 small bunch fresh thyme, leaves chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup white wine, optional
1 cup chicken broth
3 lemons, juiced
1 to 2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

Season chicken with dried thyme and salt and pepper. Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add the oil. Dredge the chicken in flour, add to the hot oil and saute until cooked through. Set chicken aside to rest on plate tented with foil.

In same saute pan, over low heat, add onions and fresh thyme and cook until aromatic.

In a measuring cup, measure out wine, if using, and broth, and add the lemon juice. Turn the heat up to high, and deglaze the pan with the broth mixture until starting to reduce.

Remove the pan from the heat and finish the sauce by whisking in butter. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Place a bed of cooked spinach on a serving platter, top with the chicken. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.





5-Minute Individual Potato Gratins

Recipe courtesy Melissa d'Arabian
Prep Time: 15 min Inactive Prep Time: -- Cook Time: 40 min
4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:

Vegetable spray
2 large russet potatoes, roughly peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese
2 green onions, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup heavy cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Spray 8 muffin tins with vegetable spray. Layer potato slices, cheese, and onions into each muffin cup. Season with salt and pepper and top each gratin with 1 or 2 tablespoons of heavy cream. Cover with foil and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, removing the foil halfway through cooking time. Invert gratins onto plate and serve.

Bakespace Challenge 3 - French Onion Salisbury Steak

It looks like we have a new favorite salisbury steak recipe!!!

Things worked out very well for me and challenge number 3. The idea was to find a recipe that was popular the year you were born or around the year you were born. I looked it up on the internet and I found that Nouveau cuisine was popular. Not something I was too keen on recreating. Then I found a website that mentioned meatloaf and I started to think about some American dishes my mom made when I was growing up in the 80's. Salisbury steak was one that popped up in my mind. It was great for us kids because it was like eating a hamburger with gravy and it was easy for my mom to make when she came home from work. The recipe I found is very different from the traditional salisbury steak I've made or my mom has made. I found it while looking through some old cooking magazines. This is from the April 2005 edition of Cuisine at Home. Great magazine by the way. I should probably renew my subscription.

French Onion Salisbury Steak

Makes 4 Steaks; Total Time: 45 Minutes

1 1/4 lb. ground chuck
1/4 c. fresh minced parsley
2 TBS. scallion, minced
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 TBS. all-purpose flour
2 TBS. olive oil
2 cups onions, sliced
1 tsp. sugar
1 TBS. garlic, minced
1 TBS. tomato paste
2 cups beef broth
1/4 cup dry red wine
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
4 tsp. minced, fresh parsley
4 tsp. Parmesan cheese, shredded

Cheese Toasts
4 slices French bread or baguette, cut diagonally (1/2" thick)
2 TBS. unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp. garlic, minced
Pinch of paprika
1/4 cup Swiss cheese, grated
1 TBS. Parmesan cheese, grated

Combine chuck, parsley, scallion, salt and pepper. Divide evenly into 4 portions and shape each into 3/4"-1" thick oval patties. Place 2 TBS. flour in a shallow dish; dredge each patty in flour. Reserve 1 tsp. flour.

Heat 1 TBS. oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat. Add patties and saute 3 minutes on each side, or until browned. Remove from pan.

Add onions and sugar to pan; saute 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and tomato paste; saute 1 minute, or until paste begins to brown. Sprinkle onions with reserved flour; cook 1 minute. Stir in broth and wine, then add the salt and thyme.

Return meat to pan and bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer 20 minutes.

Serve steaks on Cheese Toasts with onion soup ladled over. Garnish with parsley and Parmesan.

For the Cheese Toasts

Preheat oven to 400º F.

Place bread on baking sheet.

Combine butter, garlic and paprika and spread on one side of each slice of bread. Combine cheeses and sprinkle evenly over butter. Bake until bread is crisp and cheese is bubbly, 10-15 minutes.

This was the recipe as printed in the magazine. I made a few slight changes. I had to buy two packages of ground beef so that gave me a little over 1 1/2 pounds of meat and I got 5 patties out of it. The scallions at shoprite have been looking pretty funky lately so I substituted red onion. I don't think it changed the flavor at all though. The only other change I made was that I used shredded mozzarella instead of the swiss. I've had french onion soup with both types of cheese so either is good for me! Everything else I did the same and I was very happy with the results. Steve really liked it as well. There are only two slight changes I would make in the future. First I would drain the fat from the patties after they are browned. I usually do this with my ground beef but I thought that the flour would absorb more. Turned out to be a little more greasy than I would have liked. The other thing is that I would use half the amount of dried thyme. It is very strong and too much can be very overpowering. I had to add a little water to try to dilute that. Other than that this recipe was great and I would definitely recommend it!



I forgot to take a picture of the meat mixture so I took a picture of the patty instead.



Patties dredged in flour.



Patties in my favorite all clad pan. (I'm such a kitchen label whore! lol)



Sliced onions and tomato paste.



Broth and patties returned to the pan.



Voila! Doesn't that look yummy?

It's not too late to join in the latest bakespace challenge! I believe it runs until August 15th! If you don't want to do the challenge but you are curious about bakespace come check it out at www.bakespace.com. You will find me there in the forums!

Bakespace Challenge 2 - Ratatouille Lasagna

For our second bakespace challenge we had to recreate a dish from a movie of our choice. We were asked to put our own unique spin on it. This proved to be a difficult challenge since I could not find a movie right away. I really wanted to use Under the Tuscan Sun but there wasn't any close ups of the dishes or any discussions of what she made. I did finally decide on a movie that I could work with...Disney's Ratatouille. Ratatouille is a french vegetable stew that usually uses eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, potatoes and tomatoes. There seem to be many versions of this dish which is great for using whatever you have on hand.

To make my own spin on the dish I decided to make a lasagna layered with strips of zucchini and eggplant. I wouldn't call this a vegetable lasagna but I guess it could be considered that. I know vegetable lasagna to inclue spinach or broccoli but either way, I used veggies and it's lasagna. So call is what you wish! I didn't use ricotta in this dish because I wanted to concentrate on the flavors of the squash and not have it muted by a lot of cheese. Peppers are found in most recipes for ratatouille and I wanted to include them but not layered in the lasagna. This turned out to be my biggest problem. I rememeber seeing Rachael Ray make a roasted red pepper sauce and I thought that would be a great way to include the peppers. The idea sounded good but...nope...not so great. I used her recipe as a guide and used a jar of roasted red peppers. The result was a very tangy sauce that I really didn't care for at all. I think if I used my own peppers to flavor the sauce, it would have been much better. I love the flavor that peppers give the sauce when I make my mom's recipe for stuffed peppers (I'll have to share that with you soon.) I think the idea was good, the vegetables were tender but the sauce was a flop. If I had a chance to do it all over again I would make a marinara sauce and do everything else the same.

So the first thing I did was make the sauce. Here is a link to Rachael Ray's recipe if your curious. I used an onion instead of a shallot and I used three cloves of garlic instead of two. Basically, I made my regular sauce just added in some white wine and a jar of roasted peppers that I chopped in the food processor.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/gemelli-with-roasted-red-pepper-sauce-recipe/index.html

While the sauce was cooking I sliced the zucchini and eggplant on a mandoline. I used the 1/4 inch setting and made long slices. I also squeezed the juice and seeds from two small tomatoes and those I sliced by hand.

Next, I fried the zucchini and eggplant in vegetable oil and then drained them on paper towels.



I let the vegetable get lightly browned on both sides.



The next part was very easy if you've made lasagna before. I layered the vegetable between layers of no boil pasta sheets. Sauce on the bottom, sprinkle of romano cheese, three sheets of lasagna, more sauce, romano, eggplant, sauce, mozzarella. That was the first layer. It's important to use a lot of sauce because this is what actually cooks the noodles. Next layer was the same but I used the zucchini on this layer. Next layer was the top layer. On top of the pasta I added sauce, romano and mozzarella. I added the tomatoes here and sprinkled them with cheese.



Cover with foil and bake at 350 for about 1 hour.



When I sliced it you can see that it's not as thick as traditional lasagna. That's because it didn't have the ricotta. It still looked pretty on the plate and the vegetable were nice and tender.



So even though the recipe wasn't perfect, I'm proud of the way I put it together. Like I said, I would absolutely try this again without the roasted red pepper sauce.