FRESH SPINACH LASAGNE

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I was so excited to see this challenge at the beginning of the month. I am a HUGE fan of The Splendid Table and all things NPR. Also, I’ve heard only good things about the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna.

I’ve always had making fresh pasta on a to do list in the back of my mind. I imagined rolling and cutting fresh sheets of dough and stuffing ravioli bellies with seasonal fare like pumpkin or fresh herbed goat cheese. With the time involved in the preparation, it would only be for a special occasion for certain.

This challenge involved making a vivid spinach dough, a béchamel sauce, and a ragu. Simple ingredients layered together with parmesean cheese to form pure indulgence. Rolling and stretching the dough was not as difficult as one would imagine. (Even without a machine!). It’s very forgiving.

I got a little creative with the drying process. I love my dish towels. It made me smile to see them slung around the dining chairs draped with the verdant lasagne sheets.

The texture of the pasta in the finished dish was velvety smooth. Nothing compares to fresh pasta and now homemade is within my grasp. Thank you Mary, Melinda, Enza, and Lynn!

- Olivia

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I made some modifications in this challenge. First of all, my husband cannot eat spinach so I used butternut squash instead. I pureed the squash and added about 6 ounces to the pasta in lieu of the spinach. The color was a rich golden color, probably slightly darker than if I had added nothing at all. Fortunately, I have my old Atlas pasta machine, so the pasta rolling process was much easier than if I had rolled it out.

I made a sauce from a combination of pork and beef, since I thought the pork flavor would go especially well with the butternut pasta. This is the recipe, modified to include the pork:

Dice one large onion, 2 large carrots and 3 celery ribs. Throw into a food processor along with 4 cloves of garlic. Puree into a coarse paste. Coat a large pan with oil and heat. Add the pureed veggies and season generously with salt. Cook until the liquid in the veggies has evaporated and they become nice and brown, stirring frequently.

Add about a pound and a half of ground beef and another pound or pound and a half of ground pork. Season again with lots of salt. Brown the meat (this took me about 15-20 minutes). Add 2 cups of tomato paste and brown again, about 5 minutes. Add 3 cups of a hearty red wine and cook until it has reduced by half.

Add water to the pan to cover the meat by about an inch. Toss in 3 bay leaves and a bundle of fresh thyme and stir to combine. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer. As the water evaporates, add more, 2-3 cups at a time. Don’t dump in several cups of water all at once. Reduce and then add more. Stir and taste frequently and add more salt as needed. Simmer for 3 ½ to 4 hours. At the end of this time, the sauce will be meaty and not too watery. This recipe makes a lot – I froze the leftovers. (This recipe is a modification of a recipe from Anne Burrell, who has a cooking show on The Food Network).


I made the béchamel from the challenge recipe and assembled the lasagne after the pasta had dried and cooked and cooled. It was a much more refined dish than the lasagne with which I am more familiar – the kind overloaded with ricotta and mozzarella. I think the meat sauce could have used a little more spice or heat. If I were to do it again, I’d add some red pepper flakes. Probably not traditional, but we are fans of spicy flavors!

- Bunnee

Italy~how I love thee?

Let me eat the ways. I don’t know about everyone else but I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Italy this month. I hadn’t planned on taking any trips, but am thoroughly glad one came my way.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.


This was not my first time making pasta and I was very excited about using some spinach and making some beautiful noodles. My first big hurdle was the dough. (nice how I start out with a hurdle and don’t even get a chance to sprint ahead a few meters so I can leap effortless over the hurdle eh?) My dough was dry…bone dry. I had no idea how to rectify it, so I added another egg. That didn’t work…so I added….water. I know…I’m a sinner, but I had to get a dough that was kneadable not breakable. After a drizzle or two…possibly three, maybe more I had a dough that was somewhat workable. One of the things that I should have done was chop my spinach a lot finer.

As I was rolling the pasta it was tearing where there were pieces of spinach a bit larger than they should have been. They were absolutely beautiful though once I got them rolled out.

The Ragu was amazing! I loved the flavors but I admit I did alter the recipe. There was no veal in my Ragu as I have a personal veal policy. (yes…I am one of those) I did find it interesting that when I added the milk to the Ragu it curdled a smidge. It worked its way out after all the cooking though.

I made the Bechamel right before I layered the lasagne and it was a basic but good recipe and was the easiest part of the challenge. It did make a lot and I was able to make this really great pasta bake with portabellos and chicken with it. Anyway….this dish was so beautiful~ to the eye and to the palate.

My parents happened to be visiting so I had taste testers that would not feel bad about telling me the truth.

After I tasted it myself I didn’t really care if they liked it or not because that would mean more for me if they didn’t. But really…how could they not like it?! It was eaten and enjoyed.

- Amber

Therapeutic and Delicious :)

Well, homemade lasagne, including pasta, I thought was really challanging. I'd made quick 'cheats' semolina gnochi before, but I'd been fantisising about making pasta for a while, but was not too keen without a pasta roller. I think I like the idea of making things like breads and pastas from scratch because of the drawn out process, there's a lovely piece and quiet that comes from kneeding, and rolling, and resting the dough, lovely routine, and then the visual and textural change of the dough beneath the work of your hands. Such a wonderful experience.

So, I though it would be a bit of a challange to roll out, but a great kick in the bum for me to get on and make it. I encountered a problem in the dough, as I used 2.5 50g eggs. I thought this would give me as much as the 2x60g eggs mentioned in the recipie, but I neede another egg on top of that to get the dough to bind, otherwise there would have been tones of flour left over. I am sure I had the right amount in spinach, although it was still semi frozen, so I don't know if that made the difference in consistency?

Kneeding and rolling went well. I rolled it in a few different pieces, and got it lovely and thin and even just with the rolling pin. But when the pasta was dried, it cracked horribly. Maybe I rolled it too thin, or the extra egg made it crack? Whichever reason, when it came time to cook the dried pasta for lasagne assembly, it all fell into small pieces, meaning it was more a pasta bake than a lasagna with whole sheets. But I poured out the pasta pieces in layers with the other components anyway, and the finished product looked and tasted lovely. I'm not a big meat eater, but I wanted to go by the recipies stated, which my family liked, but my mum and I think making the dish with our usual vege layers would be nice. The layering of the bechemel on every layer, and parmesan I thought made a difference in the taste, so I'd use the layering technique again. I'll also be making the pasta again, rolling by hand sadly, on an errand free weekend soon I hope. This time I'll try making ravioli, or just straight pieces of pasta and cooking them fresh just with a sauce on top. I know it will taste so fresh and lovely.

Thank you so much everyone for the challenge :)

- Monique

With Just a Little Spice...

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I made some modifications in this challenge. First of all, my husband cannot eat spinach so I used butternut squash instead. I pureed the squash and added about 6 ounces to the pasta in lieu of the spinach. The color was a rich golden color, probably slightly darker than if I had added nothing at all. Fortunately, I have my old Atlas pasta machine, so the pasta rolling process was much easier than if I had rolled it out.

I made a sauce from a combination of pork and beef, since I thought the pork flavor would go especially well with the butternut pasta. This is the recipe, modified to include the pork:

Dice one large onion, 2 large carrots and 3 celery ribs. Throw into a food processor along with 4 cloves of garlic. Puree into a coarse paste. Coat a large pan with oil and heat. Add the pureed veggies and season generously with salt. Cook until the liquid in the veggies has evaporated and they become nice and brown, stirring frequently.

Add about a pound and a half of ground beef and another pound or pound and a half of ground pork. Season again with lots of salt. Brown the meat (this took me about 15-20 minutes). Add 2 cups of tomato paste and brown again, about 5 minutes. Add 3 cups of a hearty red wine and cook until it has reduced by half.

Add water to the pan to cover the meat by about an inch. Toss in 3 bay leaves and a bundle of fresh thyme and stir to combine. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer. As the water evaporates, add more, 2-3 cups at a time. Don’t dump in several cups of water all at once. Reduce and then add more. Stir and taste frequently and add more salt as needed. Simmer for 3 ½ to 4 hours. At the end of this time, the sauce will be meaty and not too watery. This recipe makes a lot – I froze the leftovers. (This recipe is a modification of a recipe from Anne Burrell, who has a cooking show on The Food Network).

I made the béchamel from the challenge recipe and assembled the lasagne after the pasta had dried and cooked and cooled. It was a much more refined dish than the lasagne with which I am more familiar – the kind overloaded with ricotta and mozzarella. I think the meat sauce could have used a little more spice or heat. If I were to do it again, I’d add some red pepper flakes. Probably not traditional, but we are fans of spicy flavors!

- Bunnee

Daring Baker's Lasagna

I don’t know what went wrong?! I purchased very nice products for the various parts and I followed the instructions precisely. I spent hours on this lasagna! The night before I made the lasagna pasta and let it dry for an hour or so before packing it in for the night. I have made pasta before and have a terrific manual pasta “machine” – I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to try to roll it out by hand to the desired “thinness”. The next day I spent a lot of time laboriously adding items to the meat sauce and letting it cook and reduce for the maximum time. In the end it looked good but tasted bland and had a gluey texture. What a disappointment after all that work! I even thought that perhaps it might be better the next day for leftovers. My daughter bravely ate a helping for lunch, but I couldn’t stomach it. I ended up being a “lasagna tosser” which is quite unusual because I often end up eating leftovers that no one else will so as not “to waste perfectly good food”. In the future I think I’ll stick with my tried and true lasagna that I can throw together in under an hour and tastes delicious.

- Robin

Flourless in NJ

When I first saw a flourless chocolate cake I was watching the beautiful Curtis Stone on Take Home Chef. It looked delicious but I doubted that I could make it as well as he did. Well, I can! And I can't...I'll explain.

I had no problems with the recipe. Everything came together seamlessly (someone told me never to say that. Carol, are you reading this?). O.K. I take the cake out of the oven. No jigglyness in the middle, it's not burnt, it looks great. So I set it on the rack to cool. But did I wait long enough before I removed it from the pan? I'm ashamed to say "no".

I knew better. I was treating it like a normal cake and it was fine until I flipped it over and then it fell to pieces. I should be grateful that it happened on the counter and mostly on a plate instead of on the floor.

So what do I do with these pieces? I thought and thought and thought and then it hit me - Ice Cream Cake! I ran the idea by my *genius* cooking buddy, Jessie, and she loved it too. She even suggested that I get the little crunchies to go with it (it's on my shopping list). So I broke out the largest heart-shaped cookie cutter I own and this is what I got:

Then another idea: why not fill some heart ramekins with the same cake/ice cream formula and make single servings of ice cream cake? Done! The ice cream was a big hit (I used the second recipe) but I got mixed reactions from the cake. I think the chocolate may have been a little too intense - it was a little bitter, but I think the ice cream takes a away most of the bitterness and leaves you with a delicious dessert that looks special. The ice cream was so simple to make. I didn't use an ice cream machine, just a hand-held mixer. I whipped the ice cream every 20-30 minutes for about 3 hours and left it overnight.

This has been a great challenge. Thanks, Daring Bakers!

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

I Prefer to Think of This as an Ice Cream Challenge! :D

Here we are…another month down…and another challenge done. The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

It’s interesting to note that I have made a Danish braid, a French yule log, and some cheesecake pops. I have to admit that I was feeling pretty prideful as these recipes and challenges were not easy and yet I had succeeded. Apparently it was time to be knocked down … dragged through the mud….and then tossed over the edge of the cliff in order for me to come back down to earth. Of course my failure would have to be the recipe that has only 3 ingredients. Chocolate, butter and eggs….a.k.a. flourless chocolate cake. What could be easier or better? We were also allowed to make something to accompany the cake and of course I chose ice cream. Can you guess what flavor I made? The first five don’t count. If you guessed cinnamon ice cream…then you were right. I just can’t give it up….plus it gave my dessert a whole Mexican chocolate vibe. Nice huh? I made the ice cream first and it was amazing…maybe it was because I was up at midnight making it….I don’t know, but it was spot on! (I even went crazy and used some cinnamon vanilla coffee mate in the ice cream and it totally worked.) I decided to make the cake the next day when I would not be distracted by Mr. Sandman and his sleeping powder.


So the next morning I got up and melted my chocolate…


Then I beat my whites…….


Then I combined the two with the yolks and stuck it in the oven and set the timer.


When I took it out of the oven I had a cake that was cooked on the outside and totally not cooked on the inside. I’m talking liquid goop. It was horrible. I mean HORRIBLE. It only cooked enough at one edge to get a tiny heart cut out of it. The rest went into the trash. I was at least grateful I got the little bit out so that I could enjoy it. Then I tasted it. I think I’m the only person in the forum who hated it. It was terrible. I’m not sure what I did wrong. I had my oven calibrated recently so I can’t blame the oven. DANGIT! I can only say one more thing ~From this point forward I vow to respect all recipes no matter their content or their technique so as to gain it’s respect in return.

I LOVE Daring Bakers

- Amber

Mmmmmm Chocolate Goodness!

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad - Baker & Chef.

We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge

I truly enjoyed this challenge. I love anything chocolate! This was a pretty simple recipe and I was glad that my attempt at it was a success. I decided to make it for our family valentines dinner and I'm glad that I did not disappoint them.


I decided to use Valhrona semi-sweet chocolate and the cake's chocolate intensity was perfect. Texture was good too, dense but not too dense that you end up eating just a small bite because of it's richness. I also made a raspberry coulis to complement the chocolate and the vanilla ice cream.

This recipe is a keeper for me!

- aleli

The Chocolate Continuum, or, Smells Like Chocolate Spirit

Like hemlines and pop stars, chocolate has its trends. Back in the swingin’ Seventies, every fondue restaurant worth its shag carpeting served chocolate mousse for dessert. The glitzy Eighties brought us giant chocolate tortes adorned with chocolate curls, enough sugar to fuel a New Wave all-nighter. Suddenly, everyone wanted to commit suicide with chocolate as the weapon of choice. Death by chocolate desserts popped up in a desire to combine dessert and nihilism. In the Nineties, we wore flannels, discovered these strange little metal disks that held music and stopped putting flour in our chocolate cakes. The Aughts saw us scuffing around in Uggs and Juicy Sweats, gluing ourselves to the Internet and preferring our chocolate cake molten, i.e. underbaked. Where will chocolate go next? Only the gods of cocoa know for certain. But chocolate, whatever permutation it takes on the dessert menu, is forever.

The De Beers cartel would have us believe a diamond is forever, but I’d rather have chocolate. I’d look more favorably on Z. if he presented me with a box of See’s rather than some valueless rock pried from the ground to gleam uselessly on my finger. Have you ever had a See’s Candy Bordeaux crème? If you did, you’d know why a diamond is just carbon in comparison.

February means romance on demand, and that means chocolate. This month’s DB challenge had us all strap on our Timberland hiking boots, turn up the Pearl Jam and go back in time. Our Valentines would be gifted with flourless chocolate cake, plus we had to make some creamy accompaniment, preferably of the ice cream variety. To be frank, flourless chocolate cake never ranked high on my dessert dance hits. It can be dense and monodimensional. I like a little textural play in my desserts, and, often, FCC is just a wedge of gritty, unrelenting chocolate without much sense of humor. We all have relatives like that, and they usually corner us at family gatherings to grill us about tax preparation.


But, being a DBer means setting aside my biases for the greater baking good. So I made the FCC and found it easy and, shockingly, pretty damned tasty. I added a hit of cinnamon for a tip of the hat to chocolate’s pre-Columbian beginnings, and reduced the size of the recipe so it yielded one cute little cake, perfect for Z. and I. My accompaniment was orange and cream ice cream, its flavor reminiscent of an orange and cream popsicle, but with a much more sophisticated flavor profile.

I’m not a FCC convert, just as I don’t miss my sartorial and dating choices from the Nineties. But I can still look back on all of that with some nostalgia while eating the dessert of yesteryear with my now and forever sweetheart. I’m looking forward to see what the future brings.

I remain,
Your servant, &c.
Ami

The Valentino is a Winner!

This was like eating a truffle with a fork! The recipe for the Valentino was simple and easy to prepare. Loved the consistency and deep, deep chocolate flavor. The homemade ice cream was hard as a rock, so in the future, I'll let it thaw out a bit before serving.


Served Valentino and ice cream on white plates with powered cocoa sprinkled on the plates as an embelleshment.

This dessert was restaurant quality and worthy of my favorite house guests!

- Jan