Amateurs with Knives

Now that October is upon us, it’s time to start breaking out the fall flavors. We’re going to start with some apple loving… which is weird, since I generally don’t like apples. It all has to do with when I was a kid. I got really sick one year and the doctor prescribed this medication that tasted horrible. My parents used to put it in apple juice or mix it up in apple sauce to make me eat it. I have loathed most forms of apple ever since. The only two forms that I do love (no, I’m afraid I don’t like caramel apples as they get stuck in my teeth) are apple pies and my grandmother’s Jewish Apple Cake.

There’s no finesse to this one. It’s a Bundt cake (link goes to wikipedia for nerdy factual fun about the Bundt pan and its origins) and extremely simple. Fresh apples that have marinated in cinnamon and sugar are interspersed throughout. A little bit of orange juice gives it great flavor. Jewish Apple Cake is awesome for potlucks and best served warm with a side of vanilla ice cream. When the ice cream melts a little and the cake soaks it up, there’s nothing quite like it.

And before you ask, here’s the answer to the question I always get about this recipe: I have no idea what makes it Jewish. Grandma passed down the recipe to us, and that was the name. If anyone can figure out why it’s labeled as Jewish, post below!

Jewish Apple Cake Apples
5 - 6 tart, firm apples, peeled and sliced
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Fill a medium mixer bowl with peeled and sliced apples, sugar and cinnamon. Cover and let sit while working on the rest of the cake. Stir periodically.

Jewish Apple Cake Batter:
4 1/2 cups flour
3 cups sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup oil
4 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup orange juice
6 eggs

Mix all batter ingredients together, using a rubber scraper to make sure all of the dry ingredients are included. Grease and flour tube (Bundt) pan. Pour 2 inches of batter in. Cover with approximately 1/2 of the apples. Pour remaining batter into the tube pan, then top with the rest of the apples.

That’s it. Here’s the pictorial version:

Step 1. Apples!

Step 2. Pour mixed ingredients in!

Step 3. More apples!

Step 4. More batter!

Step 5. Even more apples!

After you’ve topped this with the remaining apples, there’s also a lot of sugar and cinnamon mixture that gets poured on top. My Bundt pan is a little small, so I put a foil-lined tray on the bottom rack, centered beneath the cake. The tray captures any drippings that may come out while the cake is rising - something to be wary of, since cooked sugar is a pain to scrub off of a surface.

Bake on 350-degrees F for 2 hours. Let sit for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from pan. Caution: If you let it sit any longer than 10 - 15 minutes, the cake will stick. Top with powdered sugar. Serve with vanilla ice cream! Jeni Briton’s Vanilla Bean Ice Cream would be a great choice.

Here’s the finished product. The nice thing about topping it with powdered sugar is that if some of your cake does happen to stick and you need to sort of put a chunk back on top, the sugar can sort of hide it. Not that any of us would ever do that, especially me, an experienced Jewish Apple Cake Baker.

Bon appetit!

As was promised here,  I now have Chef Tory’s permission to post recipes on the world wide intarweb!  His actual quote was “if somebody wants to take my job, they can be my guest!”  So here now is his recipe for Buttermilk Ice Cream, but first . . . a dissertation!

I have been a fan of the food at L’etoile for many years now.  In fact on a dish-by-dish basis, I would put the food there up against the French Laundry which was the premier dining experience of my life.  There is good food, and great food.  And then there is that other thing.  If you are a foodie you know what I’m talking about.  The foodgasm.  That swooning moment when you put it in your mouth and you melt a little bit, and you swoon.  And you curse the fact that you only have one tounge.  And your brain shuts down completely and you just swear over and over again until you can remember all the other words in the english language that this tiny little package of bliss had obliterated from your memory.  So I find out that there are cooking classes available, yeah I guess I might be interested in that.

I have since taken 5 or 6 classes, on subjects ranging from summer seafood to french classics.  They have all been varying degrees of awesome.  But my concern was, could these recipes be duplicated at home?  By that I don’t mean could a home cook acquire the ingredients and tools necessary to complete these dishes. I mean could I make something as good as Chef Tory?  Could I cook something foodgasmic??  The short answer is yes.  I have a small and slowly increasing stable of recipes that are that good.  But I have stated in the past that cooking is as easy as following directions.  Why then don’t all of these recipes turn out as good as Chef Tory makes them? 

Well as much as I hate disagreeing with myself, I am in fact wrong.  Or I was, but I’m not now.  Wrong that is.  Or I mean wrong that was.  I do still contend that you can get to journeyman-level cooking just by following instructions, buying good ingredients and not screwing them up.  But there is another level that great chefs are at, that I can obtain only infrequently and often by accident.  I think the difference is those chefs have an ingrained knowledge of what is actually happening when they are cooking that I lack.  I am not damning myself with faint praise, I fully admit that I am pretty damn good.  I have the basic chops, and more importantly a passion for cooking.  I’m down with the maillard reaction, I know why dijon mustard is in so many emulsified dressings.  I watch Good Eats.  But there are still machinations happening that are a mystery to me.  I can’t tell you why one of my dishes failed, or partially failed, but a real chef can.

That brings me to why I blog under the name Citizen Chef, or why I blog at all.  I know, you were hoping that would bring me to the recipe.  HAH!  One more paragraph to sit through, assuming you haven’t zipped to the bottom of the article three paragraphs ago. 

When Miss Macchiato approached me to start a food blog, I was reticent.  I consider myself a good writer.  Ok a very good writer.  And a good cook.  But there are much better writers out there, who are also real chefs.  Bourdain,  Ruhlman, Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot.  And on the amateur front, French Laundry at Home.  Why add to this cacophony with my lesser opinions?  Then I realized the true value of the foodie movement.  Each one of us who cares about food raises the bar just a little bit.  We all elevate the conversation simply by having the conversation.  Eating is the ultimate shared expierience.  It is the only thing that each and every one of us is doing, and will continue to do until the day we die.  All other artistic endevors are optional.  Eating is mandatory.  Eating well should be mandatory.  Citizen Chef symbolizes to me, the theory that we are all of value.  

Buttermilk Ice Cream

• 2 cups cream
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup sugar
• 10 egg yolks

  Heat cream, half and half, buttermilk and sugar to a simmer.  Temper in the egg yolks.  Chill mixture and freeze.

This is a very simple recipe that has been just as good as Chef Tory makes it every time.  I do put it in an ice cream maker to keep the crystals small, but that is optional.  Mix some blueberries with lemon juice and honey and let them maccerate for a while and put them on top of the ice cream and it is out of this world.  I would suggest eating the ice cream the day you make it or the day after.  Any longer than that and it loses some of its’ buttermilk twang.

~Citizen Chef

I love kabobs! They’re a happy outdoor food-on-a-stick. They’re also fast and easy. In honor of BBQ month, I wanted to share the first kabob I ever made, and have been sharing ever since. This is my go-to kabob for fun, informal gatherings.

I recently brought these to a cookout. The way grilling in my house goes is this: I make the food, the AwK web admin grills it. So I make up a bunch of these kabobs - two boneless, skinless chicken breasts go a LONG way on these kabobs - and we bring them out to the event. We threw a few on our Baby Weber and, when they came off the grill, they were gone in seconds. After that, there was a rabid cluster of people standing around the grill (and our illustrious web admin) wanting kabobs. Toward the end of the afternoon, people were putting dibs on certain ones and, not helping my “let’s have a baby” argument, there was a cluster of four or five children around our web admin during the entire afternoon, constantly asking, “Are they done yet? Are they done yet?” Funnily enough, the next time we brought kabobs, the children already knew to be patient, while the adults were pestering about the food. At least I have that going for me! Nice work, kids!

When I saw this on Recipezaar for the first time, I definitely liked the ingredients, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. Despite my complaints about how much time a marinade will take up when you’re trying to get a quick meal out, this one has a delicious marinade that only takes one hour. That’s it. Not a full day or overnight. Just one hour. I was sold.

Hawaiian Kabobs

marinade
1 (15 1/4 ounce) can unsweetened pineapple chunks
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

kabobs
1 1/2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 large green pepper, 1 inch pieces
12 medium mushrooms
18 cherry tomatoes
Whatever else you like to put on your kabobs, if anything

Ok, so this is pretty simple. Drain your pineapple, and keep 1/2 cup of juice. Set the pineapple aside. Mix the juice with all of the ingredients listed in the marinade. Turn the burner on medium and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Place your chicken in a shallow dish - try to keep it to one layer. Pour the marinade over the chicken. Cover and chill for 1 hour.

Remove the chicken from the marinade. Reserve marinade - don’t throw it away. You’re going to use it to baste the kabobs. On skewers, alternate chicken with pineapple and the veggies you’ve picked out to accompany it. I personally like the look of the tomatoes, pineapples and green pepper together, because they’re so colorful. Grill kabobs over hot coals until done, about 20 minutes. Turn and baste frequently with marinade.

A quick word about skewers. Don’t use metal skewers - the metal heats up and will burn your mouth. Don’t use those. Instead, use wooden skewers. If you are serving these kabobs to children, be careful because those skewers are very sharp. I’ve drawn blood a couple of times with those things, so just keep it in mind.

Until then, grill away!

When I’m putting together a BBQ, it’s pretty common to add a side of vegetables to balance out the meat. The most common veggie side that I’ve seen for a BBQ is corn on the cob, since you can simply pick it up. But what about other options? If it weren’t for the fact that it was outdoors, most of us would go with lettuce-based salads. Having to spear the lettuce with a plastic fork seems unwieldy to me, so I tend to avoid it.

Recently I came across a simple and delicious celery salad in a Tastes of Italia magazine. The reason I liked it so much is that it was easy to eat (scoop it up with a utensil and pop it in your mouth) and because of the lightness. The red wine vinegar gives it a little tartness that will spruce up any meal. The best part of all is the toasted walnuts and cheese together - when you take a bite, the texture is like biting into a caramel. The flavors are just so amazing together. You don’t have to use cubed Parmesan; if you prefer other cheeses, then by all means use those instead. Because there are not many ingredients in here, I would not omit, only substitute.

Photo courtesy of Tastes of Italia Magazine

Celery Salad with Walnuts
1 cup walnuts, toasted
6 celery stalks, cut into 1/8 inch slices (crescents)
2 ounces fresh Parmesan, cut into bite sized pieces
16 black olives, pitted
5 tablespoons olive oil
3 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

To toast the walnuts, you can either place them in a skillet over medium-high heat and toast until lightly colored or in your toaster oven. I generally go with the toaster oven because it’s cleaner. Place a piece of foil on the toaster oven tray and spread your walnuts out so there is only one layer. Turn the toaster on to cook and the lowest temperature it can go (mine is 200-degrees F). Don’t turn it up any higher - the nuts are so close to the coils that they will burn if you do. After a couple of minutes you will start to smell the toasted nuts and they will start to color a bit. They will be done. To clean up, all you have to do is throw away the foil and put the oven away.

In a large bowl, combine walnuts, celery, cheese and black olives. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, vinegar and oregano. Toss with salad, taste for salt and pepper and serve. Makes 4 servings.

Here’s the finished result when I served it.

So taking as my inspiration Miss Macchiato’s post for the granita and the bag of limes I got from our CSA fruit box that I didn’t know what to do with, I decided to make a lime granita.  Look here for the original write-up, but I substituted lime juice for the strawberry puree, and lime zest for the lemon zest, because again that’s what I had.

The result was very light and refreshing and sour as all get out because the limes turned out to be from the Florida Keys part of Wisconsin.  MAN those things had a punch to them.  It would have been great with some tequila on top, too.

Here is my 9 year old daughter with the finished product:

What will the next granita creation be?  Mixed berries thrown in a juicer?  Iced tea granita?  Sorrel?  HAM??!???

~Citizen Chef

No BBQ is complete without a really great dessert. Search your feelings, Luke. You know it to be true.

The problem with producing the perfect BBQ dessert is that, 9 times out of 10, preparing the rest of the BBQ takes so long that the dessert ends up being an afterthought: store bought ice cream, store bought popcicles tasting faintly of sugar water and, the worst offender of them all, brownies made from a box. Why do that to yourself? After going the extra mile for some amazing grilling and accompaniments, the lasting impression of your BBQ shouldn’t be store bought anything.

Your dessert problems are solved, people: I have discovered BBQ dessert awesomeness.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a magazine called “Tastes of Italia”. The cover had a picture of a raspberry granita on the front. The name is something I only remembered from college and associated with a cheap alcohol drink at a bad party. (Note to college party goers: Regardless of how many ditsy drunk girls tell you it tastes good, it doesn’t.) Although the dessert does not call for alcohol, nor does it contain any of the things I remembered in the drink, I passed the recipe by.

The next time I flipped through the magazine, I stopped at the article and looked at it again, then reluctantly decided against it. I’m not sure how many times I flipped through the magazine and followed the same pattern, reluctantly looking at the recipe, but at one point I decided to just go ahead and give it a shot.

It’s easy, involves the decadence of fresh fruit, and is cold - the perfect way to wrap up a BBQ. Aside from the impressiveness of having a fresh fruit dessert at your table, it’s perfect for those who aren’t as gifted at baking. How I handled the dessert portion is that I prepared the granita right before worrying about the rest of the BBQ food, then threw it into the freezer to chill. The dessert prep takes 15 - 20 minutes total, and that includes clean up.

The recipe can be made with many different fruits - raspberries, blueberries, etc. If you use raspberries, my recommendation would be to strain out the seeds after pureeing. For watermelon, omit the lemon zest. The original recipe called for raspberries, but strawberries happen to be cheaper right now so I grabbed those instead.

Strawberry Granita
2 cups pureed strawberries
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 rounded tablespoon of lemon zest

Wash your berries, cut the tops off (for strawberries), and toss those beautiful babies into your blender.

Put the puree in a large pot along with the water, sugar and lemon zest. Turn your burner onto medium-low and cook long enough so that the sugar crystals dissolve. Remember to use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides, so you don’t miss sugar crystals that need to be mixed in. The cooking process only took a few minutes for me - the mixture was a nice lukewarm temperature when it was ready.

Pour the mixture into a glass baking dish and set it in your freezer. Let it chill for a couple of hours. The recipe says two hours, but mine took about three.

When it is frozen, it will be a soft-frozen, much like a sorbet. Take a fork and run it through the granita, breaking it up. It will look grainy.

Serve cold. I thought it tasted a lot like a fresh and frozen Strawberry Julius, but the AwK admin thought it tasted like pure win.

Want to spruce it up a bit upon serving? The “glasses” you see in the photo are actually plastic. I picked them up for a couple of dollars each in my local grocery store’s picnic section: They are kid-tested, dishwasher safe, and AwK approved.

Happy BBQ’ing.

The epicurious website has a listing of their favorite lasagnas. We’ve already been through the Turkey Sausage Spinach Lasagna with Spicy Tomato Sauce, and have declared it amazing. But what about a vegetarian option? I am a huge fan of butternut squash and pasta, especially after having it served to me in a homemade ravioli version. So when I saw the listing for the “Butternut Squash and Hazelnut Lasagna“, I had to try it.

The recipe is fairly straightforward, but there are some things that get a little confusing while making it. Also, keep in mind this is a good lasagna so it will take a little bit of time to put together.

For squash filling
1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4 teaspoons chopped fresh sage
1 cup hazelnuts (4 oz), toasted, loose skins rubbed off with a kitchen towel, and coarsely chopped

For sauce
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups milk
1 bay leaf (not California)
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper

For assembling lasagne
1/2 lb fresh mozzarella, coarsely grated (2 cups)
1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (3 oz)
12 (7- by 3 1/2-inch) sheets no-boil lasagne (1/2 lb )

I was surprised at the comments section where so many people complained that they enjoy spending time in the kitchen but this recipe was too much. It didn’t feel that way to me at all. Looking back, I think I spent maybe 45 minutes? Maybe 60? I really don’t know - there was a lot to do, but not to the point of being overwhelming. Everything that I had going on was a really fun process so I lost track of the time. Whatever it was, I am sure it wasn’t the 90 minutes that’s estimated on the epicurious website.

What people complained about taking the most time was the squash. Step one: Peel, seed, and cut your squash into 1/2-inch squares. I pulled a Rachel Ray and bought some pre-peeled, cleaned and cut squash at the store, and it saved me all the time and mess that commenters were complaining about. If you can go with this option, totally do it. The pre-packaged stuff is still too big, so take a few minutes and cut them down to 1/2-inch pieces.

A note about the toasted hazelnuts. I went to the store and found blanched hazelnuts in the bulk food section. When I got them home, I put a layer of foil on my toaster tray, and toasted them for a few minutes on 250-degrees F. After that, I was able to take a damp paper towel and easily get the rest of the skins off. To chop them, I gave them a few rounds in my food processor. Half of the mixture did get ground up finely, but that was fine for me because I think the crunchiness of the nuts threw me off. The taste in the dish was still there, and next time I will probably make the nuts a little finer. If you like the crunch of the nuts, then be careful.

Make filling:
Cook onion in butter in a deep 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 10 minutes. Add squash, garlic, salt, and white pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until squash is just tender, about 15 minutes. Don’t cook this thinking your squash will become mush. It will still be a little hard on the inside - remember, this is going to be baking in a cream sauce for about 45 minutes, and will get soft during the baking process, so don’t cook the crap out of it on the stove. Remove from heat and stir in parsley, sage, and nuts. Cool filling.

Make sauce while squash cooks:
Cook garlic in butter in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring, 1 minute. Whisk in flour and cook roux, whisking, 3 minutes. Add milk in a stream, whisking. Add bay leaf and bring to a boil, whisking constantly, then reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, 10 minutes. Whisk in salt and white pepper and remove from heat. Discard bay leaf. (Cover surface of sauce with wax paper if not using immediately.)

This step confused me, because for some reason I thought this was going to get really really thick. Mine didn’t, and that could be because I made a goof. After I made the roux, I didn’t let it cook for 3 minutes. Instead, I combined the roux, then started pouring my milk in right away. I turned the burner back up to medium and whisked constantly, but the sauce never thickened the way I thought it would. Taste and consistency-wise, after the dish came out of the oven, the sauce didn’t affect anything as the lasagna came out fine.

Assemble lasagne:
Preheat oven to 425°F.

Toss cheeses together. Spread 1/2 cup sauce in a buttered 13×9x2-inch glass baking dish (or other shallow 3-quart baking dish) and cover with 3 pasta sheets, leaving spaces between sheets. Spread with 2/3 cup sauce and one third of filling, then sprinkle with a heaping 1/2 cup cheese. Repeat layering 2 more times, beginning with pasta sheets and ending with cheese. Top with remaining 3 pasta sheets, remaining sauce, and remaining cheese.

Tightly cover baking dish with buttered foil and bake lasagne in middle of oven 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake until golden and bubbling, 10 to 15 minutes more. Let lasagne stand 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

After I removed the foil, I was a little worried because there was still a ton of liquid in the lasagna, but it ended up all right. After cooking it with the foil off, the consistency of the dish was what it needed to be. I served this with some bread and butter. Our site admin thought this was better than regular lasagna, and he hates everything.

Photo courtesy Taste of Home

I found this recipe out of necessity. One year I went to a strawberry patch and picked a bunch of strawberries. They were very ripe, and I needed to figure out a way to use them all before they went bad. Previously, I had never been a big fan of trifles, because they’re usually some heavy, syrupy goo, but this recipe popped out at me from a Taste of Home magazine because of the lightness and because it beautifully highlights fresh fruit. I went with it.

Because I was going to take this to an outdoor picnic/BBQ, I used a clear, plastic ice bucket with a lid and handle for easy transportation. The lid was a nice touch to keep it fresh (and to keep bugs from getting into it). Even though I am a baking snob, this recipe has found its way into my top 10 desserts for big, social gatherings - it always gets eaten, and I always get requests for the recipe. If you do a lot of potlucks, this trifle is a gorgeously delicious presentation, tastes wonderful, and is much quicker and cheaper than whipping up a cheesecake. For your next social gathering, go with this.

Raspberry Cream Trifle
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup cold water
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
2 cups heavy whipping cream, whipped
1 angel food cake (7 inches), cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam
2 cups fresh raspberries or strawberries (For a 4th of July BBQ, I did strawberries, raspberries and blueberries for red, white & blue - yeah, that’s corny for me, too, but it looked awesome!)

Ok, this isn’t hard. There’s no baking required, no heat required - this is a light, cool, and refreshing dessert. There is a bit of mixing, but no baking.

I know what you’re thinking — No baking? You? Using a premade angel food cake? Are you possessed by Sandra Lee?

Nope. The trifle was originally a way of using up old, leftover stale cake. So in keeping with the history of the trifle, I actually don’t mind heading to the store and picking up a premade angel food cake. Head over to What’s Cooking America, for more historical trifle nerdery.

Now, back to the trifle. In a bowl, mix up the water, milk and extract until blended. I use a hand-held mixer, and just swish this up for a minute. It doesn’t take long. Add the pudding mix and mix for about 2 minutes. Let it stand for 2 minutes, or until soft set.

Put the pudding mixture in the fridge and grab another bowl.

The heavy whipping cream must now be whipped. Pour it into a large bowl - keep in mind that this is going to end up 3 or 4 times its original size, so plan accordingly. Because we’re whipping up a liquid, I usually will empty and clean out my sink, and put the bowl in it. Otherwise, you’re probably going to splatter whipping cream all over.

Let the beater do its work until the cream is whipped - and the way to absolutely know if it’s done whipping is by picking up the bowl and turning it upside down. If the cream dumps out, it wasn’t done. If it sticks and remains firm, it’s done.

It should look like this:

Now grab your pudding out of the fridge. Take the whipped cream and gently fold it into the pudding. Do not use a mixer - with a wooden spoon or spatula, manually fold it until the mixture is combined. Should take a minute or so, and it will end up as a gorgeous pudding goodness.

Resist the urge to stick your face in it and inhale like a vacuum cleaner and move onto the next step.

Cut up the cake cubes into small one-inch squares and place half into the serving bowl. This is where the layering process begins. In this picture you can get a better idea of the plastic ice bucket I use to tote my dessert around.

Half of the cream mixture goes on top of the cake cubes.

Now for the tricky part. You will want to spread a thin layer of seedless jam on top of the cream mixture. The jam should correspond with the berries you’ve got. If you’re using strawberries, use strawberry jam. For raspberries, use a raspberry jam. You get the idea. If you would like, you can skip this part, but I have skipped it before and it tasted like it was missing a little something. My advice is to keep the jam. I use a sugar free jam, because it’s sweet and flavorful, and not going to give you a sugar-shock like bottle of Smuckers will. Use your best judgment.

It looks a bit goofy, but no one will see it as the berries are going right on top of it. So if you mess this part up, don’t worry - just keep going!

After the berries go on top, repeat the layering process: The second half of cake cubes, the rest of the pudding mixture, jam and berries.

Here it is; the finished product:

We did have to eat a couple of berries to get the lid on. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.

The next time you have to take a dessert to an informal, outdoor gathering on a sunny day, this is my pick as a winner.

One of the biggest myths about making a lasagna is that it’s too hard. That idea is false.

When I first started receiving Bon Appetit, it was nearly ten years ago. Back then, the only type of food I knew I liked cooking was pasta - especially lasagna. Needless to say, most of my Bon Appetit magazines went untouched. When the March 1999 magazine arrived on my doorstep with an amazing looking lasagna in it, I ran to the grocery store to buy the ingredients and try it out. To be honest, I had never even heard of turkey sausage, and didn’t know if it was even available - that’s how much of a cooking novice I was. The next few hours were spent in an amazing cooking adventure, as I had never made a meal so involved before. Desserts, yes. Actual food, no.

I hate to say it, but alas: A good lasagna is a labor of love. That’s why this post doesn’t have the “Weeknight Cooking” tag anywhere near it. Sure, you can throw together any lasagna recipe you see (I’ve even made a few) but to make something spectacular, it takes time and usually a little more money than you normally spend on ingredients. The sauce, having nothing to do with crap in a jar, takes time to simmer before it gets anywhere near ricotta and noodles.

Recently, I pulled this recipe out again. Because it takes a while to cook, I made it on a Friday night and, by the time it was done, my spouse was ready to throw one of our cats on the George Foreman with some bbq sauce and eat it. This is one of my most favorite meat lasagnas and anyone can make it, as long as you have the time.

Spicy Tomato Sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
3/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
2 28-ounce cans Italian-style tomatoes
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes with added purée
1/2 cup dry red wine

When I’m going all out on a recipe like this, I don’t skimp. I want it to taste as amazing as possible, and that means good ingredients — and no jarred garlic.

Just looking at that makes me hungry!

Heat up your oil and toss in your onion, garlic, oregano, basil, marjoram and crushed red pepper.

Let that cook for about ten minutes, then add everything else. Simmer gently and stir occasionally, breaking up the tomatoes.

When the sauce reduces down to about eight cups (after about an hour and a half of simmering), it’s done. You can season with salt and pepper if you want, but I leave it plain as the sausage that is added to it is more than enough salt for me. This sauce can be made a couple of days ahead if you want, or you can let it cool and start turning it into a lasagna.

Turkey Sausage Spinach Lasagna
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/4 pounds hot Italian turkey sausages, casings removed
Spicy Tomato Sauce
1 15-ounce container ricotta cheese
1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeezed dry
1 3/4 cups grated Parmesan cheese (not that green-canned garbage!)
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
9 uncooked lasagna noodles
3 cups shredded provolone cheese (about 12 ounces)

Remove sausages from their casings and brown them in a frying pan, about 7 minutes. Add Spicy Tomato Sauce (or, add your sausages to the sauce). Simmer for about five minutes to let the sausage flavor permeate the sauce. The hardest part of the lasagna is now done.

Wasn’t even that tough!

Now, place your the rack in the center, and preheat the oven to 375°F.

While the oven is warming up, let’s get the other components together. Whisk ricotta, spinach, only 1 cup of the Parmesan, eggs, cream, basil, oregano and pepper together.

…becomes…

Set it aside.

Spread one cup of the tomato sauce in the bottom of a 13×9x2-inch glass dish. Recipes will usually say “spoon” but I just take a one-cup measuring cup and dump it in there, then spread it around. It’s just easier.

Lay three lasagna noodles on top. I use a kind that doesn’t have to be pre-cooked - there’s so much liquid in the lasagna that the noodles will cook perfectly during the baking process.

Spread another cup of sauce over the noodles.

Now for the part that is a little messy. The first time anyone does this, it’s bound to feel a little awkward: Take one cup of the ricotta-spinach mixture and spread it on top of the noodles and sauce. I will take a utensil (spoon, fork, spatula, knife, whatever works) and spread it around as gently as possible. Keep in mind that the entire glass dish will fill up with liquid, and the contents of the lasagna will move around during the baking process, so don’t worry about being too exact. Just gently spread it around without breaking up your noodles. (And even if you do break your noodles, no one is going to know - it all tastes the same going down.)

After the ricotta is spread, sprinkle 1/4 cup of Parmesan and 1 cup of shredded provolone on top.

It’s coming together! Repeat the process: One cup of sauce. Three noodles. One cup of ricotta. 1/4-cup of Parmesan and one cup of Provolone.

For the last layer, the Bon Appetit recipe has you go slightly out of sequence: lay the last three noodles on top, pour one cup of sauce on there, and sprinkle the last bit of the cheeses. Then, dollop the remainder of the ricotta on top into six little rounds. Pour the rest of the sauce around the dollops. It looks like this, only less blurry:

You can definitely do this if you’d like, or, you can repeat the last layer normally and get the ricotta mixture integrated between sauce and cheese. Personally, I prefer to not do this dolloping thing on top, because when I eat it, I get a huge mouthful of the ricotta mixture, and for some reason I just find it unpleasant. But it’s a personal thing, and you can do it any way you want. When it comes to layering, there really is no right or wrong. It’s what you like to do.

The end result is a delicious and spicy lasagna with bold, layered flavors. It isn’t as scary to make as you may have thought in the beginning, just a little time consuming. My suggestion would be to make the sauce one night, then the lasagna the next night.

Serve with remaining wine, some bread and a little salad. Enjoy!

I am not, and will probably never be, a “hey let’s see what we have in the fridge and throw something together” kind of cook. I recognize and appreciate the talent that takes, but I just don’t have it. I cook almost exclusively from recipes. So whenever my cooking receives accolades “It was my honor to cook for you your majesty” or “I’m glad you enjoyed the risotto Ms. Alba, but I am a happily married man, please put your clothes back on” I usually say something like “hey i just picked a good recipe and didn’t screw it up.” So, how do you pick a good recipe? You cook it in your head.

Professional chefs do this all the time, in fact Chef Thomas Keller’s damn near signature dish “Oysters and Pearls” he’s never tasted. Which is too bad, because it’s awesome and he could probably get a reservation pretty easy. Now there are going to be plenty of recipes with unfamiliar ingredients or techniques, or even familiar-looking ones that surprise you with the synergistic alchemy that is great cooking. Yeah I really wanted to shoehorn “synergistic alchemy” in here somewhere, sorry. But the first step to picking a good recipe, is figuring out what you want to eat.

The example we will be using for this series is chili. I made a New Year’s resolution a few years back, to go on a year-long search for the “Citizen Chef family chili recipe”, to cook one recipe a month to find the best of the best, that would be passed down to future generations of Citizen Chefs. I never really found one I liked, but I never really stopped looking either. So let’s figure out what we’re looking for here. I’m looking for a chili with some heat to it, but a nice smoky heat with some flavor to back it up. I’m a big sausage fan, but I find that it can overwhelm a chili with grease, so we’ll stick to mostly beef meat-wise. Beans or no beans? Well I want a nice thick chili, and CASI would say that a chili with beans isn’t really a chili at all. But I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now I live in Wisconsin, so I can’t say I would be offended if my bowl o’ red had beans in it.

Throwing our net out into the wide intarweb, we have this as a first contestant:

Winter Chili Recipe

• 1 finely chopped onion
• 3 finely chopped garlic cloves
• 2 piece of bacon cut crosswise into pieces
• 2 tablespoons of chili powder
• 2 cans of cannelloni, pinto or red kidney beans
• 1 ½ teaspoons of dried crushed oregano
• 1 ½ teaspoons of paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper
• 3 cups of water
• Coarse salt
• 3/4 cup of Monterey Jack Cheese or cheddar (shredded)
• 2 tablespoons of fine cornmeal
• 1 ½ cups of chopped winter squash or zucchini
• 1 ½ cups of frozen or fresh kernel corn (whole)

Ok, we have bacon, that’s a good start. But there’s no other meat? Not a good sign. Beans, ok I can be talked into beans. 3 cups of water? I am suspicious of any recipe that calls for this much liquid and chooses water, when there are so many other options that provide flavor. Zucchini? Frozen corn?? I don’t have to actually cook this to see it’s not what I’m looking for. NEXT!!

Chili 1 (ooh catchy name!)

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pound ground beef
• 3/4 pound beef sirloin, cubed
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle dark beer
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee
• 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
• 1 (14 ounce) can beef broth
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 (15 ounce) cans kidney beans
• 4 fresh hot chile peppers, seeded and chopped

Ok this is better, we have cubed sirloin, and ground beef. We got beer. We got coffee. Winter chili recipe, are you seeing this? Peeled and diced tomatoes, hmm. Tomato paste is good, but relying on diced tomatoes in my opinion doesn’t lead to a cohesive sauce. Cocoa powder. Ooh yes how mole of you, eponymous chili recipe! Fresh hot chile peppers. Ok there’s only like a million kinds of chile pepper, and if you don’t care enough to specify, then we’re gonna take a pass on this one too.

Ding Dong Eight-Alarm Chili

• 2 oz dried ancho chiles (4 large), stemmed and seeded
• 6 large garlic cloves, 3 of them finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder (not pure chile)
• 4 lb well-marbled beef brisket or boneless chuck, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2- to 2-inch pieces
• 3 to 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 (28- to 32-oz) can whole tomatoes in juice
• 1/4 cup canned chipotle chiles in adobo
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 1/2 lb white onions, chopped (4 cups)
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano (preferably Mexican), crumbled
• 1 to 4 fresh serrano or other small green chiles, finely chopped, including seeds (1 is fine for most tastes; 4 is the eight-alarm version)
• 1 (12-oz) bottle beer (not dark)
• 2 cups water
• 2 1/2 cups cooked pinto beans (optional; 30 oz), rinsed if canned

Beef brisket in cubes, good start. Also a huge plus for this recipe is that the beef is seasoned with cumin and chili powder before browning, a step too often missed in chilis. Whole tomatoes, but also in the directions (omitted here for space, but we’ll get to them soon) they are pureed with some of the chiles, the cilantro and garlic. See that’s the kind of flavor fusion from the get-go that we’re looking for. We got beer. We got some water but not too much, and not just water. And we got chiles. Oh we gots us some chilis. We got anchos, chipotles and serranos. That is going to give us the depth of flavor behind the heat that we need. Beans optional, and enough onions to probably not need the beans. Also, the beef gets shredded. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

Next time, hold on to your hats… Citizen Chef actually cooks something.

~Citizen Chef