Baked Layered Ricotta with Feta & Roasted Vegetables

I know. I USUALLY do Meaty Mondays. This isn't a Meaty Monday because I have a vegetarian housemate. SO shoot me. You COULD always add crumbled bacon or ham or other smoked meat to the vegetable layer. It's already delicious as it is.  I have trouble stopping at one serving, and you probably will too. Actually is good at room temp for lunch, and reheats in a snap in the microwave. It's also grain free and gluten free.

In my house, this is a vehicle for leftovers. I had made a big batch of ricotta last week, and after we had lasagna from it, there was still a great deal of ricotta leftover. Plus, whenever I have too many vegetables lingering in the crisper, I just roast them so they can be added to omelets, or grain salads so they don't get all sad looking and end up in the compost bin. I roasted a baking sheet full of mushrooms, zucchini, red onions, garlic cloves, grape tomatoes and bell pepper, just doused them in evoo, salted and peppered and roasted them for about 35 minutes at 425ºF. Gives me about 2 cups of cooked vegetables. Two cups of pretty much any cooked vegetable works here.

Baked Layered Ricotta with Feta & Roasted Vegetables

Baked Layered Ricotta with Feta & Roasted Vegetables

Note: Please select organic / home or locally grown products for your table... and this can be made without eggs. Drain your ricotta for an hour or so in a fine mesh colander and don't expect the baked product to hold together .

2 lb. whole milk ricotta
2 large eggs
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1T dried oregano
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 cups roasted or cooked vegetables
Grape tomatoes or roasted red pepper for garnish (olives would work, too)
Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle or spray

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Oil an oven-to-table 9" square baking dish. In a medium bowl, mix the ricotta, the eggs, the feta, and the herbs and spices through the black pepper. Mix well. Spread half the ricotta mixture evenly over the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Layer the cooked vegetables over the ricotta mixture. Top with the remaining ricotta mixture. This is easiest to do if you put little dollops all over the top, and then gently  even it out. Decorate the top with halved grape tomatoes, cut side up, or bits of roasted pepper. Drizzle or spray the whole top with a light coating of oil (Love my EVO oil sprayer for this) and place in the oven. Bake about 35 minutes until the top is browned and the cheese is puffy. Serve warm or at room temp. Serves 6. Maybe. It should, but not likely.

Meaty Monday: Quick Pork Chops with Cabbage, Apples & Hard Cider

Is there anything as comforting sounding as the words "We're having pork chops for dinner"? I don't think so.  If there are pork chops on the menu, I actually look forward to dinner all day. Weird but true.  Cheered me right up at work today knowing there were going to be nice, juicy chops tonight. A Meatless Monday night dinner would NEVER have that effect on me unless it was mac and cheese. And meatloaf. But I digress.

This combination is wonderful--it isn't exactly sweet, but it has the perfect rich pork and crisp apple fall flavor. Obviously, its good washed down with more hard cider. Or a fruity white wine. Or in my case, diet Coke. Let's not go there, either.

This'll take about 45 minutes from fridge to plate and that'll leave you enough time to make a side dish, have a glass of wine and look at your email while the chops simmer. You'll need either a shallow braiser, or a deepish frying pan that has a cover. Feel free to substitute 12 oz. of apple juice for the hard cider if you don't have any on hand.

Some green beans or carrots, and either some nice bread, rice or noodles will round out this recipe quite well.

Quick Pork Chops with Cabbage, Apples & Hard Cider

Quick Pork Chops with Cabbage, Apples & Hard Cider

Serves 4

4 center-cut boneless pork chops, 1" thick (about 6 oz. each, 1.5 lb. total)
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive or coconut oil
1 large sweet onion,  cut in crescents
1 apple, shredded on a large hole grated
1 lb. package of cole slaw mix (shredded cabbage and carrot)
1 scant cup apple juice (a juice box is perfect)
1 bottle of hard cider (12 oz.)
2T Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning


1. Salt and pepper the chops on both sides. Heat the oil heat in the frying pan over medium high until it shimmers. Add the chops and brown on one side for about 5 minutes until well browned.  Turn and brown the second side for about 3 - 4 minutes. Remove the chops from the pan to a plate and set aside.

2. Add the onion, the shredded apple and the cabbage mix to the pan and toss well. Season with salt and let wilt for a minute or two. Add the apple juice, the hard cider and the Dijon mustard, stir well and bring to a simmer, loosening any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

3. Stir in the thyme and the poultry seasoning, and then return the pork chops and any accumulated juices to the pan. Bring to a simmer, cover and let cook about 35 minutes until the chops are cooked through and tender. Taste for seasoning and add salt and / or pepper as needed. Enjoy!

Meaty Monday: Grilled Chicken Paillards with Corn, Green Beans & Basil Drizzle

Certain foods, I think, are etched into our national psyche as symbols of things near and dear to our heart. If you are eating cotton candy, chances are there's a Ferris wheel not far away,  and if you're munching a corn dog on a stick, there is probably a heifer wearing a blue ribbon in her halter within spitting distance. Corn, tomatoes, basil and green beans scream "Summer!" to me in a not so subtle way. If there is ever a time of year when these foods have reached their pinnacle of perfection, it is now.

Chuck likes grilled chicken. Actually he loves grilled chicken. Really loves grilled chicken. Really thin grilled chicken. If I was willing to serve it at least once a week on a regular day (have I told you about our Tuesday burger night....?), he'd be thrilled. Me, I like change. Especially different dinners.

Since I do like to make dinners that will make us both happy, I came up with this combo that even I could eat once a week...at least during the Summer. The chicken is a simple as can be, "paillards" is just a way to describe very thin pounded slices of meat -- and the drizzle is somewhere between a pesto and a vinaigrette. This can become one of your favorite do-ahead meals. Add the two, to the corn, fresh beans and tomato, and the whole thing just sings. If you need a vegan or vegetarian (or if you are doing a Meatless Monday side dish), just replace the butter in the corn dish with evoo.

Yes, it's every bit as good as it looks. Yes, I did lick the plate.

Grilled Chicken Paillards with Corn, Green Beans & Basil Drizzle
Serves 4

For the chicken:

1/4 cup low sodium gluten free tamari soy sauce
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 garlic cloves, crushed (jarred equivalent is fine)
2T olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin (paillards)

For the drizzle:

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, tightly packed
3 garlic cloves, (jarred equivalent is fine)
1/2 cup evoo
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt

For the vegetables:

1 tablespoon butter or organic corn oil
4 ears of fresh corn, shucked and kernels cut off the cob
1/2 lb. fresh green beans, trimmed and broken in half
1 small fresh tomato, diced
a few basil sprigs for garnish


Instructions:

1. Early in the day, mix the first 4 ingredients and pour into a zip top bag. Add the chicken and chill until dinner.

2. Place all the ingredients for the drizzle in a blender or a mini processor and puree. Place in a covered container in the fridge until dinner time.

3. At mealtime, heat the butter or oil in a medium saucepan, over medium heat, and add the corn and the green beans to the butter. Stir to coat and sauté for a few minutes. Add 1/3 cup of water to the pan, cover and let steam for about 3-4 minutes until the beans are tender. Remove the lid and cook away all the water. Turn off the heat and stir in 3 Tablespoons of the drizzle. Cover and set aside.

4. Heat your grill to medium high, remove the chicken from the marinade (discard the marinade) and grill the chicken about 3-4 minutes per side depending on how thick it is. Place on a platter and drizzle lightly with a bit of the basil drizzle to serve. Pass the extra basil drizzle on the side.

5. Turn the vegetables into a bowl. Sprinkle the tomato over the top and garnish with a basil sprig.

Delicious corn, green beans with basil drizzle and chopped tomatoes,
easily made vegan...

Cottage Cheese Cutlets Redux: Thank you, Goldbecks!

Cottage Cheese Cutlets: easy, satisfying, delicious!

Nearly 30 years ago, I got my hands on a vegetarian cookbook that, for a few years, was my go-to vegetarian cookbook. It’s called “Ameican Wholefoods Cuisine” by Nikki & David Goldbeck. While we weren’t vegetarians at the time, we were young, and finances were tight, and the recipes in this book were healthy, tasty and economical. There is an Italian style cheese and garbanzo dish in there that is still, to me, one of the best comfort foods around.

I still have a lot of favorites in there, and if you are ovo-lacto vegetarian, this would be a great starter vegetarian book. It’s still in print, and it probably has some of the best, simple vegetarian recipes and bread-making instructions around without all the usual do-gooder rhetoric included. Like any other set of recipes that you cook often, you tend to make changes in the original until only the barest bones of the original are still there, and all the flesh has been added. So I've fooled with a favorite. Actually quite a few of them, but we'll not go there right now. 

In Italian households, if the cook has been breading and frying meat, once the meat is cooking, and if there are still eggs, seasoned breadcrumbs and cheese left over from the breading process, they are mixed together, and the resulting cheesy bread patties are fried up in the remaining oil. And immediately fought over by whoever is standing around the kitchen at the time. Kinda like what hushpuppies were originally.

Last Sunday, my friend Colette mentioned she liked cottage cheese and how so few other people seem to like the stuff. I love it. I was weaned on cottage cheese and apple butter as a kid when I visited my Grandma up in Berks County, PA. I promised to give Colette this recipe, and I thought a lot of other folks might like to try it too, for a quick, easy Meatless Monday meal.

My version of the cottage cheese cutlets resembles those Italian breadballs in flavor, but are more substantial and have a lot more protein, thanks to the cottage cheese. You can vary the seasoning as you wish. I like them topped with fresh chopped tomatoes and onions, and a few oil-cured olives, but a topping of tomato sauce and cheese would be dandy. Or salsa and chiles.  A green salad or a green vegetable will round out the meal nicely.

Cottage Cheese Cutlets Redux

Makes 6 small cutlets, serves 2

Adapted from “American Whole Foods Cuisine” By Nikki & David Goldbeck

Note: To drain the cottage cheese, just place it in a small strainer over a bowl and let sit until most of the milky part is gone and there are mostly curds in the strainer. I toss it in the strainer in the morning and pop the whole thing in the fridge until dinner time. Pot cheese won’t need to be drained. Check out your cottage cheese brand; there should only be milk, cream enzymes and salt in it. If there are too many ingredients in it, find another brand of cottage cheese to like. Locally here, Friendship and Daisy don’t have any “junk” in them. Just please don't use fat-free cottage cheese; otherwise anything from 1% to full-fat will work fine.

1 cup of well-drained natural cottage cheese (see note, or pot cheese if you can find it)

1 cup of fresh whole grain breadcrumbs

1 large egg

¼ cup grated Parmesan or Locatelli Romano (preferred)

½ tsp garlic powder

Big pinch kosher salt

Few grinds of fresh black pepper

2T minced fresh chives (preferred) or parsley

1/3 cup whole wheat flour for dredging the patties

Safflower or extra virgin olive oil for frying

Beat the egg in a medium bowl, then add the salt, the chives, the garlic powder, the pepper and beat well. Combine the egg mixture with the cottage cheese, the Romano or Parmesan and the breadcrumbs. Let set in the bowl for 10-15 minutes so the mixture can thicken up (go make the vegetables and heat some sauce). Place the whole wheat flour in a flat dish near the range.

Once the cheese is drained, it's less than 30 minutes from mixing to table.

 Heat about 1-2 tablespoons of oil in a 10” frying pan, preferably a “green” non-stick pan, enough to coat the bottom, on medium high heat. When the oil shimmers, take about 1/3 cup of the mixture-it will hold together softly, form it into a round flat cutlet, dredge each side in the flour and pop into the pan. Immediately turn down the heat to medium, and cook until browned on one side, turn gently and cook the other side until browned. Serve hot with your choice of sauce.