Recipe: Vegetable Parmesan Bake

I saw a beautiful Vegetable Parmesan Bake photo on Pinterest and was so disappointed to find that the page was no longer available. So I searched for a similar recipe and made it on Friday, with a few adaptations (the original recipe called for so much pasta that we’ll be eating it the rest of this week).

This dish is just a variation of the Provencal tian, with pasta added to turn it into a one-dish main course. You could omit the pasta and substitute leftover cooked rice. Or stir in a cup of cooked chickpeas or black-eyed peas. That’s the beauty of these dishes — they’re really a method rather than a recipe. Omit vegetables that aren’t in your fridge or add ones that need to be used up.

Vegetable Parmesan Bake
Yield: 6 servings

250 gm (= 4 oz) thin spaghetti (spaghettini)
Omit for low-carb variation.

Vegetables
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion; chopped
3 cloves garlic; minced
1 red pepper; cored and diced
1 cup white mushrooms; sliced
2 medium zucchini; diced
3 cups fresh spinach; chopped (Israeli equivalent: 1 bunch alei selek)

Sauce
2 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp. thyme
1 cup cheese, grated (your choice)
2 eggs; lightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste
3 tbsp Parmesan cheese; grated

Lightly spray 8 x 11″ ovenproof casserole dish with cooking spray.

Cook thin spaghetti according to package directions. Drain pasta and
arrange in pie plate or casserole. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).

In large pot, heat oil over low flame. Add onion and garlic and saute until
soft. Add bell pepper, mushrooms, zucchini, and spinach (alei selek or
Swiss chard) and cook until moisture has mostly evaporated.

Sprinkle vegetable mixture with flour. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove
from heat. Whisk in milk, a little at a time. Return to medium-low heat,
stirring until sauce thickens. Remove from heat. Cool mixture slightly;
stir in herbs, cheese, and eggs. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour
mixture over pasta and sprinkle top with Parmesan cheese.

Bake until filling is set and heated through and top is golden, about 30
minutes. Serve hot.

Notes:

This is a soft casserole. If you want it firm, like a kugel, add extra
cheese to the vegetables and 3 eggs to the pasta.

The vegetable mixture and pasta can be cooked in advance. Run hot water over the cold pasta and drain well if it has hardened into a block.

Peeled diced tomatoes would be a good addition.

You can substitute 400 gm cottage cheese for the milk and flour. Stir it in
with the grated cheese and eggs.

Wonderful, Wacky Gingerbread

Gingerbread laptop by Pavel.

Is there anything that people haven’t made with gingerbread? I admit that I’ve never made gingerbread cookies or houses, but I love the deep, spicy flavour of good gingerbread. I am also blown away by the creativity of some of these gingerbread artists. (And, yes, the idea of dedicating a blog posting to gingerbread was inspired by Pam’s lovely craft blog, Gingerbread Snowflakes. Before I learned about gingerbread snowflake cookies, I’d always wondered about the connection.)

This gingerbread AT-AT (from Star Wars) is the creation of Rachel Klemek of Blackmarket Bakery. They make a lot of unusual things, so if you’re near Irvine, California, check it out.

A round-up of strange gingerbreadiana has to include these gingerbread cameras by Doug and Jennie, who include a recipe and instructions:

Here’s a CPU, made by four creative Swedes who had a gingerbread party:

I love the unexpected juxtaposition of gingerbread gun by SanFranAnnie:

Here’s MezCraft’s incredible cuckoo clock with internal gears! She also provides instructions.

Actually, this is a good place to segue into the more traditional realm of gingerbread, er, inhabitable structures. MezCraft is a Harry Potter fan and she made the Weasleys’ Burrow (instructions provided):

Do you have any idea how many gingerbread Tardises there are? Too many to post all their photos, but here’s one from My Food Looks Funny:

Craft Tardis provides instructions for making a gingerbread Tardis. Her Dalek cookies were made with a holly leaf cookie cutter, which she flattened and bent into shape.

TopTenz hosts what can only be described as a gingerbread gallery for overachievers. You have to see the rest of their top ten clever gingerbread houses. Here’s a gingerbread cathouse (where gingerbread men go when their wives are out of town….):

Chrysanthemum Tea

My officemate, Yinnon, brought some chrysanthemum tea to work. Isn’t it wild? (For more information, see the Wikipedia article on chrysanthemum tea.) I love watching the dried bud unfold and open up. Here’s a photo of the dried bud, before it has been steeped. Normally Yinnon makes it in the tea infuser that you see behind the bud, but this time he steeped it in a glass cup so that I could photograph it.

Baking, Baking, Baking…

Can someone please unchain me from the oven? This is what I did on Wednesday, in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat. Above are four small challot, wrapped and ready for freezing. These photos aren’t my best, by the way. They were all taken with a point & shoot camera, no time to style the food or light it properly.

Apple Pcan cakes:

Mushroom Leek Quiche:

Two rolls of knishes, one with salmon and the other with sauteed cabbage. I really thought I’d ruined these for sure. New recipe. It was going okay until I noticed that the pastry was much too wet. I stopped adding liquid immediately. After chilling for several hours it was still goopy. I rolled it out very carefully with extra flour on a silicone mat and used the mat to roll the dough around the filling, like making makisushi. To my surprise, the dough held together and was light and tender.

Two butternut squash pies, also a first-time recipe. By this time I was sick of cutting in fat and rolling out pastry, so I cheated with a crumbly whole wheat flour and oil crust. Not as good as the real thing, but I was getting tired. I also cut back quantity of honey because I don’t like really sweet dishes.

Now I have so much food in the fridge I probably won’t have to cook until Yom Kippur…. I also made pot roast, potatoes, Persian rice, and the usual salads. Oh, the Persian rice! If you haven’t made Persian rice before, it’s quite a process — soak overnight, boil briefly until almost tender, drain, then steam with a towel wrapped around the lid (I chose to do the optional step of putting oil and a thin layer of potatoes on the bottom to make a crust). I was talking to the plumber, who’d come to take a look at a pipe that will need replacing at some point, while trying to make the rice. As soon as I finished steaming it I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten the boiling step. Yes, I steamed uncooked, soaked rice. I dumped some water in, boiled it briefly, and resigned myself to serving it to my family. To my relief, it was tender and delicious. The potato crust was firmly glued to the bottom of the pot, but I didn’t mind sacrificing it.

Almost Rosh Hashanah

Quick photo of one of the eight (!) challahs that I’ve baked and frozen for Rosh Hashanah. When the two days of Rosh Hashanah come right up against Shabbat …., well, all I can say is that’s a lot of cooking! I’m always paranoid about guests showing up at the wrong meal, so I called one of our guests to confirm the date and time, despite my husband’s protests that he’d written the times correctly. Our guest hadn’t, so it was a good thing I called him. The other guests already confirmed our invitation for another meal.

This paranoia began years ago when I had a really bad bout of stomach flu just before Rosh Hashanah. The two closest doctors, both women, were in the midst of their holiday cooking, so one of them sent her husband, also a doctor. He checked me out and said there wasn’t much I could do except drink fluids and try to rest as much as possible (yeah, right, try doing that when you’ve got lots of guests coming!). I consoled myself with the fact that the first visitors, a family of six, would be coming for lunch on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, so I could get some rest over the first day. My son ran up to tell me that they were coming up the stairs. They thought they were invited for lunch on the first day. I rose from my sickbed, threw food on the warming platter and asked our guests, who lived nearby, to come back in half an hour. So now I always double-check the times when guests are coming if there’s an opportunity for a mix-up.

I don’t often use recipes for bread because I’ve been baking since I was 10 years old, but this is my go-to recipe when I want to bake challah without thinking, so I can focus on other things. It makes a wonderful bread. I add honey for Rosh Hashanah.

Foolproof Challah
Yield: 2 medium loaves (= 2 pounds of dough). Or 4 small loaves or a dozen rolls

2 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbs yeast
2 tbs sugar
(opt: 3 tbs honey)
5-6 cups flour
1/4 cup oil
2 large eggs
2 tsp salt
1 egg yolk + 2 tsp water (for glazing)

In a large bowl, mix water yeast, sugar, and honey, if using. Add half the flour, oil, eggs, and salt.

Gradually add the rest of the flour until the dough is too stiff to stir, and comes away cleanly from the bowl. You want a non-sticky dough but soft enough so that it is not hard and dry. Knead for 15 minutes. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 1 1/2 hours in a draft-free place.

Punch down, knead briefly, and divide into two balls for two loaves. Shape and braid. Place in greased pans or on cookie sheets. Cover with a tea towel and let rise 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (around 200 degrees C). Carefully brush the egg yolk and water mixture over the loaves. Bake for 35 minutes or until the loaves are golden and sound hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.

If you want to freeze the loaves, wrap tightly in foil and seal in plastic bags.

Dough Slapping

I have a confession to make. I never knead bread dough. Check out this video of Richard Bertinet slapping sweet dough. I find this technique very fast and much easier than using both hands to knead. I clean the counter, turn the dough onto the counter, pick it up with one hand, and slam it down on the counter. I fold it in half with the same hand, pick it up, and slam it back on the counter. It conditions the dough much faster than regular kneading and I find it less tiring. One of these days I might ask my downstairs neighbour whether she can hear it because it is a noisy process.

Keep a small pile of flour nearby on the counter for coating your fingers if the dough gets sticky. Don’t slam a ball of dough onto a floured surface unless you want every inch of your kitchen and your clothing covered with flour. The dough will seem unusually sticky after the first few slaps because you’ve worked in quite a lot of flour on the outside, while the core is still wet and sticky. Keep a plastic scraper handy to clean your hands if the dough sticks to your fingers and to scrape the dough off the counter if it sticks there. You want to reach a state where the dough is still soft but would rather stick to itself than to you and the counter. Don’t try to force in as much flour as the dough will hold! You want the dough to be pliable and easy to handle, so that it doesn’t turn into a brick in the oven.

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year! May we merit to be inscribed in the Book of Life.

Liliyot Restaurant, Tel Aviv

I don’t often eat at upscale restaurants but it was my husband’s (belated) birthday dinner. He wanted to dine in Tel Aviv, as long as I chose the restaurant. I had recently received a token bonus (dinner for two) at work and this seemed like a good opportunity to use it. I chose Liliyot, a kosher meat restaurant located on Daphna and Weitzman street, in Beit Asia. Liliyot works with ELEM, an Israeli organization for youth at risk, training and employing fifteen youths every year for careers in the restaurant industry. The menu must change fairly often, because I did not see the dishes described by eLuna (Jan. 2011), Frommer’s (no date), Tel Aviv Guide (no date), Anthony Silverbrow (Jul. 2010), or Daniel Rogov (2009). I would say that the quality of the dishes is uneven but not bad if you order carefully.

The first thing I did at Liliyot was smash a wine glass. That gets you noticed every time. Seriously, it’s the first time I’ve ever broken anything in a restaurant. Look at the photo below. The ambiance is warm and informal. The wine glasses are over-sized, top-heavy, and perched at the edge of the tiny tables for two. I flipped over the menu and knocked my glass off the edge.

This isn’t a review because I didn’t sample enough food to draw general conclusions. I was very happy with what I ordered. The salmon sashimi starter, photographed above, was excellent — very fresh slices of raw salmon garnished with thickened soy sauce, a drop of herb sauce, and a salsa of diced cucumbers, green onions, canteloupe, and a few slices of red onion. The salad was refreshing and did not overpower the salmon. I ordered prime rib, medium rare, for the main course. It was seared on the outside and bloody at the center, a very good piece of meat accompanied by some mashed potatoes and zucchini/spinach. I guess prime rib is considered an unadventurous choice, but it was good! My husband began with a green salad, which turned out to be a handful of romaine lettuce drowning in balsamic vinegar. I don’t recommend it. (I tried to get him to order something else…) His main course was lamb shoulder garnished with strips of red pepper leather (like apricot leather, but made with red peppers) and wheat berries. I didn’t try enough of the lamb to form much of an opinion other than it was tender.

Liliyot also has a bakery (photo below). The statement on the wall is about the Liliyot/ELEM project.

The bakery has a cool ceiling….

Menu, in Hebrew. Not cheap. Liliyot is in the Asia Building, 4 Weizmann St. (corner of Weizmann and Daphna, across the street from the hospital), Tel Aviv, Israel. 03-609-1331

We were too full to order dessert but here’s the menu, in English. Sorry about the angle. I was tired.

Wouldn’t be Shavuot without Cheesecake

Son is at his yeshiva high school for Shavuot and I wasn’t sure I wanted to make a cheesecake for just the two of us. After all, I had no trouble passing up lasagna! But it doesn’t seem like Shavuot without a cheesecake and cheesecake is so simple to make. Shavuot (the name literally means “weeks”) celebrates the receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. It is observed on the 50th day after Passover, after counting the period of the omer, which is 49 days (you count a “week” of “weeks,” i.e., 7×7 days).

A lot of customs are associated with Shavuot:

• Learning the entire night. Many communities and synagogues set up schedules of lecturers for the entire night, followed by morning prayers and a light breakfast.
• Reading the Book of Ruth at the morning service
• Decorating the synagogue with greenery
• Eating at least one dairy meal (hence, the cheesecake). Blintzes and lasagna are also popular

For explanations about the customs, meaning, family activities, and recipes, see the Aish haTorah page (in English). They have a recipe for a Snickers cheesecake. I kid you not. Too sweet for me but if that’s your thing, go for it. I don’t have a very strong sweet tooth, so I prefer a simple cheesecake that tastes of cheese and cream, not nuts and chocolate.

Simplest Cheesecake

500 grams cream cheese
200 grams sour cream
2/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Start with the ingredients at room temperature. Preheat oven to 300 F/150 C.

With an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and sour cream until smooth. Add the sugar gradually, beating thoroughly. Add the eggs individually, beating after each egg so that it is incorporated. Add the vanilla and continue beating until the mixture is thick. If you are using high-fat dairy products, you will get a rich, thick batter. If you are using low-fat, you will get a wimpy-looking milkshake.

Pour the batter into a buttered 9″ springform pan or baking pan (I used a quiche pan because my springform pan started leaking too badly to seal with foil, I tossed it out, and haven’t replaced it yet). Bake for 1 hour or until the cake is just set in the middle (bang the oven gently to see how much the cake ripples) and the sides start to pull away. Let the cake cool in the oven with the door ajar. (This helps prevent the cake from cracking.) When cool, cover loosely with foil and refrigerate.

Serves 10.

You may notice that I did not specify what kind of cream cheese or sour cream. There are so many different types available, with high and low fat content, and you probably know what kind you will buy. All I can say is that the smooth, rich texture and creamy taste come from fat, so if you make your cheesecake with diet products, you’re not going to get the same results. Cheesecake is not a health food, but you probably don’t eat it very often unless you’re one of my coworkers (dry, tasteless cheesecake is one of the standard desserts in the dairy cafeteria). Try to use real vanilla, rather than a synthetic extract.

Chag sameach!

Leftovers: Steak for Dinner, Date-Nut Loaf for Dessert

I had a lot of dates and walnuts left over from Passover, so this was the result. I combined a couple recipes because I wanted a loaf that was easy to make and not too sweet.

Date-Nut Loaf

8 ounces dates, chopped
1 cup boiling water
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 170C / 325F. Grease a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Put dates in a heatproof bowl and pour boiling water over them to soften. Set aside to cool.

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt thoroughly. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, egg, and vegetable oil. To the sugar mixture, add cooled dates with liquid and flour mixture alternatively. Do not overmix. Combine just until you no longer see large dry patches of flour. Stir in the chopped walnuts. Scrape the batter into the loaf pan.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and top is firm and golden-brown.

Notes: a) You can use white or whole-wheat flour or a combination. If you use whole-wheat flour, keep an eye on things during baking and lower the oven temperature if the loaf browns too quickly. b) Dates are easier to chop if you dip the knife in boiling water, which keeps them from sticking to the blade. c) If you don’t want to chop walnuts with a knife, put about a quarter cup in a plastic bag and bash it with something hard, like a rolling pin or a small pot. d) I used a longer, narrower cake pan called an “English” pan in Israel. The baking time is about the same. e) My recipe has a lot of walnuts because I’m nuts about nuts. The original quantity was 3/4 cup.

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Steak and Vegetables

The sliced steak and vegetable dish below was also made from leftovers. I froze a few small pieces of entrecote that I’d barbecued on Yom Atzma’ut/Israel Independence Day. In the fridge I found one and a half roasted red peppers that I’d grilled with the steak. They weren’t being eaten and they had to be cooked with a meat dish, so this is the result.

Quantities aren’t given because this is more of a suggestion than a recipe. Sauté chopped onion and minced garlic in olive oil until tender. Add sliced fresh mushrooms and sliced roasted red pepper and cook over medium heat until tender. Add sliced steak and any red wine lurking in the fridge. Cook until the liquid is reduced. Serve with rice.

A Closer Look at Peppercorns

I don’t have a macro lens. I used my cheap, white-box, made-in-China, no-name extension tubes. Because there’s no electronic connection between the body and the lens, the focus is manual and you’re kind of stuck with the aperture (= very shallow depth of field) unless you use a workaround. (I blogged about the aperture workaround in another posting, Setting Aperture with Macro Extension Tubes.)

If you don’t mind spending a lot more money, you can get Kenko extension tubes. I didn’t have the cash at the time, so I bought a really cheap set that, at the time, was only available from Amazon.com.uk. Now I see that they’re also available in the US, so here they are: the $12 Fotodiox Canon extension tubes (you can get them with a Nikon mount).

So if you want to try macros but are still saving up for a decent lens, extension tubes are a cheap thrill. Don’t expect the same performance as the more expensive tubes, though. There are no electronic connections in these tubes (hence, no autofocus or aperture control), they feel cheap, and you need to fit them carefully to your lens and body. They do join securely but you have to make sure that they’re fully coupled before you put your camera on the tripod or you may see your favourite lens in pieces on the floor. There are absolutely no instructions. The tubes come in three lengths with a body mount ring and a lens mount ring.

I also wanted to pass on a couple tips if you’re using extension rings. Use a good table-top tripod. I have a $29 Slik Mini Pro V. It will hold a camera with a long lens, as long as you point the lens over one of the legs so that it doesn’t topple over.

The second tip is, if your camera has a live preview function (i.e., if your DSLR can be set to show a preview of the shot on the LED screen and zoom in), use it for the manual focus. My eyesight isn’t reliable enough to focus this finely, so I find the zoom very useful. Even if you never use your live preview, look in your manual to see whether your camera has this feature, and give it a try the next time you’re faced with a fiddly manual focusing job.

I set up this shot by pouring a teaspoon of peppercorns onto a white ceramic plate and lighting it with a fluorescent desk lamp. My aging Canon Rebel XSi (450D) with a Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom lens was set up about 2 feet from the subject. ISO 100, 2 second self-timer.

Getting this shot was easier than I expected and a lot of fun.

World’s Most Delicate Lemon Squares

You can’t tell from the photograph but these lemon squares are still warm. They are so delicate, they make other lemon squares look like soggy bits of lemon meringue pie without the meringue. They literally dissolve in your mouth. They freeze well and are incredibly easy to make. What could be better?

Lemon Squares
Yield: 40 squares

Base:
3/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup powdered sugar (icing or confectioners sugar)
1 1/2 cups flour

Filling:
3 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tbs flour
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
Powdered sugar for sprinkling on top of filling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use a heavy 9″x13″ baking pan (I use a heavy, non-stick, metal Farberware pan, which doesn’t need greasing).

In a food processor fitted with a steel blade, pulse the butter/margarine, powdered sugar, and flour until crumbly. Press evenly into baking pan. Bake 20 minutes or until light golden brown. It should look like a huge shortbread cookie.

While the base is baking, mix filling ingredients in food processor until well blended. Take the base out of the oven and pour the filling onto the hot crust immediately. Return pan to oven and bake 15 minutes, just until set.

Cool for 10 minutes. Sprinkle powered sugar evenly over filling, using a fine-mesh sieve (if you buy icing sugar in 100 gm bags, you will only need 1 bag and you will have plenty to sprinkle on top). Loosen around the edges of the pan with a thin knife and cut into squares (5×8) while still warm.

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Update from Jan. 10, 2011: They also freeze well. Arrange them in single layers with parchment paper or plastic wrap between. Wrap in foil or a freezer bag. Then hide them very well because some people actually prefer eating frozen lemon squares.