technocracygirl: Mel and Sue, from Great British Bake Off, sitting behind a table with a lot of different pastries (cooking)
2019-09-10 09:25 pm
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Recipe Redux: Ravioli Lasagne

What Did I Make: Ravioli Lasagne from The Casserole Queens Make-A-Meal Cookbook by Crystal Cook and Sandy Pollock

What Did I Change?: I braised two chicken sausages in the marinara sauce, then chopped them up and added them back in with the spinach. I also used slightly less spinach than called for, because I grabbed a different type of frozen spinach from the store. I ignored the dried parsley, added salt, pepper, and oregano to the red sauce, and powdered onion, powdered garlic, oregano, and Penzey's Tuscan Sunshine Italian herb mix to the ricotta/cottage cheese mix. Because herbs and spices are good.

What Would I Do Differently?: The sausage was good, but actually an add-on -- this is delicious without it. I might up the amount of herbs and spices the next time, but it was still tasty.

This is remarkably calorie-dense, but so much easier than the normal hassle of lasagne. And there's a ton of spinach in there, so at least there's some veg. I will need to write this recipe down before the cookbook goes back to the library.
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technocracygirl: Mel and Sue, from Great British Bake Off, sitting behind a table with a lot of different pastries (cooking)
2018-12-20 08:07 pm
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Recipe Redux: Bolognese Sauce

What Did I Make?: Fettuccine with Bolognese Sauce, from Coco Morante's The Essential Instant Pot

What Did I Change?: Instead of a pound of beef and another of pork, I used beef and lamb. (On the assumption that one of the things that the pork contributed was fat; otherwise I would have used ground chicken sausage.)

Would I Make This Again?: ... It's complicated.

I saw this recipe for a pressure-cooked version of a low-and-slow bolognese sauce. And I'm all, I have to try this!

So I do. And it's...okay. It's edible. But it's too watery for my thin dried fruit noodles to go well with. It's greasier than I'd like. It tastes overcooked and meh. (It wasn't until today that I realized that the recipe called for neither oregano nor basil. Really? No oregano in a red meat sauce? Heathens.)

But it's fine, so my husband and I eat it. And we discuss it, because this is what we do when one of us makes a dish. And he mentions that this would make a good meat sauce for lasagna.

Since we now have multiple containers with the leftovers, I think this is a brilliant idea.

The layers of lasagna are as follows, but not in the right order:

1) No-boil noodles

2) Meat sauce, with each meat layer sprinkled with oregano because dear G-d, what do you mean there's no oregano.

3) Zucchini, which has been grated, salted, drained, squeezed, and rinsed.

4) A cheese mixture of cottage cheese, some whipped cream cheese that Kidlet won't eat, an egg, basil, salt, and pepper.

5) Sliced Gouda and Havarti, because we bought it for the Channukah party, and it needed to be eaten up, and I needed Melty cheese anyway.

6) Finely grated Parmesan.

Did the whole thing up as per Cook's Illustrated, and... it's really good. Greasier than I'd like, but a lot of that was the cheese. Very dense, but a much better dish than it was yesterday.

So, would I make it again? Maybe. If I we're hosting game or something. If I had a fat separator. And it would probably be better with the mozzarella instead of the Gouda/Havarti mix. But I don't know, and it's certainly no weeknight supper.

But at least I was able to take something mediocre and turn it into something better.
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