Roasted Squash-Onion Lasagna

No rambling today- just food, glorious food. This is all about a lasagna that is dreamy and cheesy. Lasagnas have many pros (crowd-pleasing, can be assembled ahead of time, one dish feeds a crowd, lend themselves to much creativity by way of vegetables, cheeses and sauces that can be used) and, in my mind, one glaring con (don't like boiling lasagna noodles). I got scalded some years ago while cooking lasagna noodles, and it has traumatized me for life.

Then I discovered no-boil lasagna noodles. This means that the dried noodles can be layered into the dish, and as long as you use a "saucy" sauce with enough liquid in it, the noodles cook as the lasagna bakes. In fact, because they cook in the sauce, they end up absorbing great flavor. And I can make lasagna on weeknights, which is very very exciting.

This is the 365 brand (store-brand of Whole Foods), in case anyone wants to know. They are thin noodles, and they fit perfectly into my baking dish- two to a layer.

Most butternut squash lasagna recipes call for pureeing the cooked squash, but I really wanted to bite into chunks of it, so I left it at that. The sauce here is a thin bechamel sauce (to allow enough liquid for the noodles to cook). Of course, one can use normal lasagna sheets (cook them first) and in that case, make a thicker sauce by cutting down on the milk.

Roasted Squash-Onion Lasagna

(makes 4-5 servings)
Ingredients:
1 lb butternut squash slices (peel, cube, then slice)
2 medium onions, peeled and cut into quarters
2 T olive oil
6 to 8 no-boil lasagna sheets
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
4-5 T parmesan cheese
Bechamel sauce
2.5 T butter
2.5 T flour
3 C milk
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 400F. On a baking sheet, place the onions and butternut squash slices. Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Bake the vegetables for 30-40 minutes, or until tender and starting to brown.
2. Meanwhile, make bechamel sauce using the proportions given above and using the standard method (eg. this or this). Season with nutmeg and set aside.
3. Once the roasted vegetables and bechamel sauce are ready, the lasagna can be assembled: Spread 1/2 C or so of the white sauce on the bottom of an 8x8 square baking dish. Place 1 layer of lasagna sheets on it. Add some roasted vegetables, cover with sauce and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Repeat this 3-4 times or until the vegetables and sauce is used up. If you have had trouble with getting no-boil noodles to cook in the oven, try this tip (I forget where I read it): Soak the noodles in hot water for 5 minutes before layering them; that way they get a head start in getting re-hydrated and cooked.

Here is the last but one layer- vegetables:

And the last layer- sauce and cheese

4. Cover dish with foil. Bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes (uncovered for the last 10 minutes) or until the noodles are cooked through, the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is browning.
5. Let the lasagna rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Verdict: This was one delicious dinner! This is a savory dish, of course, but the combination of roasted onions, butternut squash and nutmeg gave it a remarkable sweetness- which, together with the dairy richness made it the perfect indulgence for a bitterly cold night.

This hearty lasagna is my entry to the Fresh Produce event hosted by Marta of An Italian in the US. The theme this month is Squash, which is one family of vegetables that are generally quite inexpensive and can be enjoyed in both summer and winter.

Butternut squash is so versatile; I have my eye on many delicious b'nut-squash recipes like butternut squash and brown rice risotto, butternut squash soup, salad and mac and cheese (!).

Want another helping of lasagna? Here you go:
Roasted Vegetable Lasagna from Two Fat Als
Pesto Mushroom Lasagna from Blog Appetit
Eggplant Lasagna from Cooking with Amy
Que Sarah Sarah Lasagna from What Smells So Good?
Mexican Lasagna from FatFree Vegan Kitchen

Melt-in-the-Mouth Morsels

*Thank you*, all you lovely people who humored my silliness and participated in the guessing game. I think people were expecting a vegetable hiding in there for sure, because so many of the guesses were sweet potato, potato, butternut squash, pumpkin, plantain, banana, eggplant, yam. Some of the more exotic guesses were tapioca, tofu, leek, peanut butter, tahini, coconut...and others thought it was a pantry staple like besan, bread, polenta, cooked rice. The yellow/orange hue probably led to suggestions of orange, papaya, carrot, saffron, toor dal, while the red flecks were thought of as tomato and red pepper (Rodosee, you are partially right). The sesame seeds led some to believe that this is a sesame cookie, while one person was quite sure that the sesame is for decoration only.

To tell you the truth, all of these sound like perfectly delicious ingredients for a cookie/fritter and something I would definitely love to make and eat. Well, I am so sorry to disappoint everybody who has vegetables on their mind, but the correct guess was one of the last comments: CHEESE! Congratulations, Zlamushka! Your logic is impeccable. You live too far away for me to send you a prize :( so please make do with a big hug for now :D Cheese was also the first of Linda's string of guesses (LOL)"Cheese. Peanut butter. Tahini. Tofu. Miso!??" so you get the second non-prize, Linda :D

This recipe comes from the cookbook Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies. I saw these delightful savory cheese cookies first on Cathy's blog as she wrapped up her huge project of baking and sharing every single cookie in this classic book. My copy of Maida's cookie book is extra-special to me because it was a gift from Cathy herself. For Hindi and Marathi speakers, the name of this author is a bit of a play on words because her first name is Maida, and maida or all-purpose flour is an ingredient (and usually the largest ingredient by proportion) in almost every cookie recipe (although I must clarify that the two are pronounced differently- her name is pronounced May-Da, and our Indian word maida is more like meh-da). This recipe is the only savory cookie in the book and I just had to try it as a special, decadent treat for New Year's eve.

Talk about a short ingredient list: these crackers call for just three ingredients. Cheese, Flour, Butter. Yes, in that order. In the proportion 4:2:1. So, Ramya, you rightly guessed that there is maida in there, but it is not the main ingredient! Well, you do add a little bit of red chilli powder for a delicious kick, and sprinkle the crackers with a few sesame seeds. Can you just imagine how rich they are? For those who have any notion whatsoever about sensible eating, these crackers should be strictly made for special social occasions where you will be forced to share these with many other people. They are very very delicious, and you will lose all self-control if you have a platter all to yourself. Been there, done that (hanging head in shame).

Any hard, melting cheese would work well in this recipe, although the original calls for sharp cheddar. I had bits and bobs of hard cheeses that I wanted to use up, so I made up the 2 cups with a combination 3 different cheeses- pepper jack, some English cheese that had sun-dried tomato in it, and sharp cheddar. The pepper and sun-dried tomato contributed those red flecks. I'm a cheese wimp and won't eat stinky strong cheeses out of hand, but you definitely need a sharp-tasting cheese here to get flavorful results. Even I will concede that. The sesame seeds are more than mere decoration here- they complement the taste of the cheese in a very pleasing way.

Apart from the taste of these crackers, they were just a lot of fun to make. And real easy-breezy. Mixing in the dough takes mere minutes, then the dough is rolled into logs and wrapped up and tucked into the fridge. When you want fresh-baked crispy pennies, simply fire up the oven, slice the log and bake within minutes. The results are sure to impress company. The tangy, salty crackers pair deliciously with any drink; we enjoyed these with mulled cider, and another time with wine. The log slices beautifully; the knife goes through it as if it were butter. Wait, it *is* mostly butter!

Maida Heatter's Cheese Pennies

(Adapted from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies, makes about 40-50 two-bite crackers)
Ingredients:
2 C finely shredded sharp cheddar (or similar cheese)
1 C sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 C butter (1 stick), softened
1/2 t red chilli powder or cayenne pepper (adjust to taste)
1/2 t salt
toasted sesame seeds
Method:
1. Sift together the flour, salt and red chilli powder.
2. In a bowl, beat the softened butter until creamy.
3. Stir the cheese into the butter and beat together until completely blended.
4. Stir in the flour mixture bit by bit until it gets fully incorporated.
5. Gather up the dough and shape into 2 circular or rectangular logs. Wrap each log in plastic wrap and refrigerate anywhere from 5-6 hours to 2-3 days.
6. At the time of baking, pre-heat oven to 350F. Slice the log into quarter-inch thick slices. Place them on an ungreased baking sheet (trust me, these are self-greasing cookies). Sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake for 12-15 minutes or until just golden (any more and the cheese will burn). Once out of the oven, transfer them right away to racks where they will cool and become nice and crisp.

Here are the cheese pennies, all ready to get the party started...

(Thanks for the beautiful serving dish, Madhu!)

Have a wonderful week, and I will see you in a few.

One Microwave Oven, Three Vegetables

This post is being sent to Srivalli for her Microwave Easy Cooking event. The theme this month is Basics.

My favorite way to use the microwave oven for a basic cooking step: I use it for cooking vegetables in a jiffy. IMHO, the microwave oven cooks vegetables in a jiffy, saving much time and fuel in the bargain, and results in vegetables that are cooked to just the right tenderness, with a lot of the flavor, color and nutrition preserved. Here are three vegetables that I often cook in the microwave oven, with an easy recipe for each.

Note: The power of different microwave ovens varies wildly, and the power of a microwave oven reduces significantly as it ages. Mine is a relatively new one, and cooks food in very little time. The only thing to do is play with your microwave and standardize cooking times for yourself.

First up, emerald-green broccoli: I know, I know, none of the cool kids like broccoli. I happen to love it, but V, who is astonishingly non-fussy otherwise, makes it a point to wrinkle his nose at broccoli. But he does love Broccoli-Cheese soup. Here is a simple recipe for this delicious soup; I start by cooking the broccoli in the microwave oven. The soup gets made as usual on the stove-top, but with the cooked broccoli, it gets made in minutes.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

1. Wash a bunch of broccoli and cut it into florets (2-3 cups in all). Sprinkle with 1 T water.


2. Microwave the broccoli for 2-3 minutes, until tender. Set aside.


3. The rest of the recipe is made on the stove-top. To make the soup, heat 1 T butter in a saucepan. Saute 1/2 C chopped onion and 2 cloves minced garlic in the butter until fragrant.
4. Stir in 1 T flour and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add 3/4 C milk and stir to make a sauce.
5. Now add the cooked broccoli and 2 C water. Bring to a boil. Turn off the heat.
6. Stir in 1 C loosely packed cheese (I tend to use cheddar or Monterey Jack), salt to taste (remember cheese is salty, so go easy), pepper and red pepper flakes (optional). Blend the soup using a blender/ food processor/ immersion blender. Reheat before serving.




The humble potato: Sometimes, especially by the end of the work-week, I am almost out of vegetables but tend to have some potatoes handy. This is a side-dish that goes well with any Indian meal, or also as an off-beat accompaniment to sandwiches.

Dahi Batata (Potato in Yogurt)

1. To cook potatoes in the microwave, I simply wash them, prick each potato 3-4 times with a fork, then place it on the microwave turntable and cook for 2 minutes. Then it turn it over and cook it for 2 more minutes. In my microwave, this results in tender, delicious, non-soggy potatoes every single time (Microwave-cooked potatoes are ideal for potato parathas because they you are sure the parathas won't turn out soggy).


2. To make this easy side-dish, dahi batata, peel the potato (or don't) and cut into medium cubes.
3. In a bowl, whip together some yogurt, salt, red chilli powder and cumin-coriander powder. Stir in the potato cubes. Garnish with cilantro if desired.



The gorgeous sweet potato: I am always looking for new ways to cook this delicious and nutritious vegetable. Tarla Dalal's "Chaat" cookbook has a chaat involving sweet potatoes. That recipe involves several chutneys and a long list of ingredients, and looks nothing like this, but it inspired me to make this easy and tasty side dish/ snack. I used whole baby sweet potatoes here, but one could use the big ones and simply slice them.

Ratala "Chaat"

1. Prick 6 baby potatoes/ 1-2 medium sweet potatoes with a fork 2-3 times each. Place on a microwave-safe plate and microwave for 2 minutes on each side, or until knife-tender (time will depend on the size of the sweet potato, as well as the number being cooked at once).
2. Split the sweet potatoes open, then sprinkle with salt, red chilli powder, chaat masala, and a few drops of fresh lemon juice. Serve warm or at room temperature. Peel and eat!

The next use of the microwave oven: Roasting Papad. A few types of papads can be roasted, but most require deep-frying. Here are two that I regularly microwave for a delicious crunchy accompaniment to dal-rice suppers. I microwave papads one at a time, directly on the microwave turntable (I tried placing the papads on a plate, but they seem to roast unevenly and take much longer). After each one, I wipe down the droplets of condensation from the turnable, which ensures that the next papad does not stick on.

Lijjat papad, which are made with urad dal and are available in lots of flavors- garlic, cumin, black pepper- need about 25 seconds of nuking in my microwave to go from this...


to this...



This one is a traditional Tamilian appalam, one of my very favorite papads. It take about 35 seconds to go from this...


to this...



Other ways I use my microwave oven: to boil water quickly for single servings of tea, or when I need a small amount of hot water for, say, soaking tamarind to make tamarind pulp. I toast nuts and spices in the microwave, which works beautifully, but needs a close watch to prevent them from burning.

Here is another use of my microwave: to disinfect kitchen sponges: I regularly get the sponges sopping wet, then microwave them for 1-2 minutes on HIGH. The heating of the wet sponge kills off a lot of the bacteria that kitchen sponges invariably collect. While it is effective, this technique can pose a fire hazard so consider yourself warned! Once microwaved, the sponge will be very hot, so let it cool down before removing it from the microwave, or handle with tongs.

Got any clever microwave tips? Leave a comment if you would like to share them. I'll be back on the weekend!

Sunday Supper: Pizza Night

I have been blogging about food for well over two years, and pizza has yet to make an appearance here. How on earth did this happen? Perhaps I was intimidated by all the wonderful pizzas already out there on the food blogs. In any case, this is a lapse that I am about to fix today. This is also a reader-request recipe: Sharvari requested a pizza recipe in a comment on this post, and many many weeks later, here it is.

Pizza has certainly been a favorite food of mine for many years. I have been digging into pizza from a very early age, long before pizza chains descended on Indian cities, long before I moved to graduate school in NYC, where pizza is not just food, it is a food group. All credit for the early pizza nights goes to my ever-creative mother. Living in a relatively small town with ultra-conservative food tastes never deterred her in the least. In the years of growing up in Kolhapur, I attended perhaps a couple hundred different social events, but they all had exactly the *same* menu- Kolhapuri tambda rassa (red mutton curry), pandhra rassa (white mutton stew), dry-fried mutton, dahi kanda (onion-yogurt relish), thick chapatis and jeera (cumin) rice; gulab jamuns for dessert. I kid you not. If you served anything else, there was the danger of armed revolt. In the midst of this rather bleak culinary landscape, my mother served baked vegetables and baked corn at her dinner parties, and jelly-custard (Brown and Polson brand, anyone remember that one?), set in pretty little bowls for dessert. She procured macaroni and spaghetti and cooked the pasta in a tomato-Amul cheese sauce (a recipe that started with my grandmother, believe it or not...it must be in the genes. I can only hope). She made sweet corn soup and stir-fried noodles long before "Indian-Chinese" cuisine came into vogue. She hosted burger nights, with mincemeat burgers tucked into pav-bhaji buns, garnished with cabbage and carrot shreds. And she made pizza. We enjoyed Maharashtrian food and other Indian cuisines as much as anyone else, but we also got a chance to try something new every so often.

Aai's pizza started off as "bread pizza" with the sauce spread on regular sliced bread and sprinkled with Amul cheese. Later, as an enterprising local store-owner started to carry a more extensive inventory, she would buy pizza bases, small 6-inch discs of par-baked bread. No matter what, the pizza would always be pan-baked on the stove to a crispy and golden finish, because my parents only had one tiny electric oven and it was stored away to be used strictly for birthday cakes.

Coming back to pizza. For the home cook, a pizza base represents a blank canvas on which to experiment with an assortment of sauces, a potpourri of toppings and wild combinations of sauces and toppings. Our other favorites sauce, apart from the tomato sauce that follows, is classis basil pesto. I have a long list of pizzas on the to-make list as well- caramelized onion and sage, and one that I ate in a wonderful pizzeria in NYC- ricotta, paper-thin slices of potato and walnuts, all drizzled with fragrant olive oil. But the humble and messy tomato sauce that follows remains the firm favorite in our home.

Aai's Pizza Sauce

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped fine
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large bell pepper (green/red/yellow), chopped fine
2 cups tomato puree (fresh or canned)
1 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 t red chilli powder (or to taste)
1 T ketchup or 1 t sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
1. Heat the oil in a saucepan.
2. Saute the garlic and onion until fragrant and transluscent (not browned).
3. Stir in the pepper and fry for 3-4 minutes.
4. Add the tomato, chilli powder and sugar. Simmer for 15-25 minutes, uncovered or partially covered, or until the sauce is thick (the time will depend on how watery the tomatoes were to begin with).
5. Season with salt and pepper and let it cool to room temperature. A thick sauce is of utmost importance, IMHO, because a watery sauce will make the crust soggy.

Next comes the dough. Since I have the privilege of living in a home with a full-size oven, and having access to yeast, I make the dough myself. I use a food processor to make the dough but it is by no means necessary. You can make the dough by hand: use a bowl and a wooden spoon for the initial mixing, and then place the dough on a floured surface and knead with your hands. I have used Bittman's recipe for many years with consistently good results. I feel that pizza dough is very forgiving and a good way for newbies to get into baking. It is certainly the first bread that I started baking on a regular basis.

Pizza Dough

(Adapted from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman)
1. Take 1/4 C warm (not hot!) water in a small bowl. Add 1/2 t sugar and 1 t active dry yeast to it. Let it stand for 5-10 minutes or until the yeast become active and the solution starts to froth. (If you use instant or bread machine yeast, this proofing step can be skipped and you can add the yeast directly to step 2.
2. In the food processor bowl fitted with a dough blade, add 2 C plain flour, 1 C whole-wheat flour, 1 t salt and the yeast solution. Pulse to combine.
3. With the motor running, add about 1 C water and 1-2 T olive oil (I use two glugs), until the dough comes together as a slightly sticky, elastic ball (add more water or a little more flour as required to achieve this).
4. Take the dough ball out, knead it on a floured surface for a minute, then place in an oiled bowl. Cover with damp cloth or plastic wrap, and let it rise for 1-2 hours. Left-over pizza dough can be frozen for future use.

Assembling and Baking:
Preheat the oven (with pizza stone inside) to 475 degrees for 20-25 minutes (you want the oven and the stone to get very very hot). A pizza stone is a flat stone/ unglazed ceramic tile that helps in creating a crisp crunchy pizza crust.

As the oven pre-heats, make the pizza base. Sprinkle some cornmeal (coarsely ground corn) or semolina (rava) on a pizza peel (a paddle used to transfer the base onto the hot stone). Divide the dough into two portions for two large pizzas (serving 2-3 each) or into 4-6 portions for individual-sized pizzas. Start stretching the dough on the pizza peel either by hand or using a rolling pin with gentle pressure. Periodically, you may have to let the dough "rest" for a few minutes to let it become more pliable.

Note: If you do not own a pizza stone and pizza peel, you can make the pizza on a regular rectangular or circular baking sheet. Lightly oil the sheet with olive oil. Place dough on the baking sheet and press down as above to make the pizza base.

Spread pizza sauce on the pizza base, leaving the edges unsauced. It is better to go easy with the sauce so that the pizza does not get soggy. I often serve some sauce on the side as a dipping sauce, rather than drowning the pizza with it. Sprinkle with toppings of your choice ad then with bits/ slices of mozzarella. I don't like the dry and rubbery pre-shredded mozzarella from the supermarket and always seek out fresh balls of mozzarella that look like the one here.

For beginner pizza-makers, smaller pizzas are much easier to make and transfer to the pizza stone etc. This time I tried making a larger one and it worked fine, but was more difficult to transfer to and from the oven. We topped half the pizza with onions, red peppers and olives and topped the other half with onions and slices of Morningstar fake "chicken" wings (the latter is a guilty and occasional pleasure for us).


Transfer the pizza from the peel to the pizza stone gently (shaking the peel back and forth gently to release the pizza and slide it onto the stone). If you made the pizza on a baking sheet, simply place the sheet in the oven. Bake for 10-15 mins, or until the crust is crispy and golden, and the cheese is browning and bubbling.


Cut into wedges and dig in! Jars of dried oregano and red pepper flakes can be offered at the table to enhance the pizzeria experience.




Have a great week ahead, everyone!

Scientific Pasta

My Mom made this quick and tasty pasta quite often in India. At the time, the only pasta shapes available in India were spaghetti and macaroni so it would be either of those two, with good ol' processed Amul cheese. It was mmm...mmm...good.

I was in the supermarket a few days ago and started laughing when I found a Barilla pasta shape called Pipette. Pipette means "little pipe" but of course that's not why I laughed. It is because I work in a research lab and we use instruments called pipettes day in and day out to transfer liquids around. Our pipettes look nothing like the little pasta though!

I thought it would be fun to try this scientific-sounding pasta tonight, when I need dinner ready in a hurry. The recipe calls for a basic bechamel sauce to be made separately and added to sauteed peppers but I am too lazy to wash too many pots and adapted the sauce recipe for a single pan.

• First, a pot of water was put to boil for the pasta, salted and the pipette pasta was boiled till just tender. 
• Meanwhile as the pasta was cooking, I made the sauce by melting 2 tbsp butter in a pan and sauteeing a diced green pepper in it. 
• Then I added 1 heaped tbsp white flour and stirred it around till it was aromatic. 
• I added a cup of milk, dash of salt and pepper, dash of red pepper flakes, 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese and stirred everything into a nice smooth sauce. 
• I finished the sauce with a cup of tomato puree and 1 tbsp cream. 
• Finally I stirred the drained cooked pasta into the sauce and topped with more cheese and pepper.

The hollow pipettes catch the creamy sauce perfectly. It is a mild and comforting pasta that is ready in a jiffy. What more can one ask for on a Tuesday night ?