Tag: recipes

Pastitsio

A few weeks ago, we watched an episode of Test Kitchen on PBS where they made Greek lasagna — pastitsio. It looked really good (and the idea of adding cinnamon to the sauce intrigued me). I finally got around to making it today — very tasty, although I’d prefer if the top had been less browned.

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Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground beef

  • 1 large onion, chopped

  • 12 oz tomato paste

  • 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

  • 32 oz tube noodles — the authentic version of this recipe would use long ones

  • 1/2 lb asiago (grated)

  • 1/2 lb parmesan (grated)

  • 4 eggs

  • 8 Tbsp butter

  • 1 cup flour

  • 5 1/2 cups whole milk

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Method

  • Brown the ground beef in a large pan
  • Add chopped onion and sprinkle with salt. Cook until onions begin to turn translucent.
  • Add cinnamon and stir to incorporate.
  • Add tomato paste and stir to incorporate. Add 1/2 water to thin a bit, then simmer for three hours.
  • Place meat sauce into glass storage container and refrigerate overnight.
  • When ready to prepare lasagna, remove meat sauce from refrigerator and allow to warm up (or microwave for a minute or two).
  • Preheat oven to 350 F
  • Boil noodles according to package directions.
  • Melt butter in a large pan. Add flour to make a light roux, then add milk to make a béchamel sauce.
  • Crack three eggs in a medium bowl and temper with béchamel — then incorporate egg mixture into béchamel sauce. Cook over medium heat until sauce thickens.
  • Toss noodles with one egg and layer in bottom of a large baking dish.
  • Sprinkle 1/3 of cheese on top of the noodles.
  • Spread the meat sauce over the noodles, then sprinkle 1/3 of cheese on top of meat sauce.
  • Spread béchamel sauce over the dish, then sprinkle with remaining 1/3 of cheese.
  • Bake for one hour.

Trail Mix

Trail Mix
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Trail Mix

Recipe by LisaCourse: SnacksDifficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs whole almonds

  • 27 oz walnuts halves and pieces

  • 13 oz cashews

  • 8 oz hazelnuts

  • 8 oz Brazil nuts

  • 2 lbs pecans – halves and pieces

  • 10 oz bittersweet chocolate chips

  • 12 oz raisins

Method

  • Mix all of the nuts together in a large bowl
  • Take half of the nut mixture and put aside for later. Combine raisins with remaining nuts.

We found a ton of different nuts at Costco — almonds for $3.33 a pound, pecans and walnuts for about the same price. The best price I’d found for almonds was about $5 a pound, and that was at a bulk wholesale place where you had to buy something like fifteen pounds. This is a three pound bag, and the price includes shipping. Cashews, hazelnuts, and Brazil nuts were all a little more expensive, but still significantly less than what I buy them for at a bulk / wholesale place. So we made trail mix (and have plenty of nuts left over to make more trail mix throughout the year). I need to make some dehydrated bananas, apples, and cranberries to add in … but it’s tasty already!

Buttermilk Almond Muffins

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup almond meal from making almond milk
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 5 Tbsp powdered buttermilk
  • 1 1/4 cup water
  • 4 Tbsp melted butter

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F — I lined the muffin tin with silicone cups. This made removing the muffins from the tin and clean up much easier.
  2. Stir almond meal into flour and break up any clumps of almond meal.
  3. Whisk in baking powder, baking soda, salt, and powdered buttermilk.
  4. In a separate bowl, slightly beat eggs then mix in maple syrup and water.
  5. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir gently to incorporate.
  6. Drizzle in melted butter and stir to incorporate.
  7. Divide batter into muffin pan.
  8. Bake 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

The leftover pulp from making fresh almond milk was always a problem — I know you can dry it out and make almond flour, but that’s a long process. I keep trying to find a tasty use for the pulp, and I think I’ve finally figured something out. These muffins were moist, buttery, had a bit of bite from the buttermilk … and a double batch would use all of the pulp from a batch of almond milk. Muffins freeze well, too — so we can have quick breakfast/snack food stashed in the freezer.

Turkey Meatballs

Turkey Meatballs

Recipe by LisaCourse: FoodCuisine: American, ItalianDifficulty: Easy
Prep time

30

minutes
Cooking time

30

minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds ground turkey

  • 1 cup panko bread crumbs

  • 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

  • 3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

  • 1/2 cup minced onion

  • 2 eggs

  • 1/2 tsp black pepper

  • 1 tsp salt

  • 1/2 tsp basil

  • 1/2 tsp oregano

Method

  • Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until just combined.
  • Either:
    Fry in a pan to brown.
    – or –
    Place on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat. Bake at 350F for about 25 minutes.
  • If using in a tomato sauce, slightly under-cook meatballs in step #2 , add to sauce, and simmer until fully cooked.

Turkey Injection Sauce

I got this injection sauce from a Bearded Butcher video — it’s a maple/butter based sauce that we used with a smoked turkey. Delicious!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 cup maple syrup
  • 1-2 tbsp … well, they use their seasoning. I used this Magic Dust that looked good

Melt the butter, whisk in the maple syrup, then whisk in the powdered seasoning. Inject it, baste it on, etc. It thickens up as it sits, and I needed to toss the container in the microwave for 30 seconds a couple of times while I used it.

We soaked the fresh turkey in brine (about 2 lbs of salt in 2 gal of cold water) after butchering it — 3AM on Thursday through about 4PM on Saturday — injected it with the butter/maple sauce, then smoked it for hours until it was cooked.

Magic Dust BBQ Seasoning

This is based on a recipe from Mike Mills — who owned a BBQ joint in Illinois — that I used with the turkey injection sauce.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup paprika
  • 1/4 cup salt
  • 1/4 cup maple sugar
  • 2 tbsp ground mustard seed
  • 1/4 c chili powder
  • 2 tbsp ground black pepper
  • ground hot pepper flakes to taste — about 1 Tbsp for me

I ground the mustard seed and black peppers in the mortar. My maple sugar had some hard lumps, so I tossed the mustard, pepper, and maple sugar into the mortar and broke up the chunks. Then I threw everything else in and ground it around a bit.

To ensure the whole spices were well ground, I passed the mixture through a flour sieve and returned anything that didn’t pass through the screen to the mortar to be ground again.

In the end, I had a nice powder (although it’s kind of salty!)

Another Pumpkin Pie

We grew a lot of pumpkins this year, so I was able to use fresh, homegrown pumpkin for the pie!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups pumpkin puree (really, really smooth — blender it a lot, push it through a screen to pull out fibers. I also let it sit in the fridge for a few days and dumped off the water that separated out)
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/3 cup maple sugar
  • 1 Tbsp cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2+ tsp ginger
  • 1/4+ tsp nutmeg
  • 1/8 tsp cloves
  • 1/8 tsp black pepper
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1/4 cup almond milk

Stir all of the stuff together — it should form a smooth custard. Bake at 375F for about an hour. I used my walnut pie crust (but with almonds instead of walnuts), so I had the crust covered for the entire baking time.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

I didn’t use this recipe for Thanksgiving this year, but it’s another one I keep meaning to write down online so I’m not digging out an old e-mail to myself!

Ingredients:

  • 3 Tbsp unsalted butter (room temp)
  • 1 c cream cheese (room temp)
  • 1/4 c maple syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp lemon juice

Using the stand mixer and whipping attachment — beat butter and cream cheese together until smooth and creamy.

Add in maple, vanilla, salt, and lemon. Beat for about 5 more minutes.

Walnut Cookie Crust

  • 1.5 cup pulverized walnut pieces (also works well with almonds)
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4t sea salt
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 2T sugar
  • 2 egg whites (or one whole egg)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put walnuts into a food processor and pulverize – not just powdered, some 1/8″ pieces should remain.

Measure 1.5 cups of pulverized walnuts. Combine with flour, salt, and sugar.

Melt butter. Using a fork, cut the melted butter into the dry ingredients. Add egg whites and cut together until evenly moist.

Press dough to the bottom of a pie or tart plate (can be lined with parchment – makes removing the pie a LOT easier). Cook for 15 minutes. Crust should be crunchy and brown.