Three-meat, two cheese lasagna

There’s something comforting about a delicious lasagna that makes me happy on all levels. It’s saucy, cheesy, and just a little spicy. It hits all culinary levels of satisfaction, and leaves me perfectly sated.

Don't you just want to eat all the cheese?

Lasagna also happens to be a favorite of my husband, who is the most meat-and-cheese focused man you’ll ever meet. If I am ever in trouble, you can bet that this will be the dish that I make him so that he forgives and forgets (Mostly he’d forget because he’s so busy eating).

I’ve adapted this recipe from my mother’s own, removing the ricotta for preference. Of COURSE you can add ricotta mixed with eggs. Of COURSE you can add spinach, fresh mushrooms, or other veggies of choice. However, for sake of beauty and simplicity, I present to you my most basic three-meat, two cheese lasagna.

Andrea’s three-meat, two cheese lasagna.

Approximately 12 servings

1 pound hot Italian sausage 

1 ½ pounds lean ground beef

50 slices of pepperoni

½ cup cubed yellow onion

3-4 roma tomatoes

½ cup water

2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste

2 (6.5 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce

3 teaspoons Italian seasoning

sea salt

ground black pepper

seasoning salt

red pepper flakes to taste

10-12 lasagna noodles

16 ounces mozarella cheese

 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon cooking oil

•  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
• Cube your tomatoes and onions. In the pot you’re planning to cook your sauce, sauté your onion and tomato at a medium heat, seasoning them with your Italian seasoning. Cook until the onion becomes tender. This lends a great flavor to your sauce.
• Add your water, tomato paste, and tomato sauce to your pot, and set it at low to simmer while your meat cooks.

Leave it boiling as you prep your other ingredients. 

• Cook your ground beef at a medium heat, seasoning it with seasoned salt, salt and pepper to taste. Allow it to cook completely, then drain the grease.
• Remove casing from hot Italian sausage, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon as it browns. Make sure that the sausage cooks completely.

• Slice pepperoni slices into halves, drizzling them into sauce. 

• Add sausage and ground beef as well, stirring well. At this point, taste your sauce. If it’s too sweet, add some more seasoned salt or salt to your sauce, stirring it and tasting again. I also like to add ½ teaspoon to a full teaspoon of red peppers to the sauce. Leave it on low.

Thick and beefy, the way I like my... sauce.

• Now it’s time for noodles. Bring water to a boil in another pot, and add salt. Place noodles in the water and cook until al dente.

• While the noodles boil, begin shredding your cheese. If you’re cool, you’ll use this activity as a way to work out your forearms.

My arms are SO buff. 

• Once the noodles are ready, begin layering your lasagna. Begin with a thin layer of sauce, followed by lasagna noodles. Make sure to overlap noodles. Cover noodles with a heavy layer of mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Repeat layering process until you have reached the top of your pan. Sprinkle the top liberally with mozzarella.
  

Sauce to die over. 

Noodles.

The more cheese you add, the more flavor. 

• Cover your lasagna with foil and place in the oven for 20 minutes. At the end of the 20 minutes, remove the foil and leave in the oven for another 10 to allow for the cheese to brown.
  

• Serve after ten minutes, allowing for the lasagna to set. If you don’t mind soupy lasagna, dig in!

We may have gotten over-excited and over-eaten.

Beautiful Buttermilk Pancakes

I love breakfast. I love going to breakfast. I love being woken up to breakfast. I love making breakfast. Needless to say, it's about time I focused on something that I loved: breakfast. 

One of the things that I particularly enjoy to consume and create are pancakes. There's something beautiful about a simple, fluffy pancake. It can be wrapped around a sausage, or it can be enjoyed with its brethren in a stack. For years, I'd been using a simple, cheater's version of pancakes that my mom used from Bisquick. However, I decided to go a little bigger and better with my cooking. I received Two Dudes, One Pan from my husband for Christmas this year, and was determined to make their buttermilk pancakes. 

Buttermilk beauties

They are, simply put, some of the best pancakes I have ever eaten. I ate two pancakes while trying to cook a stack, and then sat down and ate some more with a side of bacon and hot coffee. I'm actually excited to eat them again tomorrow for breakfast. 

Buttermilk Pancakes

yields approximately 12 pancakes

3 cups buttermilk

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Canola oil, as needed

• Whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, and half of the melted butter in a medium bowl

Don't mind the bacon in the corner

• Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon until only a few dry patches remain. Mix in the rest of the melted butter until only a few dry spots remain. The batter will be lumpy (don't worry, it's the buttermilk's fault). 

Take your lumps 

• Brush a nonstick pan or skillet with oil and set it over medium heat for 1 minute.
• Brush the pan with a little more oil and ad 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. (If you are using a griddle and cooking several pancakes together, leave about 1 1/2 inches between each pancake.)

• Cook until each pancake's surface bubbles and the edges are dry, approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
• Flip the pancake over and cook until the other side is browned, 2 to 3 minutes. 

I love the color.

• Place pancake on a platter and set aside while you cooke the remaining batter. (You may need to re-brush your pan with more oil.)
• Serve the pancakes immediately with maple syrup or fruit topping.

I had more pancakes to photograph, but I ate them. 

Enjoy! 

Quick blueberry biscuits... in under 30 minutes!

We had a dinner party go bust today. Matt was going to have a friend over, and I was supposed to cook a beautiful meal for all of us to enjoy. But… then Matt had to work late. I had a headache. We were both tired. It was downhill from there.

I felt badly that I wasn’t going to make something, so I looked online for something sweet and simple that I could put together quickly. I had a small basket of blueberries, and had a hankering for something comforting. I found this recipe on Plain Chicken, and the biscuits were heavenly.

Quick blueberry biscuits

Approx. 14 biscquits

2 1/4 cups Bisquick

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup wild blueberries

3/4 - 1 cup buttermilk (I used fat-free)

• Preheat oven to 450.

• Stir together bisquick, sugar and buttermilk until soft dough forms. Fold in blueberries. 

Your dough will be wet.

Be careful to not over-mix the blueberries!

• Scoop dough with large cookie scoop or ice cream scoop (3 tablespoons) onto ungreased cookie sheet. 

• Bake 9-12 minutes or until golden brown.

If this isn’t enough sweet for you (it was for me), add an icing to the biscuit.

You’ll need:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 to 2 Tablespoons milk

Combine powdered sugar and milk. Drizzle over biscuits.

Really Good (and Real) Spanish Rice

Is there anyone who doesn't love side dishes? Sometimes I wonder why people don't immediately serve huge portions of sides. I firmly believe that a good side could easily be made into a main dish. 

That's how I feel about my Spanish rice. It's got a lot of flavor packed into a small grain. 

Doesn't this enchilada plate look so much better with rice?

That said, it's also pretty easy to make. If you end up with leftovers, do what I do: put some cheddar on the rice, add sour cream, salsa and go to town.

Really Good (and real) Spanish Rice

1 cup long grain rice

1/8 cup chopped white onion

1 roma tomato, diced

2 1/4 cup water **chicken stock may be substituted for up to 1 1/2 cups of water 

3-4 tablespoons chicken bouillon, to taste

2 tablespoons cooking oil

• In a pot, begin browning your onion and your oil to cook on medium high heat. 

• Once your onion becomes aromatic (approximately 4-5 minutes), mix in the rice. Stir your rice every 3-4 minutes, allowing your rice to be coated in oil. Your rice should become toasted and begin browning.

Your rice should be a beautiful color, and  your kitchen will smell like heaven.

• Once your rice has reached a light brown color, carefully pour in water or stock. **Be careful not to burn yourself with the steam that comes up the moment the water makes contact with the pot.
• Stir in the tomato, and add chicken bouillon a tablespoon at a time, stirring with each addition. Once the broth has reached the right level of flavor, cover the mixture.

• Once the water comes to a boil, lower the heat to the lowest setting. Allow the rice to continue cooking for approximately 12-15 minutes. The rice should be soft, with no water left in the pot.

Do not lower  your heat until the rice bubbles, like so.

• Immediately remove from heat and serve.  Enjoy!

Don't you just want to grab a spoon and go to town?

Sautéed Chicken in Worcestershire

I was tired tonight. It’s the middle of the week, and one of the other teachers at my itty bitty private school called out, so we were stretched thin. So when I got home, I knocked out on the couch immediately.

I was woken up by hunger pangs, and realized it was already late. I really didn’t want to spend hours cooking, overeat, and then stay up late again. I needed something fast.

I went online to find something I could make in under an hour, and that wouldn’t taste greasy. I found this recipe online on Epicurious, and was willing to give it a shot. It cooks under 45 minutes (!), and had relatively few ingredients. Turns out, this is tasty, and we didn’t feel bogged down by a heavy dinner. I’ll definitely make this again.

I wolfed this down with two helpings of my succotash.

Quick Zucchini and Corn Succotash

I tend to compulsively buy vegetables without a plan for them. I figure, at some point I’ll eat them, since we’re all eating vegetables every day, right?

Well, what ends up happening is that most of my favorite veggies get consumed immediately, with only a few stragglers left behind because they were bought in bulk. I had some extra zucchini that was going to go bad if I didn’t do something with it immediately, so I scrambled to find something yummy and filling. I found this recipe on Stamps Postings, and gave it a try.

Veggies. So much better than pizza.

I love succotash, and felt that pairing up my zucchini with something spicy and sweet would be the best way to make it disappear. I was right. This makes a great side to chicken, or even a snack. Have fun with it!

Andrea's Almost-all-the-way Authentic Green Chicken Enchiladas

I grew up around great cooks. It all started with my grandma, who loved making us feel at home by stuffing us to the brim with some of the best Mexican food known to humanity. No one could make Mexican food like my grandma, which made it hard to ever go to Mexican restaurants. My mom and aunt followed suit, and are amazing cooks in their own right. Growing up in Southern California, both of them were exposed to different styles of cooking, like Italian, Asian and American. Because of this, I am used to gobbling up home-style cuisine from all over. Now, I'm going to share some secrets of that amazing cooking with you.

Now, before we start, it's important to mention the following about Mexican cooking: no two women will EVER make it the same. Aside from the different region styles of cooking, each family has a "secret" recipe trick that they guard carefully, sharing only with the other women of their family. Heck, even some daughters-in-law miss out on the awesome flavors.

Second, most of these recipes are learned by watching; exact numbers are almost never written down. You have to do it "por ojo," or to taste. This leads to highly individualized flavors. With that been said, this will be highly reflected in most of my original cooking recipes.

With that all said... on to the enchilada!

Ay, que enchilada!

A good enchilada will always be followed by one thing: seconds. They're gooey. They're spicy. They're hearty. I combine mine with Spanish rice, sour cream, and an empty stomach. There are far more complex ways to make enchiladas, and you can make your own tomatillo sauce, but this is a recipe that my mom taught me to make when I'm dying for good Mexican food but don't have hours to sit and stew tomatillos, garlic, and peppers.

Andrea's Almost-Authentic Green Chicken Enchiladas

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves **I prefer dark meat, so I swapped out the breast for 8 thighs
18 (6 inch) corn tortillas, torn in half
1 (28 ounce) can green chile enchilada sauce
1 (7 ounce) can salsa verde
1 (16 ounce) package shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1/2 small onion

1/2 cup chicken broth
Season salt to taste
Salt to taste
Garlic salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Cajun seasoning to taste

6-8 tablespoons canola oil

1 small container of sour cream for topping

You should be able to see flecks of pepper. Taste the chicken, love it.

1. Set your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Boil your chicken in a pot, completely covered. This will take approximately 25 minutes. You want your chicken to fall apart easily, as you'll be shredding it. Pull your chicken out of the pot, and set aside the chicken's broth for the enchilada sauce.
3. Pull apart your chicken into large chunks, and once they have cooled, season your chicken with garlic salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. This allows for flavor throughout your enchilada.

You can choose spicier sauces, if you dare.

4. Once your chicken has been seasoned, take your two green sauces and the 1/3 cup of chicken broth and put them in a large sauce pan, putting them to simmer down. Stir occasionally. 

**Remember, these sauces, while fine the way they are out of the can, are very basic. If you want more of an authentic flavor, throw in a dry habanero pepper, as well as salt, garlic salt and season salt to get rid of the canned taste. Allow your sauce to simmer on low. It will stay on low for the remainder of your enchilada prep time.

So saucy.

5. As your sauce simmers, shred your cheese and cut your onions. These will be part of your stuffing, along with the chicken. To make enchilada assembly easier, I strongly suggest having all of your stuffing nearby, with the casserole dish that you will place your enchiladas on nearby. You'll be moving quickly, and you need to make sure that you aren't wasting time scrambling for parts of your enchiladas.

6. Pour canola oil into a frying pan, leaving it at medium high. This should be right next to your green enchilada sauce, which should still be simmering. 

Be careful when working with hot oil.

7. Once the oil is hot enough to fry, place one tortilla in the oil, flipping it to cover both sides in oil for approximately 5-8 seconds. 

8. Immediately move the tortilla to the green sauce, coating both sides heavily with sauce. Be careful to use a wide spoon or spatula, as you don't want to have the tortilla tear. **Make sure that you use a different cooking utensil for flipping your tortilla in the oil and coating the sauce. Otherwise, the oil will splatter. 

Pick up the tortilla from the middle.
It allows for less tears.

9. Place tortilla onto a plate for enchilada assembly. Sprinkle onion, cheese and chicken onto the tortilla, then roll it onto a casserole dish. This will be a little messy, so be prepared to catch drippings from the sauce.

I won't judge you if you lick your fingers while assembling.

10. Once you have all of your enchiladas rolled, place more cheese and sauce onto the enchiladas. 

Though tempting, don't eat these before putting them in the oven!

11. Place enchiladas into the oven for 20 minutes. The cheese on top should be completely melted. and the sauce on top of the enchiladas should be thickened.

12. Serve immediately, with a dollop of sour cream on top of the enchiladas. Add to the flavor with some Spanish rice, and watch just how quickly these enchiladas disappear!

You know it's good when you're dying for seconds while still eating the first serving.