Creamy Minestrone

 

 This is one of those recipes that came about as the result of a mistake. I was making a pot of minestrone that I had been craving all week, and at the same time had warmed a bagel that I had recently cut in half and was ready to slather with some chive and onion cream cheese spread.  I scooped out half of the container, and ended up flipping it right into the soup. The soup was hot, the cheese immediately started melting, ​and there was nothing I could do but stir it in. It’s wonderful!

Creamy Minestrone

1 T. extra virgin olive oil

1 clove garlic

2 bay leaves

3 Melissa’s shallots

2 carrots

2 ribs celery

1 medium zucchini

1 T. vegetable soup base

1 14.5-oz. can fire roasted diced tomatoes

1 15.5-oz. can cannellini beans, drained

1 15.5-oz. can kidney beans, drained

Pinch of sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 large handfuls of curly kale

½ c. ditalini pasta

½ 7.5-8-oz. container Chive and Onion Cream Cheese

 Peel and finely chop the garlic and shallots. Put a stockpot over medium-high heat and warm olive oil.

 Add the garlic and the bay leaves, followed by the shallots.

Trim and chop the carrots and celery into rough ¼” dice, adding to the pan as you go. Chop zucchini into ½” dice; add to the pan. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring regularly, or until softened and caramelized.

 Add the vegetable stock, tomatoes, beans, sea salt, and pepper.

Remove and finely chop any tough stalks from your greens, shred, and add to the pan and top with 4 c. of boiling water. Add the pasta, cover, and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the pasta is just cooked and the soup has thickened to your liking. Remove from heat, add cream cheese, and stir until melted and incorporated.

 Season the soup to perfection and serve.

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Portobello Mushroom Parmesan

 

The late Mr. O-P was quite the accomplished chef. He had a number of specialties — a couple of salmon dishes, his lasagna (that, I am not kidding, took him three days to make), and eggplant Parmesan. I can eat a lot of things, but eggplant is something I simply cannot abide. To me, it tastes like dirt. Not that I know what dirt tastes like, you understand, but eggplant tastes like what I imagine dirt would. Many of our friends would often request his eggplant Parmesan, and I went along with it, just surreptitiously scooting the eggplant out from beneath the “Parmesan” and devouring that like a fiend.

I recently spotted a recipe for Portobello Parmesan that really blew my skirt up, because, as you all know, I love portobello mushrooms.* This one I found on Instagram and is by Daniel Mancini. I have made my changes to this adding Italian seasoning, Italian breadcrumbs, and I think it’s excellent. I had it for breakfast this morning, and thought it was really good. It is also super simple to put together, so it would make an excellent lunch, or last minute meal on a day when you’re particularly busy.

Portobello Mushroom Parmesan

1 Melissa’s portobello mushroom
Extra-virgin olive oil
Fine salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ t. Melissa’s minced garlic
Your favorite marinara sauce (I used Rao), warmed
Sprinkle of Italian seasoning
Italian breadcrumbs
Hand shredded mozzarella cheese

 Preheat oven to 350° F.

Wash the portobello mushroom (or mushrooms, depending upon how many you’re going to use) remove the stem, and clean out all of the gills. Pat dry, and place open end down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat. Drizzle olive oil over the top, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and minced garlic, spreading it around to coat.

 Place into preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, invert, and fill the crevice(s) with marinara sauce, a sprinkling of Italian seasoning, a sprinkling of Italian breadcrumbs, and then mound mozzarella cheese over the top. At this point, I gave it yet another sprinkle of Italian breadcrumbs. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 15 minutes is hot and bubbly.

​*Portobello Mushroom Broth

Portobello Mushroom Soup

Portobello Onion Dip

Portobello Mushroom Sauce with Thyme

 

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Cheesy Spaghetti and Meatball Bake

 

This dish is a meatball and spaghetti lover’s dream. It is rich, and decadent, and flavorful. It’s filling, so one good-sized meatball per person is generally enough. The instructions appear a bit daunting, but this is really an easy dish to put together, and the entire thing can be on the table in under an hour if you stick with it. Make the meatballs while your water is boiling for the spaghetti; make the béchamel while your meatballs are baking, then it all goes together, and into the oven while you’re warming some Italian bread. It’s easy enough for every day, but good enough for company.

Cheesy Spaghetti and Meatball Bake

12 oz. spaghetti

1 24-oz. jar marinara sauce (I used Vincent’s)

 Meatballs:

1 lb. ground beef

1 extra-large egg

½ c. Italian breadcrumbs

1 T. minced onion

1 t. onion salt

½ t. dried oregano

½ t. dried thyme

½ t. freshly ground black pepper

1 heaping T. ketchup

Pinch of cayenne pepper

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

 Sauce:

2 c. whole milk

3T. butter

2 T. flour

1/8 t. freshly ground nutmeg

¼ t. kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

 Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and prepare pasta according to the package directions for al dente, about 8 to 12 minutes. Drain the spaghetti and toss it with half of the marinara sauce; set aside.

 While the pasta is cooking, make the meatballs. Crack the egg into a large mixing bowl and whisk until blended. Add the meat, breaking it apart as you add it to the bowl. Add the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the tomato sauce and the mozzarella cheese. Mix to combine everything well, using your fingertips. Don't compact the meat, and don't over mix.

 Scoop out the meat into approximately 12 balls (I used a small ice cream scoop.) and roll the balls into nice rounds with your hands.

 Place the meatballs on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.

 While meatballs are baking, melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook, stirring constantly, until roux is golden, smooth, and paste-like, 5-7 minutes.

While continuing to whisk, stir in whole milk. Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 10 minutes, or until thickened. Stir in salt and nutmeg.

Remove the skillet again and top with the cheese. Return to the oven to melt the cheese, 2-3 minutes.

Spread a spoonful of the remaining marinara sauce into a 1.5-quart baking dish. Add the marinara-tossed spaghetti and top it with the meatballs. Top the meatballs with the remaining marinara, drizzle the béchamel sauce on top, and sprinkle the top with the mozzarella.

Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake it until the cheese is melted and the meatballs register 165 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the foil for the last 5 minutes of cook time to brown the top of the mozzarella.

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Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce

Earlier in the month I gave you a copycat recipe for Olive Garden’s salad dressing. Now, so that you can create an entire meal from Olive Garden, here is a copycat of their Alfredo sauce. This goes together in a hurry, and, if you put your pasta water on to boil when you start making the sauce, you will have dinner on the table in 30 minutes.

Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce

A seen on theslowroasteditalian.com

 1 c. half and half

½ T. unsalted butter

½ t. garlic powder

¼ c. fresh shredded Parmesan cheese

¼ c. fresh shredded Romano cheese

¼ t. kosher salt

¼ t. fresh ground black pepper, or white

Whisk together butter, garlic, and half & half in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer (do not boil); remove from heat.

Stir in cheese, a handful at a time. Gently stir until the cheese melts before adding the next handful.

 Return pan to burner over medium heat. Season sauce with salt and pepper. Stir until cheese sauce is smooth and the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

 Remove from heat and allow sauce to cool for 5 minutes. Alfredo sauce will thicken even more as it cools.

 Serves 2.

Breakfast Bruschetta

 Breakfast can be boring. It can be pretty dull having the same thing every morning, particularly when that thing, such as toast or cereal, is not particularly interesting. If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then we should be serving something nutritious and delicious that invites us to indulge and enjoy. I prefer to start my day savory rather than sweet, was in a bit of an Italian mood, and came up with this. Wonderful!

Breakfast Bruschetta

8 (1" thick) slices of French bread

5 T.butter, softened

3 handfuls fresh baby spinach

4 large eggs

1/4 c. whole milk

1/8 t. Montreal steak seasoning

1/8 t. instant minced onions

1 c. diced tomatoes

½ c. shredded cheddar

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Spread 2 tablespoons of the butter on top of each slice of French bread. Arrange the bread slices on a baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes, then flip them and bake an additional 3 to 5 minutes until toasted. Remove the bread from the oven; set aside. Change oven setting to broil.

While bread is baking, sauté spinach in one tablespoon of butter. When wilted and heated through, remove with tongs, and mound evenly on each slice.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, steak seasoning, and dried minced onions. In the same pan in which you cooked the spinach, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Pour in egg mixture, and cook, stirring as needed, until scrambled to your liking. Mound scrambled eggs on top of the spinach. Sprinkle chopped tomatoes and grated cheese over all. Top each with a sprinkle of salt and grating of ground black pepper. Broil until the cheese has melted. Serve immediately.

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Tiramisu Ice Cream

 

Okay, this is absolutely the last recipe that I am going to share from Gaby Dalkin’s new cookbook, What’s Gaby Cooking: Take It Easy, I mean it! You are just going to have to buy the book yourself. You will not be sorry; it is loaded with wonderful recipes. This one is positively dreamy. For those of you who want the flavor, but not the trouble of making tiramisu, this is your answer. It is decadent! Rich and creamy and smooth, and absolutely wonderful. I topped mine with chocolate covered espresso beans from Melissa’s Produce. You might do the same. You might also consider drizzling a little coffee liqueur over the top for true tiramisu authenticity. Try this one, you won’t be sorry.

Tiramisu Ice Cream

For the ice cream base:
1 c. mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2 t. espresso powder
2 t. vanilla extract
Pinch kosher salt
2 c. heavy cream, cold

For the Mix-Ins:
½ c. crushed Ladyfinger cookies
¼ c. mini chocolate chips
4 T. Dutch process cocoa powder

Put a 9 x 5” loaf pan into the freezer.

To make the ice cream base: combine the mascarpone cheese, sweetened condensed milk, espresso powder, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Stir to combine.

In a medium bowl, whip the heavy cream with a hand mixer on medium-high speed until firm peaks form. Fold in the mascarpone mixture with the whipped cream until well blended. Pour the mixture into the chilled pan and freeze, covered, until it’s almost set, about two hours.

To add the Mix-Ins: remove the mascarpone mixture from the freezer and swirl in the crushed ladyfingers, mini chocolate chips, and cocoa powder with a spoon. Return to the freezer until solid, 4 to 5 hours. Serve as needed.

Serves 6 to 8

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 Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of What’s Gaby Cooking: Take It Easy from Abrams Books as a participant in their Abrams Dinner Party Program for 2022-2023.

Slow Cooker Arrabbiata Sauce

If you’re unfamiliar with Arrabiata sauce, let me tell you that the only difference between marinara sauce and Arrabiata sauce is heat; the latter employs the use of red pepper flakes. While many Arrabiata sauces are vegetarian, I like to add meat to mine because it makes it extra hearty and delicious.

This is a great slow cooker recipe because other than browning the meat (if you use it) everything just gets tossed into the slow cooker and hangs out all day long making your home smell like your favorite Italian restaurant. Use this in the same way that you would marinara sauce. It makes a lot, so be sure to store some in the freezer for future use.

Slow Cooker Arrabiata Sauce

1 lb. ground beef

½ t. Montreal Steak Seasoning

28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

28 oz. diced tomatoes, do not drain

6 oz. can tomato paste

2 T. brown sugar

½ c. diced white onion

2 garlic cloves minced

1½ T. Italian Seasoning

1 t. sea salt

¼ t. freshly ground black pepper

¼ - ½ t. red pepper flakes

 In a 10-inch skillet over medium/high heat, brown beef, crumbling as you go. Stir in steak seasoning. Drain fat on paper towel-lined plate. Place in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add remaining ingredients, and stir to combine. Cook on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low 7 to 8 hours. Serve over your favorite pasta.

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Slow Cooker Pasta Sauce (That Your Italian Grandmother Would Love)

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 I feel fairly confident that you have never had a spaghetti sauce made quite like this before. Here’s what happened: I had a craving for meatloaf, so I pulled out a favorite recipe and made one. It was very tasty and I enjoyed it for a couple of days, and then, quite frankly, I’d had enough. I thought about cutting it into slices, wrapping each slice in plastic wrap, putting those slices into a gallon Ziploc freezer bag, and putting them into freezer, but as I have no doubt mentioned to you in the past, it is like playing a game of freezer Jenga every time I attempt to add something new. My goal is to take things out of the freezer, not to put things in. That freezer, that wonderful, magnificent freezer, that I bought in 1979 is still (knock on wood) working. That was back in the day when appliances were worth the money you paid for them. I was freshly out of college, living on my own, and that was one of my first major purchases. Sure, other college kids were buying furniture, I figured that I could sit on the floor, a freezer was what I wanted. But, as freezers tended to be back in the day, it wasn’t frost-free. Defrosting that freezer is something that I have not done since I moved into this house nine years ago. Now do you understand why it looks like the Arctic north? But I digress.

Where am I going with this, you ask yourself, well, I’ll tell you. I went from craving meatloaf to craving a good spaghetti sauce. I had Italian sausage that I could use and indeed, I had a couple of pounds of frozen ground chuck, but as I looked at that meatloaf from the other day, I thought, why not just cut it up into tiny little cubes and use it in the meat sauce, so I did. It was excellent! Because there was so much flavor in the meatloaf itself, I think that imparted an additional flavoring into the sauce. Now, all of this said, I’m not suggesting that you make a meatloaf and cut it up. Go ahead and, as listed in the recipe below, use ground chuck. This is a good sauce whether you make it the way I did with the meatloaf or not, but keep in mind that leftovers have many uses. More than you might think. Be creative. Always.

 

Slow Cooker Pasta Sauce

(That Your Italian Grandmother Would Love)

1 lb. sweet or spicy* Italian sausage, sliced 
1 lb. ground chuck

2 Melissa’s shallots, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c. minced fresh parsley

1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 14.5 oz. can tomato sauce

2 6-oz. cans tomato paste

½ c. red wine**

2 T. sugar

1½ t. dried basil

½ t. fennel seed

1 t. Italian seasoning 

1 bay leaf

½ t. oregano

½ t. salt

¼ t. freshly ground black pepper

½ t. Montreal steak seasoning

 

In a 10- to 12-inch sauté pan over medium heat, cook sausage and beef until browned; drain on paper-towel-lined plate. Once drained, add it, and the rest of the ingredients to a 6-quart crockpot, give it a mighty stir, and cook on high for four hours.

 Mangia!

 *I like food with a bit of zing, so I used spicy sausage, use what your family likes.

**If you don’t have red wine, use coffee or beef stock. In the name of all things holy, do NOT use water! Water has no taste. It will add nothing to your delicious homemade sauce.

 

 

Zucchini Porcini Lasagna

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I have tried to grow zucchini all of my life, and have never had any luck doing so. It’s probably because of this that I am obsessed with it. I absolutely love zucchini — roasted, baked, used in breads, you name it. The other day I was rummaging around the web looking for a new way in which to use one of my favorite vegetables when I came across a recipe for Zucchini Parmesan. Naturally, I had to try it, and knew I could make it so much better by adding more of the woodsy taste that I love in all vegetarian dishes attained through the use of wild mushrooms. Here is the result.

This is so good! I can’t believe how fast I wolfed it down. Using the best ingredients makes a difference and I must confess to using Fresh Tomato Marinara Sauce when putting this together. I had just harvested the last of my tomatoes and decided to put them to good use. It took the entire recipe of that marinara to make this casserole, but it was well worth it. I think this is one of the best, layered Italian dishes I have ever eaten, and between you me, it kicks Egg Plant Parmesan to the curb.

Zucchini Porcini Lasagna

1 3-oz. pkg. Melissa’s dried porcini mushrooms
2 medium zucchini, horizontally, thinly sliced*
Garlic salt and black pepper to taste
1 16-oz. jar marinara sauce**
½ c. Parmesan cheese
2/3 c. ricotta cheese
1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

Hydrate mushrooms according to package directions; chop and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray an 8” x 8” baking dish with PAM; set aside.

Season both sides of zucchini slices with garlic salt and pepper. Put a small amount of butter into a 10- or 12-inch sauté pan and, over medium high heat, cook the zucchini slices until lightly browned, 2 to 3 minutes per side.

Spread 1/2-cup marinara sauce in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Layer zucchini slices, overlapping slightly on top of the marinara. Top with half of the chopped porcini mushrooms. Spread 1/2-cup marinara sauce over zucchini and porcini layer, top with half of the ricotta cheese, half of the Parmesan cheese, and half of the mozzarella cheese.

Make another zucchini layer, top with remaining porcinis, remaining marinara, remaining Parmesan, remaining ricotta, and remaining mozzarella.

Bake until cheese is melted, 15 to 20 minutes. Allowed to set for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

*I used a mandolin.
**I used homemade.

Meatball Nirvana

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On March 9^th we celebrated National Meatball Day, wherein I provided you with links to a lot of varied and delicious meatball recipes. That day I decided to try a new recipe, and I think it is probably my favorite overall. I made good-sized meatballs so that I could enjoy them with either my homemade marinara sauce or with homemade gravy. While they have a definite Italian bent, the beauty of these meatballs is that they go well with either treatment. They are tender, flavorful, and spicy, but not so spicy has to be off-putting by people who don’t care for too much heat. We’re all home this week, and for a number of weeks in the future I reckon, so experiment with some recipes. My guess is that you have all of these ingredients on hand, so try them. If not, thank goodness for Amazon!

Meatball Nirvana

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

1 lb. ground chuck

½ t. sea salt

1 Melissa’s shallot, diced

¼ c. finely chopped fresh mushrooms

½ t. garlic salt

1 ½ t. Italian seasoning

¾ t. dried oregano

¾ t. crushed red pepper flakes

2 drops Frank’s hot pepper sauce, or to taste

1 ½ T. Worcestershire sauce

1/3 c. milk

¼ c. Parmesan cheese

½ c. Italian breadcrumbs

Preheat an oven to 400ºF.

Place the beef into a mixing bowl, and season with salt, shallot, mushrooms, garlic salt, Italian seasoning, oregano, red pepper flakes, hot pepper sauce, and Worcestershire sauce; mix well. Add the milk, Parmesan cheese, and breadcrumbs. Mix until evenly blended, form into 1½” meatballs, and place onto a baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven until no longer pink in the center, 20 to 25 minutes.