To Start July Off Right

Mushroom Ricotta Orzo !

Baked :)

Bad news: I ate it too quickly to take a photo.


The beauty of going home for the weekend is that I have no choice but to use up goods before I leave.

Boil somewhere from 1/2 to 1 cup of whole wheat orzo for 8ish minutes (al dente). Simultaneously, chop up about 3 cups of mushrooms into little uneven bits, and add them to a frying pan which already has some minced garlic (I used 5-7 cloves) fusing with some olive oil. I let it brown the slightest bit before adding the mushrooms. Oh right! The mushrooms had some fresh thyme in them, and while they were on the frying pan, I added salt, pepper, and half a lemon's-worth of juice. You let that stew in it's juices for a while (10 minutes? Maybe less. Until you get impatient. At that point you scoop half of the mushroom mixture into an oven dish (8 inches by 4 inches, somewhere there). Pile the orzo on top of that. Spread 1/2 pound lowfat ricotta over that (this was VERY difficult. Fingers were involved). Then top it off with the rest of the mushroom. Pop it in the 400F oven, take it out when your house smells good. Gahhhrlic. Have I already recounted my tale of the visit to the Garlic Shoppe? Awful. Don't ever, and I mean EVER, put garlic ice cream in your mouth. Not worth it. The taste will not leave. Noo it's back. Sorry, I have to leave and go ingest antigarlic now. And also check on the oven.


TL;DR put shit in the oven, don't follow my recipes unless you want to get lost.

-Anna

Remembering our Fs: Frittata!

We made a pledge in the beginning to make F foods and this is our first frittata! It has eggs, ricotta, mint, garlic, and I added some mushrooms just for texture. I used this guy.

To be honest I think he could have benefited from some Parmesan, but who knows. Also better cold strangely.



-Amanda

Forgotten Pizza

We made this a while ago, hopefully Anna will post the quinoa cakes since I didn't get any shots of them. This pizza has a harrowing past. First it was supposed to be grounded by some whole wheat pita bread.
Unfortunately the pita bread had mold on it. We went to Trader Joes though and per Anna's suggestion got whole wheat lavash instead. It turned out a lot better than I think the pita would have--so thin and crispy.

Also originally this was going to be based on a healthy living sort of Martha Stewart recipe of asiago cheese, ricotta, red onion, and mushrooms, a top some sort of whole wheat flat bread. Instead we decided to use leftover spanakopiropita (we've been wrong all this time apparently, spanakopita is just spinach and no feta; however this had ricotta and not feta, so I'm not 100% sure, but anyway) filling. We still grated some of the asiago cheese on top and put a few sliced mushrooms too.



So good. I really want to make this again. Maybe this on a warm summer night?

-Amanda

Boy Bait: Conquering Phyllo

Spinach Dill Pie/Make-shift Spanakopita



I made Martha Stewart's "quick spanakopita" last week. That was quick, and this one may take the same time or longer. This is also Martha Stewart actually. I'm not sure what that says about me that all my spanakopita recipes are coming from her. Anyway, I think I like this recipe better:

a) it uses ricotta instead of feta
b) It takes a shorter time to prepare the filling.
c) It uses cumin!
d) Less oil/butter.
e) I learned you can just spray the phyllo sheets with cooking spray so you don't have to melt better and pat it on with your hands!

Also, I had a lot of filling leftover with this, so Anna and I made a pizza with it, mmm, that will be posted soon. And another thing, Instead of using whole 12 by 17 inch sheets of phyllo, or whatever the dimensions are for a full sheet, I used a pizza slicer and cut them in half. AND instead of putting all eight on the bottom, I think I put three on the bottom and three on the top.

You always want a crunchy top.


Is this too tight for you? That's right, I hope you're reading this foodgawker.

It's the summer; you could listen to this while you eat it outside.

-Amanda

It's okay to peek soufflé

I've made it my goal to conquer soufflés as of recently. Not glitzy dessert soufflés, but fluffy savory vegetable ones. My friend Gigi came over on Friday--I told her I would make her a spinach soufflé. Well she ended up making it to tell the truth or at least guiding and coaching me the whole way a long. For the spinach soufflé you need to make a roux first, a mixture of flour and butter or margarine. If I had heeded the directions for the recipe maybe things would have gone over better, but Gigi pointed out some things that the recipe didn't specify that ended up helping quite a bit.
1) You should have equal amounts of butter and flour. (The recipe said 2 TBS butter and 1/4 c. flour, but after my mess of lumps that happened the first time, I lessened it to 2 TBS flour as per Gigi's suggestion.)
2) You're supposed to whisk constantly as the flour and butter are melting to avoid lumps. It's alright if you can't find a hand held whisk, but make sure you really do stir constantly. Your wrist needs to be panting by the time you're down.
3) After you have a roux, you turn it into a white sauce by adding milk. The recipe didn't specify this, but Gigi pointed out that it's important to heat the milk up a bit before you add it to the melted butter and flour in order to prevent lumps. I put the 3/4 c. of skim milk in a mug in the microwave for about a minute.
And that's how the first soufflé was born.

This second recipe doesn't actually call for a white sauce, but I will be revisiting another white sauce soufflé recipe soon --have your wrists ready.
Getting to the yams... Gigi came over again last night when I was making a Yam, Leek, and Ricotta Soufflé. I roughly adapted the recipe from
here
.



Yam, Leek, and Ricotta Soufflé

3 medium sized yams

1 leek (with the gross dark green stems removed, rinsed to take off all the gunk, and thinly sliced)

4 TBS margarine (separated into two parts of 2 TBS each)

1 c. fat-free ricotta (I've only found this at Whole Foods)

3 egg yolks (next time I'll try it with 2)

4 egg whites (make sure no yolk gets in, you need peaks!)

Kosher Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. First you need to roast your yams. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Wash and scrub the yams and pierce them all over to allow steam to escape at they bake. Line a baking sheet with foil to prevent a mess and bake the yams for about 50 minutes. Let them cool 5-10 minutes or so and carefully (you can really burn yourself) remove the skins and put the yam pulp in a medium sized mixing bowl. Mash them up with a potato masher and take out any remaining strains of skin.

2. Change the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Heat 2 TBS of the margarine in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the sliced leeks and sauté until they fragrance. Gigi sautéed these leeks; she did a really good job making sure they were glistening and tender. Set the leeks aside.

3. Take the four egg whites and put them in a mixer bowl. Whisk them until peaks form; these should be pretty adamant peaks.

4. In the bowl with the yams, add the ricotta, egg yolks, the other 2 TBS of margarine, and salt and pepper to taste. Mash it up as much as you can, get your aggression out and such. Stir in the leeks. Then fold in the egg whites. Yam and clouds yum. Once there's no more cloud, but it into a butter/sprayed 8 by 8 inch glass pan. Bake for an hour. Check at 45 minutes to see if it's done.



Gigi doesn't even like yams or sweet potatoes and she liked this, so you should at least try it too. And like the post title says if you have to open the oven to take other things out, or put other things in, in the meantime you'll be fine.