Three Cheese Spaghetti Squash Casserole

I love spaghetti squash.  I love italian food.  So when I saw this recipe I knew I had to try it!

I cooked the spaghetti squash in the microwave. 

The recipe said not to handle it for 10 minutes after I cooked it in the microwave for 12 minutes.  So I cooked this, set it aside, tidied up the kitchen, and then started the rest of the recipe.  I thought that would be plenty of time but it was still too hot to hold!

I could only find little zucchini's at the store so I used four little ones, instead of 2. 

After just a few minutes of cooking with the garlic and nothing else, the zucchini softened nicely and brightened up.

While the zucchini cooked I measured out the cheese blend, ricotta, parmesan, dried oregano & fresh basil - yum!

Once the zucchini was done I mixed it in with the cheese mix.

 



After all of that I started on the spaghetti squash.  As I mentioned it was still too hot to handle for very long.  But by bracing it against the edge of the pan I was able to get the flesh out.

I didn't get as much out as I could have but it was hot!  Given that the recipe didn't specify a baking dish size but it said that it was only 6 servings I figured a 8x11" pan would be big enough.

I salted the spaghetti squash pretty heavily after putting it in the pan. Then I mixed it up and smoothed it out again.  Next I topped it with the cheese/zucchini mix, dumped the spaghetti sauce on it and topped it with some sliced mozzeralla cheese.

At this point I was wishing I'd used a 9x13" pan.  Instead I just put some aluminum foil under the dish so when it bubbled over (which it did) it didn't make a mess in my oven.

Thirty minutes later it was done.

I liked the flavor but the dish was pretty soupy.  I don't know if I'd put it in a 13x9 if more of the marinara sauce would have thickened up more.  But if/when I make this again I'll use a 13x9" pan and I'll replace the sliced cheese with grated cheese.

Like I said - it's soupy, but really tasty.  I also think it didn't need as much marinara sauce either, so I might use less than a can next time, as well.

Cheesy Mashed Cauliflower

This recipe was pretty quick and tasty.  It almost tasted like mashed potatoes too! 

I cut the cauliflower into small florets and dumped it all in a pot, covered it with water and put it on the stove to boil. 

While the cauliflower was cooking I prepped the rest of the ingredients - butter, cream cheese, parmesan cheese & minced garlic.

Once the cauliflower was nice a tender I drained it and combined all the ingredients, except the parmesan cheese.

I mashed it all together with a hand held potato masher.  Then I added the parmesan cheese.

Then I got out the stick blender and mixed them up until they were pretty smooth.  It took a little while but I got them nice and smooth.

If I ever figure out how to take a picture one-handed maybe I can get clear picture....

Jonathan was out of town this week so I eat this with some cheddar cheese and diced up meat (chicken, etc) all week.  It's pretty tasty.  But I did have to add a lot more salt than I expected to give it a good flavor.  It's certainly a side dish that I'll make again!

It makes six servings so plenty for dinner and some leftovers.

Bake 52 Rewind - Lunchbox Brownies

This is the lastest Bake 52 recipe that I did.  You can find the complete recipe here.  The recipe is the Peanut Butter Swirl version.  I just made the regular version, which is exactly the same, just skip swirling peanut butter into the batter. 

The "regular" version has an option for sprinkling chopped pecans or walnuts on top of the batter before baking.  I decided to substitute the nuts for chocolate chips.  If you aren't a huge chocolate fan like me I'd skip the chocolate chips... These brownies are very, very rich!!  Yum.

My pictures didn't turn out very well, but you'll get the idea. 

I chopped up the chocolate, weighed out the butter.

Then I melted the butter and chocolate in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds.  It took about an minute and half. 

I set it aside to cool while I measured out the flour, soda & salt - mixed it.  Then I mixed the eggs, sugar and vanilla together.

Next step - add the choclate mix to the egg/sugar mix.  Then fold in the flour mix.  Once it's all combined pour it into a 8x8" pan.  The recipe suggests using a foil sling.  I just greased the pan. 

Once I'd poured the batter into the pan I sprinkled chocolate chips across the top. 

Ready to go into the oven.  Twenty-five minutes later I was done!

Your supposed to let the brownies cool in the pan until completely cool.  Yeah right!  I stuck them in the frig and managed to wait about 30 minutes before Jonathan and I dived in. 

Jonathan talked me into two pieces.  He didn't have to work very hard.  :-)  Jonathan said these were the best brownies he's had (at least from what he could remember).  They really didn't take any longer than a box mix.  I'd recommend them.  The recipe makes 16 pieces. 

Bake 52 Rewind Week #9: Babka

I'm continuing my quest to work through the Bake 52 recipes from the first of last year.  I'd never heard of Babka before.  I didn't even remember the Sienfield episode with it until I read Michelle's post for this recipe.  But when I saw that there was a chocolate version I knew that when I made this I was going to make it Chocolate!!

The dough has to chill for up to 10 hours.  So I started this on Saturday and finished it up on Sunday.  The dough wasn't really difficult but it was just about more than my stand mixer could handle!  The wet ingredients include sour cream, eggs, water and vanilla.  This  is not a low fat/calorie dish!

I mixed all that together and then moved on to the dry ingredients.

I weighed out the flour and sugar.  Then added in the yeast and the salt.

 

I added the sour cream mix to the flour mix.  The two together were just about too much for my mixer.

Then came the weirdest part...adding the butter.  With my mixer already overloaded, the butter mostly just smeared around the side of the pan.  It took a lot of time to get it all mixed in (sort of).  I also had to add all the extra flour the recipe indicates as well to get the butter to combine and the dough to pull together. 

At that point the dough went in the frig overnight.  The next day I got started on the filling first.  I found a chocolate babka recipe at Smitten Kitchen here. 

Chocolate...  Lots of chocolate - 24 ounces!

Since I was chopping up the chocolate I thought it would be fun to have three different kinds - milk, semi-sweet & bittersweet.  I spent some time trying to get all the pieces reasonably small but I didn't run them through my food processor the way Deb did.  I wanted to keep the pieces a little bit bigger so you could taste the individual flavors of chocolate. 

Next step was to mix the chocolate with 2/3 cup sugar, 2 Tbsp cinnamon, and one cup room temperature butter.  



It took awhile but it eventually started to clump together.  Next step (hardest for me!) was rolling the dough out. 

I have no idea what the trick is to get something nicely rectangular.  I trimmed off one of the edges (the left) and gave the excess to Jonathan.  He'd snagged a piece of the dough before it went into the refrigerator and said that it was the best dough he'd ever had.  He'd been bugging me all Sunday for more dough.  I guess I could have trimmed up the whole piece and gave the excess to Jonathan but I was pretty sure that would make Jonathan sick!

I spread the chocolate mix all over the dough to within about a half inch of the narrowest edges.  Then I used my bench scraper to roll it up nice and tight.  I didn't get a picture of the roll but it worked out pretty well and the uneven edges didn't seem to be a problem.  I used a serrated knife to cut the roll in slices.

My loaf pans were a bit smaller than what the recipe called for (8x4" instead of 9x5"), so I ended up overlapping the piecies quite a bit. 

Jonathan never thought I'd get the whole roll in the two pans, but with some squishing I got almost the whole roll in.  I let the dough sit for a couple of hours.  I didn't see any appreciable rising, but I was running out of day so I went ahead and brushed on the egg wash/glaze and got the bread in the oven.

The bread got a bit dark even though I tented the bread half way through when I rotated the loaves.

I didn't wait two hours to have a piece...

It was so yummy but so rich/dense!  I actually wanted a second piece that night but I couldn't finish it... That is really unusual for me.  I saved the last of the second piece to have as my pre-work out snack the next morning.  Then I had another piece when I got to work!  This was irresistible. 

I put the two loaves on a cutting board and took them to work.  It was so dense/heavy that when I lifted it out of my car to take it into work I could barely lift it with one hand.  :-)  Thankfully for my hips by the time I came in to get a second glass of water (about three hours after leaving the bread in the break room) it was completely gone.  I probably won't make this again, just because it was too irresistible.  I try to avoid things I can't stop eating.  :-)

The calorie workup below is based on 32 servings or about one of the slices from the roll if you end up with 32 pieces.  That's pretty high calorie for one little roll, another reason not to make this again.  Although, it would be a great dish if you are trying to impress someone, and it's certaintly something you should try.  Just make sure you have plenty of people to spread the joy (calories).  :-)



Pumpkin Mac n'Cheese with Caramelized Onions & Apples

This recipe was supposed to be made with butternut squash puree.  I know I've seen cans of butternut squash puree in the grocery store before, but of course when I actually wanted to find it I couldn't.  I substituted pumpkin puree. 

I used my mandolin to slice the onions, so they would be very uniform in thickness and cook nice and uniformly.

I melted a tablespoon of butter to carmalize the onions in.  I used the technique from the Carmalized Onion tart I made last year.  It gave me such good results last time.  So started out with a lid.

While the onions were cooking I got started on the rest of the dish.  I grated the apple.

I got the pasta measured out and put the water on to boil.  I only had egg noodles, so that's what I used.

 

After about 10 minutes I took the lid off the onions.  They were soft and most of the liquid had cooked out.

After about another 10 minutes I had beautiful, brown, carmalized onions.

 

By now the noodles were cooking.

Once the noodles were done, I drained them and then mixed in the rest of the ingredients - pumpkin, evaporated milk, chicken broth, low-fat cream cheese, cheddar cheese, the onions and the apple. 

I left off the bacon, which I think was a mistake.  You need something to cut the creaminess of this dish.  It wasn't a problem for me because I decided I wanted some protein to go along with this so I added two links of turkey sausage to each serving.  It really went well with the pasta.  With the turkey sausage, this dish became a wonderful one pot dish. 

 

If I ever see the canned butternut squash puree in the grocery store again I'll have to make this again. 



Baked Zucchini & Tomato Casserole

In my continue search for a yummy veggie side dish I gave this casserole a try.  I have to say it was a bit of a disappointment.  The seasoning isn't quite right... I don't know what I'd change but I don't like the seasoning.  It doesn't compliment the veggies like I thought it should.  Oh, well.  It's still edible and gets me to eat my veggies!

It was pretty easy...  I started by blending the spice mixture - garlic powder, basil, oregano, pepper & salt. 

 Then I started cutting up the zucchini and tomatoes.  I had a really hard time getting a uniform thickness on the zucchini.  My mandonlin cut it too thin and I don't have the knife skills to do it well without a tool.  But in the final dish it didn't matter.  It cooks long enough that even the thickest pieces were tender.  I laid in the zucchini and sprinkled some of the spice mixture over that first layer.

Then I layered in tomatoes. 

I repeated those steps until I'd used up all the zucchini and tomatoes.  I mixed the breadcrumbs and the parmesan cheese.

Then I spread that over the veggies.

I covered it with foil and baked it for 25 minutes.

It looks tasty... too bad the flavors not quite right.  The recipe on line said that one serving was 112 calories (with six servings total) but my calorie work out didn't match that...  Maybe I used really calorie dense bread crumbs?