Lasagna Roll-ups

I think it's impossible to take a really good picture of pasta...at least for me.

Life is just full of unwelcome curve balls when you least expect or want them. When I set up to make lasagna rolls instead of a traditional lasagna, I made one choice which set off a chain of hassles which doubled my time in a kitchen that was over 90 degrees (abour 32 degrees C.) and increased my dish washing load (all washed by hand) by a third. The mistake I made was buying a different type of lasagna noodles than usual.

I'll start over and say that lasagna noodles are not easy to find in just any Tokyo supermarket, and they're very expensive to boot. I usually buy them at one particular place, but this time I didn't feel like tromping around in the heat to a second store so I was happy to find some noodles on offer at the same shop as I purchased all of the other necessary ingredients. This particular place is a cheap green grocer-style place. A package of 12 noodles cost 598 yen ($7.08), and I needed 6 of them so I thought this would be a good size.

I went home and started preparing all of the things I need to do for this particular task  - making cottage cheese by boiling milk and adding vinegar, frying up onions and pepper and ground chicken, and boiling the noodles. When all of the work was done, I made my basic filling for the roll-ups and got out a noodle to spread it on. When I picked up the noodle, I knew something was seriously different. It had ballooned up to about 1.5 times the size of the noodles I usually buy and all of that extra space meant I only had enough filling to spread 2 of the 6 noodles. Since they're so expensive, and I don't think you can save cooked noodles (can you?), I had to scramble to boil another liter of milk with vinegar and prepare more cottage cheese and other ingredients to make a conventional lasagna (which I could use 4 full noodles with) instead of more roll-ups.

On the bright side, if I attempt this recipe again, I'll only need two noodles for 4 servings. On the less bright side, I thought I would die in the heat and the kitchen is still a gigantic mess from all of the dishes. I'm just too damn hot to go out and clean it up right now. So, dear readers, if you make this recipe, I caution you that this may not be the right amount of filling for your noodles depending on whether or not you buy the "giant expanding noodle" brand or something more akin to what I usually use. Two noodles will probably do you, but you may need three.

Here is what the roll-ups ended up being composed of:

filling:

2 cups cottage cheese (dry curd)
1 egg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. parsley
1/4 tsp. oregano
pepper (to taste)
3 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
3 tbsp. parmesan cheese

2 (or possibly 3) lasagna noodles

sauce:
8 oz. ground chicken or turkey
1/4 large yellow bell pepper, diced
1/4 medium onion, diced
1 1/2 cups pasta sauce (marinara)

Grease or spray a loaf pan or small baking dish. 

To prepare the sauce:
Fry the onion and bell pepper in a scant amount of oil in a non-stick skillet until wilted and lightly browned. Add the ground meat and fry until browned. Drain any remaining oil or juices (I didn't have any because the meat was lean). Pour in the pasta sauce and stir. There is no need to heat the pasta sauce through since it'll be baked in the oven.

Pasta:
 Boil the lasagna noodles to desired tenderness level (according to the package instructions). Drain, rinse with cold water if necessary to cool the noodles to a temperature at which they can be handled (or simply allow to cool naturally).

To prepare the filling:
Break the egg into a medium size bowl and lightly beat with a fork. Add the salt, pepper, oregano, and parsley and beat until mixed in. Stir in the cottage cheese until completely mixed. Gently stir in the mozzarella. This should make a paste which is easy to handle.

Assembly:
Lay a cooked noodle on a flat surface. With your hands, spread the filling evenly over the surface of the noodle. Roll up like a cinnamon roll. Cut the noodle in half. Place the halves in the prepared baking dish or loaf pan cut-side up. Spoon the meat and sauce over the ends of roll-ups.

Cover the baking dish with foil and bake at 400 degrees F./200 degrees C. for 35-40 minutes.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Pasta with Japanese Pumpkin, Pine Nuts, and Parmesan

I don't know how something that starts out orange (note the color of the pumpkin on top) can turn so green. Both the garnish and sauce are cooked so it's not the cooking or exposure to air.

I'm not a big fan of pasta, or any kind of noodle for that matter. I could never have been one of those college students who subsisted on things like "Top Ramen." Of course, I'm convinced that ramen is evil. Shawn's one and only MacBook was destroyed when a bowl of ramen lept from his hand and splattered itself on the keyboard. Well, either that or he carelessly held the bowl over the keyboard and dropped it. Either way, you just can't trust noodles!

Despite the fact that I would never leave a noodle alone with my wallet, I did decide to try a pasta dish. My motivation was less a love of noodles than a desire to use some of the kaboucha, or Japanese pumpkin, that I'd cooked up for something other than stuffing it into my greedy maw as delicious chunks of squash heaven. I've eaten plenty of kaboucha, but never used it for much of anything else as I tend to use American pumpkin puree when I cook with pumpkin. It's not as sweet and is more flexible (not to mention cheaper). If you don't have access to kaboucha and want to try this, you can use butternut or acorn squash.

I chose to make a sauce for pasta because I thought that Parmesan cheese and pine nuts would pair well with the pumpkin flavor and I frankly can't think of anything other than pasta that goes well with both of those ingredients. Here is what I came up with:

Japanese Pumpkin Sauce:

• 1 tbsp. butter
• 2 small cloves of garlic (or 1 big one)
• 1/2 large onion (or 1 whole small one) diced
• 320 grams of Japanese pumpkin (kaboucha) cooked and cubed
• 1/2 cup low fat milk
• 1/2 tsp. sage
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat a heavy bottom saucepan over medium heat. Add butter and when it has completely melted, saute the onions and garlic cloves. Cook until the onions are softened and slightly browned. Remove 6 (smallish) cubes of the pumpkin for garnish and add the rest of the pumpkin to the onions, garlic, and butter. Stir and mash the pumpkin roughly to mix with the onion mixture. Add the sage, salt, and pepper. Stir and cook for about 3 minutes. Add milk, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for about 10 minutes. If it seems too thick, add more milk as needed. When the mixture is cooked, puree it in a small bowl food processor or an immersion blender.

Serve over warm pasta, top with toasted pine nuts, Parmesan, and garnish with reserved pumpkin pieces.

My feeling about this was that it was good and I really liked the flavor, but I wasn't really pleased with the mix of textures. I think the sauce was too thick and could have used some more milk. I also wasn't wild about the mixture of pasta with pumpkin in terms of texture. I was quite pleased, however, with the mixture of Parmesan, pine nuts, sage, and the pumpkin sauce.

I wasn't over the moon about this, but I'm likely to try it again some day with some variations. I think more milk would be a good idea, and it might possibly go well over rice for that matter. If you care about calories, this recipe makes 3 servings and the sauce is about 415 calories for the whole batch.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Red Wine Pasta Sauce

Boredom is a powerful motivator. Well, it is for me. Some of us find that boredom motivates sitting slack-jawed and staring at the nearest wall, or television, whichever comes first. It was a sense of gustatory boredom which set me virtually thumbing through the pages of Nibbledish for recipes. Of course, since I'm in Japan, I had to make a fair number of modifications to use food stuffs that I can actually purchase without going to an import shop and/or spending my nest egg. Here's the original recipe on Nibbledish which includes such exotic items (for me) as Italian sausage and celery (which I hate, and costs a lot, so I skipped it).

Here is my modified recipe:

• 3/4-1 lb. ground pork (depends on how meaty you want your sauce)
  
• 1/2 large onion (or 1 small one)
• 1/2 large carrot
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 fresh tomatoes
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1/4 tsp. dried sweet basil
• 3/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp. dried parsley
• 1/4 tsp. (fine) hot pepper flakes
• 2 tbsp. all purpose flour
• 1 cup red wine
• 1/3 cup whole cream
• salt to taste (I used about a teaspoon)

Preheat a large skillet so that it is good and hot before you add the meat. There is no need to add oil to the pan! Cook the ground pork over medium to medium-high heat until slightly browned. Drain off as much fat as possible. While the pork is cooking, cut the onion into quarters and pulse in a food processor to coarsely chop. Add the onion to the cooked pork and stir in.

While the onion is cooking, peel the garlic clove and blitz it in the food processor until it's in tiny pieces (or mince it with a garlic press). Peel and slice the carrot and toss it into the food processor and process it until it is in tiny pieces. Add the carrot and garlic to the pork and onion mixture. Stir well and allow to cook for about 5-10 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour onto the top of the meat then stir well to mix. Add the red wine and allow the mixture to cook and thicken such that the wine reduces by at least a third. Add the canned tomatoes and dry spices (except the salt) to the mixture. Core and quarter the fresh tomatoes and puree them well. Add to the mixture, heat to a vigorous simmer, cover, and lower the heat. Allow the sauce to gently simmer for about a half hour. The carrots should be cooked and the flavors developed. At this point, taste and add salt as needed. Finally, stir in the whole cream. Serve over your favorite pasta.

If you think the flavors are too strong, you can add more cream than I did, but I liked it fine as is. This makes an immense amount of sauce. I'd guess that this is the equivalent of two big jars, only with a lot more heft because of the meat.


I'm sure the wine features heavily into the final taste profile. I used part of a bottle red wine our landlord gave us as a gift. It's pretty good wine, or at least Shawn tells me. I actually hate wine. Just a sniff of it makes me want to stick my tongue out and go "bleeech." However, it was damn good in this sauce.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Stacking Up the Week

You know there's enough cheese when there's a nice coat of oil on the top.

As of late, I actually haven't felt like experimenting with any new recipes; my drive for the unknown seems to have stalled due to a lack of energy and money. Unfortunately, my appetite doesn't always follow these lulls in my creative endeavors, and thus I am forced to create vast quantities of old standbys to last me through weeks of meals at a time, at least until my spare time catches up with my ever-expanding list of stuff to make (such as a frozen yogurt recipe that I've been informed I'm attempting). Enter: lasagna.

Pasta is an unquestionably uber dish if for no other reason that for about $1, one can buy enough of it to last an entire week, utilizing whatever appears to be lying around the house to supplement it. While lasagna doesn't represent the pinnacle of pasta's flexibility, it does represent the blessed union of two culinary greats: meat and cheese. And my version of it uses lots of both. Of course, the best part of this recipe was simply that aside from the noodles, I had all the other ingredients on hand and waiting to be united in harmony just in time to be chilled or frozen to take the dish to that next culinary level that is leftovers, which pasta lends itself to even better than most things.

But my ramblings aside, I present the recipe itself. As always, it didn't turn out exactly as I would've hoped, but I still ate every last bit of it (and it only took a week!).

Lasagna
(as adapted from my mom's recipe, designed for a 9x13 pan)

Ingredients
1 Package of Lasagna noodles
1lb Mozzarella cheese, shredded
1lb Cheddar cheese, shredded
2lb Ground meat*
2 Medium yellow onions
6 Cloves garlic
1 32oz Jar of tomato sauce
1 12oz Can of tomato paste
Parmesean as desired

*Any type of ground meat can be used, of course; my mom always used ground turkey. In this instance, I used 1lb ground beef and 1lb pork sausage, as they were both cheap.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Procedure
1) Gather all your ingredients into one compact location, preferably with a large cutting board and knife at hand.

Ok, you may have to move the ingredients aside to actually do any cutting...

2) Start a large pot of salted water to boil.

3) Mince the garlic and dice the onions. Their respective consistencies can vary according to your individual taste or how lazy you're feeling when chopping.

4) Heat a medium-large saucepan over medium heat and add the ground meat. After it has started to brown, add the onion and garlic.

Use a spatula to try and spread the meat around for even done-ness.

5) At this point, your water should be boiling, so add the noodles and stir to ensure they get completely submerged.

6) Cook the meat until the onion is translucent and the meat has become entirely brown.

7) After the desired color has been reached, remove the saucepan from the heat and drain off the excess fat. Stir in the tomato sauce and paste and set the aside for now.

8) When the noodles have reached the desired consistency (they don't have to be completely done yet, as we're baking them in a sauce anyway), drain them into a collander and allow to air out for a bit.

9) In the 9x13 pan, spoon a light coating of the sauce onto the bottom of the pan. This step prevents sticking.

10) Layer some of the noodles over the sauce; note that you don't want them too thick, so just use a single layer. Then cover the layer with more sauce.

You can see from my sauce that I was particularly lazy when dicing the garlic!

11) Add a layer of mozzarella and cheddar on top of the sauce. Don't skimp now! If desired, add parmesean to the mix as well.

12) Repeat steps 10 and 11 until the pan is full. Be sure to save the thickest coat of cheese for the top.

I only managed two layers of noodles, it appears. Next time I'll have to use a roasting pan.

13) Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes, or until heated all the way through and the cheese has melted.

Lessons Learned
I've made this fairly frequently in the past, so there wasn't a lot of experimentation here. However, completely forgot to add any herbs to the sauce; normally I'd add basil and oregano after it has finished cooking. I also added salt to the meat out of habit, since just about every recipe calls for salt at some point or another. Resist this urge! The cheese adds plenty of saltiness, especially if ample parmesean has been used. Plus, more cheese can always be added afterwards.