mother-in-law salad

i'm sure lots of people would love to make a salad of their mother-in-law, but i happen to be blessed with TWO mothers-in-law who are both positively delightful. this is a salad my husband's mother threw together when we arrived at her home in tampa two weeks ago. i recreated it at home when i realized i could over-pay for a small quantity of queso fresco at trader joe's.

ingredients:

• 1-2 heads of lettuce
• 1 diced avocado
• 3 seeded, diced plum tomatoes
• 1 diced cucumber
• 8 ounces diced queso fresco, basket cheese or, if you must, fresh mozzarella
• 1/4 red onion, jullienned
• grilled chicken (about 3 ounces per diner)
• sliced olives
• olive oil
• the juice & zest of one lemon

prep:

• grill, dice juice, zest & tear as needed

actual cooking:

• combine

oh, it is soooooo goooooooooood. i can't even tell you.

• 
  

black bean quesadillas

originally i planned a pumpkin quesadilla out of last month's bon appetit but that seemed like a lot of work for a dish that might go over like a lead balloon and since we served five (FIVE!) kinds of beer and only two were less than 6% abv, i kinda wanted to make sure people ate up.

(what did we do before trader joe's?)

ingredients:

• shredded cheese blend of your preference (or you could, like, shred some cheese yourself)
• roasted green chilis
• tortillas (um, 8? i think i made 8.)
• one white onion, diced
• one can of black beans, rinsed
• spray oil

prep:

• dice onion
• make sure you have everything ready, this goes fast

actual cooking:

• preheat crepe pan (or flat-bottomed frying pan) to medium
  

• spray lightly with oil
  
  

• add tortilla
  

• spread chilis
  
  
  

• add a handful of beans
  

• and some onions
  

• and a handful of cheese-- don't skimp on the cheese!
  

• flip over the empty half and press down
• cover and allow to cook until melty and delicious
  
  

(ali & alex agree, augustus is nearly as delicious as black bean quesadillas.)

frou-frou grilled cheese with bacon, apples and onions

is it fair to try to re-create at home something amazing you had at a restaurant? because i'm obsessed with "the harvest" grilled cheese from house in media. so, umm, i tried to make it at home with some (read: huge) success.

ingredients:

• 3 5x5 ciabatta rolls (i actually used 1 1/2 5x10s from trader joe's)
• 4 ounces sharp cheddar, sliced
• one apple, peeled and shaved into strips
• bacon, ummm, i think it was like 1/2 a pound?
• 1 medium sweet onion, sliced and sauteed in the nearly-clean bacon pan (oh, yeah)
• butter for greasing OR a panini press

prep:

• make your ingredients look like this:

(cooked but not ALL THE WAY to the point of crispiness)

actual cooking:

• put one side of the bread face-up on a lightly buttered largish frying pan or griddle
  

• add cheese, apples, onions, bacon and a little more cheese

• put the top on and press down
  

(maybe put a preheated cast-iron skillet on top. maybe. but best to slightly grease the bottom first. trust me.)

• cook until the cheese is ooey-gooey, or toss it in the oven after a brief grilling so it gets melty while you make the next one. NOM.

smack & cheese

to go with saturday's ribs, i made a classic mac & cheese, the way my mama taught me when i was about eleven. sure, i could use fancy cheeses or put bread crumbs on top, but the only alterations to this recipe i can get behind are 1) fresh ground sea salt & pepper and 2) more interesting macaroni than elbows-- mom uses whatever she's got, i like cavatappi or pipetti.

this is for a standard-sized batch, though i made double this over the weekend (in case of hungry marines, naturally).

ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup flour
• sea salt & pepper
• 1 quart milk (whatever kind you like is fine)
• 1/2 pound american cheese, torn into shreds
• 1/2 pound cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1 pound pasta

prep:

• preheat oven to 350*
• shred cheese
• cook pasta according to package instructions

actual cooking:

• melt butter in a large saucepan
• add flour and whisk until combined (this is your roux)
• add milk and whisk until smooth (now you have bechamel!)
• add salt & pepper
• slowly add cheese
• pour cheese into pasta or pasta into cheese & combine
• pour the whole shebang into a casserole and bake until as brown as you like it
  

easter pie OR pizza rustica OR calzone

we call this dish calzone-- but we say ghav-uh-zoon-- and we pretty much live for easter so we can have it. we love it so much we'd make is other times of year, but you can only get basket cheese at easter, so we can't. because of the magnitude of this project, we have to do it at my mother's house where there are three ovens, and the occasional excitable teenaged brother willing to forgo book learnin' to get elbow deep in family tradition for an afternoon.

dough ingredients:

• 20 cups of flour (plus more for dusting)
• 2 tbs baking powder
• 2 tbs salt
• 6 cups vegetable shortening ("crisco: it's digestible!")
• 19 eggs
• 3/4 cup ice water
• egg wash (milk & 2 beaten eggs)

filling ingredients:

• 3 pounds sweet italian sausage, out of the case, browned
• 3 pounds ham, diced
• 1 pounds soprasotta, thick-sliced, diced
• 1 pound proscuitto, thick-sliced, diced
• 1 pound ricotta cheese
• 1 basket cheese, diced
• 20 hard boiled eggs, diced
• chopped fresh parsley
• 6 eggs

prep:

• hard boil 24 eggs, chop 20 of them and set aside
• brown sausage
• dice meats & basket cheese
• combine meats
  

• combine dry ingredients for dough

• blend in shortening
  

• add eggs & water
• blend thoroughly
• turn out and knead (or massagia)
  
  
  
• add basket cheese & parsley to meat
  
  
  
• preheat oven(s) to 375*
• break for a lovely lunch of egg salad sandwiches (those last 4 eggs!), carrots and limeade. it's traditional.
  

• add hard boiled eggs to meat
  

• add raw eggs & ricotta to meat
  

actual cooking:

• roll out dough into large circles

• paint egg wash around edges
• pile half with filling
• fold other half over
• crimp edges
• move to a greased baking sheet
• brush with egg wash
• vent

• bake at 375* until browned and bubbling
• cool for 5-10 minutes (depending on the size) on the sheet
• move to a rack to cool completely
• serve lukewarm or cold
  

this recipe made 2 extra larges (about 16"x8"), 7 larges (about 10"x5") and 6 smalls (about 8"x4"). that's a lot. but somehow, we always need as many as we make. they freeze so well that we usually have one in january to hold us over.

bill's awesome procuitto & asparagus pizza

i'm not going to lie, my husband is a pizza-and-beer guy. just, you know, a GOURMET pizza and beer guy. on a recent trip to visit family, he invented this insanely easy pizza. i wanted him to guest blog, but, alas, he thinks you'll miss my dumb jokes. or something.

ingredients:

• pizza shell (pre-made crust)
• tomato sauce
• one of those mozzarella/prosciutto/basil roll-ups
• about a half-pound of asparagus

optional ingredients:

• scratch cheese (which, btw, means your choice of those grated aged cheese combinations, like peccorino-romano and shit)
• crushed garlic/garlic powder
• olive oil spray
• oregano (et cetera)

prep:

• chop asparagus into about one inch chunks, steam or blanch
• slice cheese roll thinly

actual cooking:

• (spray crust with olive oil, sprinkle with herbs, spices and scratch cheese)
• spread tomato sauce VERY THINLY over the shell, almost to the edge
• spread out your sliced cheese roll to cover sauce (a little space between is fine, it will melt)
• add asparagus on top
• bake (about 350?) until ooey-gooey and delicious-looking

ohmygod, so good. i'm starting to think i should make him cook more often.

pilgrim's stew

when i was a kid, my mom always gave her casseroles names like "fireman's stew" or "cowboy stew" to make them sound cool, i guess, so we'd eat them. well, this is "pilgrim's stew." (by me, not my mom.)

ingredients:

• 3/4 poundish of your choice of short macaroni (i used fusili)
• brick of sharp cheddar
• 1/2 pound sliced american cheese
• 1 pound fresh asparagus
• pint of half and half (or milk, heavy cream, skim, whatever)
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 1/4 cup of flour
• package (i dunno how much it was...) ground turkey breast
• sea salt & fresh ground pepper

prep:

• chop asparagus in one inch chunks
• cube or shred cheddar
• cube or tear up american
• cook macaroni per package instructions, rinse in cold water
• cook turkey in nonstick skillet (with about a half cup of water in there you can cover it and not pay too much attention, then let the water boil off when it's done or near done)
• preheat oven to 400

actual cooking:

1. melt butter in medium saucepan
2. add flour and whisk until evenly combined
3. immediately add half and half and continue whisking until combined
4. (now is a good time to add ground pepper and a little salt to taste)
5. add cheese, stirring or whisking until smooth
6. combine cheese sauce, asparagus, macaroni and turkey in a casserole or baking dish
7. bake at about 400 degrees until you think it look browned (about 20 minutes for me)

this turned out to be SO MUCH more delicious than i'd expected. really, wonderful. obviously the base is your average mac and cheese, but the turkey and asparagus make very special.