All-Clad Lasagna Pan with Two Oven Mitts

We have a roasting pan, but it has paint or something and is beginning to flake, so a new one seemed advisable.   

I have been very pleased with my All-Clad pots and pans, so when I found a deal on this lasagna pan, I jumped on it.       

The All-Clad pots are great - but heavy!

This one weighs 5 1/2 pounds empty!

So I made lasagna.

The sauce is from tomatoes we canned from our heirloom tomatoes.

To that I added our garlic, basil, parsley.

The more meat the merrier  -  this one has chicken, ground beef, hot sausage.

Also lots of parmesan.

I used Barilla lasagna noodles, Cabot mozzarella, Galbani ricotta with eggs and parsley.

When we were growing up, we never had lasagna.

Father considered it a leftover garbage food.

We had one or more pasta meals each week, but never lasagna.

Well, I guess I agree with my father.

Although this tastes really good, it looks unappealing.

It's a lot of work, and it is probably not worth it.

Combine those ingredients in different ways!

But I do have a lovely pan!

Ravioli and Tortellini - 2012

I made ravioli for lunch today,and that reminded me of this old post

Ravioli and Tortellini

using my new

Cuisinart Food Processor

14 cup

Begin with 3 cups of flour.





















The recipe called for 4 eggs.  With the giant egg, I figured that made 4 eggs.
The large egg is 100 grams.  The others are 68 and 69 grams.



















The large egg was a double-yolked one!

















While processing, it became clear it needed more liquid.
I added another egg.

Notice the cute blue light framing the on button when it's processing.















I have a hand-crank pasta machine,
so D was enlisted to help me roll the dough into strips.

The filling was also done in the food processor.
It consists of roast chicken, onion, garlic, egg, black pepper.

The difference between ravioli and tortellini is the shape.

I cooked the ravioli in stock.

Then added sauce.
The sauce is from our tomatoes, with sausage, garlic, herbs, locatelli cheese.












Boy, was it good.

I think the Australian Shepherd, Tommy, is really Italian.
And Tommy got a taste of the sauce when we were done.

He was impressed.

Homepage

Published 3/16/12

Some of my other kitchen experiments:
You can click on these links to see them.
Altoids® copycat
Apple pie
Bean Soup
World's greatest Biscuits
Blueberry Buckle
Blooming Bread
Challah Bread
Dill Pickles
Focaccia
No-Knead Bread
Peanut Butter
Raised Rich Rolls
Raisin Bread
Ravioli
Yorkshire Pudding or Popovers

Pizzelle Part 4

Well, the pizzelle iron survived the flood.   After an amazing amount of cleaning (do you know how many nooks and crannies there are when you have to remove all the silt?) and then re-seasoning, it was possible to make a batch of cookies.

Alas, in the middle of batch 2, it stopped working.  After taking it apart, D found a broken wire.

Perhaps there was enough slack to pull it together.
Sadly, the wire was too friable and kept breaking.
  Time for a new iron.

I couldn't find the identical one on Amazon, but this one is close.

The new iron, using the last half of the old recipe made cakey, thick pizzelles.  

Disappointed.

In the picture above, one is being held vertically so that you can see the thickness.

This is rather difficult to clean, but perhaps, as it seasons it will get better.

Finally found the recipe I like.
https://www.browneyedbaker.com/pizzelle-italian-waffle-cookies/
It's crispy and thin.  Sweet, but not too sweet.  Easy to bend if you need to make cones or other. . .

I found it worked best if I popped them in the oven at 200 for about 20 minutes to get them really crisp.

The recipe is great.  Now, I just need to figure out the timing.

The recipe has these ingredients:

•  6 eggs
•  1 cup butter(melted)  227g
•  1½ cups sugar  300g   (probably could use less)
•  Pinch of salt
•  1 teaspoon anise extract (probably needed more)
•  1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•  3½ cups all-purpose flour  440g

FWIW, my family pronounces this Peet-ZELL

Cookies - December 15

It's cookie making time.  

I saw a video of a person making five different cookies starting with a basic recipe and adding to change it.  That sounded like fun. 

I had just tried using a cookie press to make cookies and that was extremely frustrating, since the cookies wouldn't stick to the cookie sheet.  Aargh.  She piped cookies, it went smoothly, and it looked great!  It looked so much easier and more fail-safe.  Famous last words?  So that's where I began.

I cut the recipe into thirds:

- 750 gr soft room temp Butter ( 6 2/3 sticks ) 250g

- 300 gr Powdered Sugar ( 2 1/2 cups) 100g

- 3 room temp X Large Egg Whites 1

- 900 gr All purpose Flour ( 6 cups + 1/2 cup). 300g

- 3 tsp Vanilla 1 tsp

- 1/4 tsp Salt   dash

Then I put the dough in a very sturdy pastry bag with one of the star tips.
I think her workspace was much warmer than my kitchen.  My dough was "room temperature", but it was very difficult to pipe, taking a lot of hand strength, and here's the result.

Sadly, that's my best work!

Here are some that have been dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.

 Toward the end, I gave up and made thumbprint cookies (bottom right).  With a puddle of chocolate and some sprinkles they are good.

I guess you could say they are festive. .  

And they are really delicious if you like a buttery not-too-sweet cookie.

For tips and advice, check the video that started this:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blKCLBWudZ0