Cheesy Amaranth

I usually eat from the fridge and countertop: meat, fish, eggs, tofu, fresh fruit and vegetables. One of my food-related goals in the new year is to cook more from the pantry, both to save money and to use up the bags of random grains that have followed me home from the local hippie grocer in idealistic moments ("oooh, spelt flour, I'm sure I can do something interesting with that!")

To that end, I decided to cook up some amaranth today. I started with no particular recipe in mind; I didn't add additional ingredients as the seeds cooked, because I wanted to get a sense of the taste and texture of the unadorned cooked grain first. I kind of expected it to be similar in texture to quinoa or cous cous, but instead ended up with a chewy, gooey mass of grain more like polenta or grits. A perfect medium for cheese!

So the upshot of the very simple recipe below is: cook a load of amaranth (might as well; you can store the rest for later use), and mix some of it with melted cheese. Result: a dense tasty bowl of concentrated protein and fiber and fat, mmmm.

Ingredients
1 cup amaranth seeds
cheese with personality (I used a garlic, onion, and chive cheddar)

To Make
1. Put amaranth seeds and 3 cups of water in a pot. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes, until the amaranth reaches a chewy consistency. Note: The amaranth package told me to cook it for 35 minutes, but mine seemed to be done in just over 15. Maybe I just ate undercooked amaranth, but it seemed fine to me.

2. Crumble a 2 inch cube of your cheese in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on medium for a minute or two to melt the cheese.

3. Stir about 3/4 cup of the cooked amaranth into the cheese, mixing well. Use more or less amaranth depending on how cheesy you want it to be. Put the rest of the cooked amaranth in an air-tight container and store in the fridge for later use.

Classy Grilled Cheese

In theory, grilled cheese sounds pretty great: it's melted cheese on bread, what could be simpler and more delicious? In practice, sadly, what you often wind up with is American "cheese" (or that abomination of my youth, Velveeta) on white toast coated with margarine. It doesn't have to be that way, people! Swap in better ingredients and you've got yourself a grown-up, almost *gourmet* snack. You can even add sliced tomatoes or herbs like oregano if you want. Classy!

Re: cheese. The tomato basil cheddar is the star of the show, but cheddar doesn't melt super well. So, for structural reasons I also include a softer mild cheese: it helps the sandwich hold together better when you flip it, and improves the mouthfeel, I think.

Ingredients
2 slices firm, hearty whole wheat bread
tomato, basil, & garlic cheddar
Havarti (or other mild cheese that melts well, such as Monterey Jack or Colby)
olive oil (I used the lighter kind meant for sauteeing, though you could also try extra virgin for stronger flavor)

To make
1. Heat a frying pan over medium high heat.
2. Build sandwich. Add cheese in 3 layers, with the cheddar inside of two thin layers of the Havarti or other cheese.
3. Drizzle olive oil on the outer side of each slice of bread, then use knife or fingers to distribute over surface.
4. Place sandwich on hot pan and cook for a couple minutes, pressing down on it once or twice with a metal spatula. Turn sandwich over, continue to cook until cheese is nice and melty.

Amazing French-style Cheesecake

I have a dessert cookbook by "Sophie" from France that I have never used before. Thomas and I have been hungering for cheesecake and I have never made it from scratch so I checked out Sophie's recipe.

I made it and I have to say it is the most amazing cheesecake-dessert I have ever had. This recipe is definitely on the sweet side and the crust plays just as big a role as the cheese filling.

Here is my rough translation from French, including the substitutions I made:

Crust
-----
1 1/3 cup Nilla wafers, crushed into crumbs. (or similar cookie)
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup rough sugar (I use the "natural unbleached "sugar)

Filling
-------
8 oz Philadelphia cream cheese
4 eggs
2/3 cup granulated sugar (I used the natural sugar, prob could have used white granulated sugar)
1 tsp flour
Zest and juice of one lemon (I didn't have a real lemon so I used a little lemon juice)

Sophie called for a 26cm pan, which I think is one of those shallow round pans that the French use for apple pies and such. They don't have slanty sides. I used a 9" round cake pan.

Preheat oven to 300F
Start with the crust: Smash the cookies if not already smashed. Soften the butter for the crust. In a bowl, mix the cookie crumbs, sugar and butter. Grease the pan. Put the crust mixture in the bottom and mash it down with a glass so that it is flat and covers the whole bottom. Put it in the fridge while it waits for the filling.
Beat the eggs with the sugar. Add flour, zest, lemon juice, and cream cheese. Mix (I used the mixer).
Get the pan from the fridge and pour the filling in. Bake for 50 minutes.
Cool completely before eating.

Et voila! A sweet but elegant-tasting dessert. The crust is divine and the cheese part is light and delicious. It was really hard to stop at one piece.

Cheddar and Apple Sandwich

Ingredients:
sharp cheddar cheese, sliced
granny smith apple, sliced
dijon or whole-grain mustard
good chewy whole-grain bread (I always make this with the Bread Alone WW Sourdough)

Assemble for a tart 'n' tangy meat-free sandwich

Butternut squash chillijack

My husband made this one night and it immediately became my favorite dinner.

2 Butternut squashes peeled, seeded and diced (good luck with that, my husband said peeling the things was the hardest part)
2 red onions, diced
1/4 cup sliced jalapeno
1 tbs chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne
salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tomatoes, diced
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
2 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese
a handful of cilantro

Put the squash, onions and chilis in a roasting pan and season with chili powder, cayenne, salt and pepper. Drizzle with oil and toss well. Roast until just soft at 375 deg (25-35 minutes).

Put them in a big serving bowl add tomatoes, corn, cheese and cilantro. Mix gently.

Drool.

Eat.

Gourmet Triscuit Pizzas

We were hungry for a quick lunch and had some strange odds and ends in the fridge, which resulted in these amazing little pizzas:

(sized to serve 2 for a light lunch and fit on our toaster oven pan)

20 original Triscuits
20 pepperoni slices
10 sun-dried tomato slices cut in half
about 1/2 cup of feta
about 1/4 cup tomato sauce
handful of grated parmesan cheese

First, I lined the toaster oven pan with aluminum foil and then Triscuits. Then on each Triscuit I put a pepperoni slice, half a sun-dried tomato piece, a teaspoon of tomato sauce and a bit of feta. Finally, I sprinkled the whole tray with parmesan cheese and put it in the toaster oven on toast for about 5 minutes (until the first tips get brown).

These were so good! I think they would make a delicious and easy party snack. I wish I had taken a picture for you before we devoured them.

We make about a million variations on the Triscuit pizza, different sauces and cheeses, veggies and meat. It is almost impossible to go wrong. If you like them, Triscuits are the best because they bake without burning and don't get soggy when sauced.

Slow Cooker Mac & Cheese with Tomato Basil Soup

Sometimes when I'm working at the department I head to Karen's on Astor for lunch, and get a small half mac&cheese/half tomato-basil soup with a roll for lunch. It's cheesy and creamy and hot and delicious. Today I decided to recreate it at home.

For the mac and cheese component, I adapted a recipe I found at Culinary Cory. The main substitution was Muenster cheese for Velveeta (eeeew, Velveeta...), but I also used slightly less salt than originally called for. Here's the tweaked version I made:

Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese
3 cups Cavatappi pasta (dry)
3 Tbl. unsalted butter
8 oz. Muenster cheese, cubed
1 ¼ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy cream
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water for 5 minutes or until it is just under al dente. Drain and place in the slow cooker. Add the remaining ingredients to the pasta and stir until well combined. Cook on high for 2 – 3 hours stirring about every 30 minutes.

For the rest:

While the mac & cheese in its final burbly minutes of cooking, heat up some Imagine Organic Creamy Tomato Basil soup in one pan, and boil some shelled edamame in water in another.
Put a big ladleful of mac & cheese in a bowl.
Pour the hot tomato basil soup over it.
Drain the edamame, put in a separate bowl to serve on the side. Lightly salt the edamame, if you're into salt.

The result is creamy, filling comfort food perfect for a cold rainy night. And it looks pretty, too (orange-yellow next to bright green)