Asparagus Lasagna

Yay for our one-month anniversary dinner!  Austin’s favorite vegetable is asparagus, and I heart pasta, so when I saw this recipe from name of One Perfect Bite, it was an obvious choice for our dinner.   Unfortunately, I have a nasty problem of not reading recipes before deciding to make them.

Word to the wise-- when making this recipe, give yourself PLENTY OF TIME FOR PREP.  Before putting the lasagna in the oven, I was in the kitchen close to an hour.  I got home to make dinner after 7 pm, so we didn’t sit down for dinner until 9 pm :(

I would love to make this dinner again on a Sunday afternoon, with plenty of time to enjoy cooking the meal.  There was some terms thrown around in this recipe that I had never heard of like bechamel.  I learned that it is basically a white sauce with a fancy name...moral of the story, it’s tasty.  Asparagus lasagna is yummy!!!  A+ for this recipe.

We paired it with sparkling wine (aka champagne) from Chandon in Napa Valley- we went there in 2009 via the Napa Wine Train and saved it for a special occasion.  I think a one-month wedding anniversary was a good reason to pop that cork :)

Asparagus Lasagna

Ingredients

2 large garlic cloves, peeled

salt for boiling pasta

2 pounds asparagus 

1 olive oil béchamel (see below)

about 1 cup Parmesan

Sprinkling of herbs, tarragon, parsley, basil, and oregano

1/2 pound no-boil lasagna noodles

Directions

Fill a pot with water and add garlic cloves.  Bring to boil.  As the water boils, break off ends of asparagus and save ends.  Add ends to boiling water along with salt.  Reduce heat to medium low, partially cover, and cook for 30 minutes.

Remove asparagus ends and garlic cloves from water and discard. Bring water back to a boil, and add asparagus stalks. Boil thick asparagus stalks for five minutes.  Transfer them, using tongs, to a bowl of ice water. Do not drain cooking water. Allow asparagus to cool for a few minutes, then drain and dry on a clean kitchen towel. Cut all asparagus into 1-inch lengths. Set aside.

While asparagus is boiling, start  béchamel!

Whisk 1/2 cup of cooking water from asparagus into béchamel, along with 1/4 cup of Parmesan and herbs. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Spray cooking spray on 3-quart baking dish. Bring water back to a rolling boil, and drop in enough lasagna noodles to cover surface of the baking dish (3-4 lasagna noodles). Boil just until pasta is flexible (about three minutes for no-boil lasagna). 

Spread thin layer of béchamel over bottom of baking dish. Cover with a layer of pasta. Stir asparagus into remaining béchamel, and spread a layer over noodles. Sprinkle on 2 tablespoons Parmesan. 

Repeat with parboiling pasta,  béchamel  and asparagus, and cheese.  End with a layer of pasta, and if you have any béchamel left, spread it over the top and sprinkle on the remaining Parmesan. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drizzle 1 tbs of olive oil over lasagna, and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until bubbling. Uncover, and continue to bake until top just begins to color, about 10 minutes. 

Olive Oil Béchamel 

Ingredients

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil 

2 tbs finely chopped onion

2 tbs flour 

2 cups skim milk 

Salt and pepper to taste 

Directions

Heat oil over medium heat in a heavy medium saucepan. Add onion, and cook for about three minutes. Stir in flour, stirring, for about three minutes until smooth and bubbling but not browned. Whisk in milk all at once, and whisk until mixture begins to thicken. Turn heat to low, and simmer, stirring often with a whisk and scraping bottom and edges of pan with a rubber spatula, for 10 minutes, until sauce has thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves six.

Black Bean and Quinoa Griddle Cakes

Have you checked out the Picky Eater Blog?  If not, you should!  I have been following Anjali since I started Food Ramblings, and my most common comment is "I can't wait to try this!"

Finally, I am trying one of her recipes.  It was worth the wait because this griddle cakes were good!  The do fall apart when flipping them, and you can make them more veggie burger like by adding an egg.

I adapted the recipe a bit with the ingredients I had at home.  One of those was with peppers.  The original recipe called for yellow and red peppers.  I had a green red pepper and what I call a "scary, red pepper."  Good substitutes-- added a little extra spice.

Scary, red pepper is the one on the right.  These are all veggies
we got from the CSA that I have idea what they are :)

Black Bean and Quinoa Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

3/4 cup quinoa, cooked according to package instructions (should be with 1 1/2 cups water)

15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained

6 green onions, chopped halfway up

1 green pepper, diced

1 red scary pepper, diced

3-5 oz low-fat mozzarella cheese

3 tsp cumin

2 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

A few squeezes of lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Cook quinoa according to package directions and chop veggies.  Add all other ingredients to cooked quinoa and mix well.

Form small patties using all of the quinoa mixture with your hands. Heat a pan over medium heat that was sprayed with cooking spray, and pan fry each patty until both sides are slightly crispy and golden brown.

Serve with salsa (me) or bbq sauce (Austin).

Chicken Fried Steak

Chicken fried steak, chicken fried steak!  Who doesn’t love chicken fried steak?!?

I didn’t know what chicken fried steak was until starting college in central PA, where it was a staple at my favorite hole-in-the-wall breakfast place.  As I continued south to Virginia, it was still commonplace on the menu.  Austin loves it, and I will take bites off his plate.

As our freezer became full with meat, I was looking for what to make with it all, especially cube steak.  I never know what to do with cube steak, so I thought it would be a perfect chicken fried steak.

Chicken Fried Steak

Ingredients
Cube steak, broken apart into portion size pieces (portions are a little large in our household, lol)
Italian style bread crumbs
Panko bread crumbs
Packet of ranch seasoning/dressing mix
Olive oil

Directions
Add 1 to 2 tbs of olive oil to frying pan and heat.  Add mix of Italian style bread crumbs, Panko bread crumbs, and ranch seasoning/dressing mix to gallon size Ziploc bag.  Add cube steak and shake, shake and bake style.

Fry cube steaks, flip when juices start to flow out of the top of the steak.  Continue frying until both sides are browned.  I made the cube steaks with a tiny bit of pink; cook for longer if you want less pink in the meat.

Spinach Calamari Salad

On Thursday nights, we play in an adult rec kickball league.  I love, love, love our team.  I am not the most coordinated person in the world, and playing with my team has made me more confident in my very limited athletic abilities.  I even caught the game-ending kick at one game.  Granted, the ball hit my leg, and I just held the ball between my leg and my arm, it counts!  My awesome teams jumped up and down, ran to me, and gave me hugs and high-fives.

Our team name is Kick Balls in Your Mouth...yes, we're a classy group :)

After kickball, all the teams meet at a local bar for food and drinks (winners get free nachos and beer…woohoo!).  One of my favorite salads is their spinach calamari salad.  Right now, we’re between the summer and fall seasons, and I’ve been missing my team AND this salad.

I bought some oven-ready calamari at Costco several weeks ago, the CSA delivered us some fresh spinach.  Are you thinking what I’m thinking??  I hope so—time to recreate this awesome salad!

Calamari and Spinach Salad

Ingredients
¼ to ½ cup breaded calamari, cooked according to package instructions (yes, I cheated and bought this store bought)
1 cup spinach, washed and torn, if desired
1 carrot, julienned (Austin thought I was super fancy!)
1 cucumber, sliced and quartered
Sprinkling of low-fat mozzarella and parmesan cheese
Low-fat balsamic salad dressing

Directions
Layer spinach, carrot, cucumber, and cheese.  Top with calamari.  Serve with balsamic dressing

Wedding Surprise

Two days ago, Austin and I celebrated our one-month anniversary.  To celebrate, we ate at our favorite lunch place (with a gift certificate we received as a wedding gift), and I made asparagus lasagna (recipe to come next week on the blog-- get ready!).  It was a great way to spend time together and touch base since our world has been a whirlwind since our wedding day.

As I got ready to write this post, I realized I never even posted about our AMAZING wedding day.  It was perfect; well, everything didn't go as planned (cough...hottest day of the year....cough....no air conditioning in the church or trolley....cough).  Regardless, the day was everything I wanted it to be.  It was a day filled with love, happiness, and fun!

Our first professional photo-- our photographer  is the best ever!

Austin, being the best new husband ever, surprised me with a song right after our first dance.  A guitar magically appeared, and Austin sang me a beautiful song.  Check out the video below, and brownies points for those who know this song :)

I held myself together for the entire wedding and through our first song, but when Austin sat down with his guitar, I lost it.  Completely.

Want to see more of our wedding photos?  Like Food Ramblings on Facebook to see the rest of our wedding sneak peaks.

Grilled Ratatouille Pasta

Yum, pasta!  I love a good pasta dish, but it is so hard for me to eat small quantities of pasta.  I saw this recipe from Comfort of Cooking and saw adapting it as a great way to combine with love of pasta (but only using a 1/2 pound of pasta for 4 servings) with some healthy, tasty veggies.  This was a huge hit in our house!!

Grilled Ratatouille Pasta

Ingredients
1/2 pound whole wheat pasta (I used linguine)
1/4 cup olive oil, divided, plus more for grilling
3 small red potatoes, cut in half and sliced
1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
1 green pepper, deseeded and sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 small eggplant, cut into thick slices
3  tomatoes, cut into thick slices
3 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tbs dried parsley
Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Directions
In a medium pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain pasta and add to large pasta bowl.

Heat a grill pan (it was raining, so outside grilling was a no-go) to medium-high; lightly oil hot grill.  Add vegetables, and sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Turn occasionally until browned and tender. Transfer vegetables to a cutting board and let cool slightly.

Roughly chop vegetables and add to pasta. Add 2 tablespoons of balsamic; mix. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with parsley.  Serve hot/warm.

Serves four.

And apparently, I make weird faces...thanks for these pictures Austin :)

Kale Chips with Love

We have been wanting to try kale chips for a long time-- but have always used kale for something else first.  This week, we received kale in the CSA basket, and Austin grabbed it to make kale chips immediately.

Here are Austin's kale chips with love (recipe from Food Network.

Kale Chips  

Ingredients
1 head kale, washed and thoroughly dried
2 tbs olive oil
Salt, for sprinkling

Directions
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.  Remove the ribs from the kale and cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Lay on a baking sheet and toss with the olive oil and salt. Bake for 20 minutes.  Turn leaves and bake for another 20 minutes, until crisp.  Enjoy!

I just liked to this picture and had to share it :)