Wow good.

I was pretty scared when vegetable tart won the poll last week. The last time I tried a free-form tart on Macheesmo, it didn’t go well.

I had high hopes for this attempt though. For starters, I was using a Cook’s Illustrated recipe. That’s normally a really good start to a successful meal.

Second, and maybe more important, I didn’t get cocky. I read the recipe like 10 times (Cook’s Illustrated isn’t known for being succinct). I promised myself that I wouldn’t change the recipe at all.

I then immediately changed the recipe. Luckily, not in any devastating way.

Mushroom and Leek Galette

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 45 minutes + dough resting time

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Dough:
1 1/4 cups (6.25 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (2.75 ounces) whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cubed
7 tablespoons ice water
1 teaspoon white vinegar

Filling:
1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms
3/4 pound crimini mushrooms
2 large leeks, sliced thin
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3-4 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
Salt and pepper
1 large egg, for egg wash

Helpful Equipment:
Pastry Brush
Dough Scraper

Directions:

1) To start dough, mix together flours with sugar and salt. Cut in cold, cubed butter using your fingers or pulse in a food processor until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.

2) Stir in water and vinegar and mix until the dough is saggy. It's okay if it doesn't come together completely at this point. Don't overmix it.

3) Scoop dough out onto plastic wrap. Form dough into a rough rectangle (again, it will still be crumbly). Wrap very tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

4) Remove dough and roll into a long rectangle, about 8x14 on a well-floured surface. Fold the left 1/3 of the dough into the center, then fold the right 1/3 over it. Rotate the dough 90 degrees, roll it out again, and repeat the fold. Do this one more time. If your dough sticks to the counter, use a dough scraper to scrape it up and use more flour. Then fold the dough (which should be much easier to work with now) into a square and wrap it in plastic wrap again. Refrigerate for another hour.

5) For filling, wash mushrooms and add to a microwave safe bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 4-5 minutes until soft. Drain mushrooms in a colander. When cool, slice thinly.

6) Slice leeks thinly using just the white and light green sections. Add sliced leeks to a large skillet with a drizzle of olive oil. Cook over medium heat until the leeks are soft, about 4 minutes. Add fresh thyme and sliced mushrooms and continue to cook for another minute or two until the mixture is fairly dry.

7) Remove filling from heat and let cool. Then season with a pinch of salt and pepper and stir in sour cream and mustard.

8) When ready to make galette, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove dough from fridge 10-15 minutes before making the galette. Roll the dough out into a large 14 inch diameter circle. Use a knife to cut off any edges. Try to make it as round as you can, but it's okay to eyeball it.

9) Transfer the dough to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the center of the dough with olive oil.

10) Add half of the filling to the center of the dough, leaving about 2 inches around the edge. Add 1/2 of the gorgonzola cheese. Top with the rest of the filling and then the rest of the cheese. Drizzle with olive oil.

11) Fold one end of the circle in toward the center, then work around the galette, making folds every few inches.

12) Brush galette with egg wash and transfer to oven. When galette is in oven, turn heat down to 375 and bake for 35-40 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

13) Let cool briefly and serve immediately!

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated Feb. 2012.

Making the Dough

Tart doughs are tricky. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve struggled with them. Frankly, if you haven’t struggled with them you are either a baking prodigy or a liar.

The trick to this dough is not to overwork it in the beginning and let it rest twice in the fridge. Also, the recipe calls for laminating the dough a bit which means folding it over itself a few times so you develop layers of dough which results in super-flakey crust.

I was worried about this step because it’s the step that proves to be my downfall for things like croissants. But this is a beginner’s laminated dough. I didn’t have any issues with it at all. You won’t either.

Start the dough by mixing together your dry ingredients in a large bowl and then mix in the cubed butter with your fingers. You could use a food processor for this, but I like using my hands. Just get the butter into pea-sized pieces and then add your liquid (top right).

Once your liquid is added, stir it together, but don’t over-work it. There’s no need to bring the dough completely together at this point. The word CI used to describe the dough is “saggy”. I prefer the term “crumbly” (bottom left).

Scoop this crumbly dough out onto some plastic wrap, wrap it very tightly and refrigerate it for about an hour.

Saggy dough is good.

Lamination Domination

I was almost positive that I was going to botch this step, but it was pretty easy actually. Once your dough has rested for an hour in the fridge the flour will be better hydrated and it’ll be closer to one full piece when you unwrap it.

Roll it out on a well-floured board to form a long rectangle. It should be about 8×14 if you want to get specific, but I just eyeballed it (top left). Then fold the bottom 1/3 of the dough up to the center (top right). Then fold the top 1/3 down (bottom left). This basically creates three layers of dough.

Rotate the dough 90 degrees and do the whole rolling and folding process again. For those that aren’t math inclined, the second time you do this, you’ll have 9 layers of dough (3×3). The third and last time you do this, you’ll have 27 layers of dough.

This makes the final dough very flakey and awesome and is worth the 10 minutes or so it takes to do it. Your final dough will be really easy to work with. Before you roll it out though, wrap it in plastic again and stick in the fridge for another hour so it firms up (bottom right).

Like pastry, but actually doable.

Ok. The dough is the hardest part of this guy by a long shot. The filling is straightforward.

Leeky Shrooms

I’m not a huge fan of microwaves, but Cook’s Illustrated suggested using one to soften up the mushrooms for this recipe. I’m not really sure why. You could just slice them and saute them normally, but I figured I would try the microwave thing.

The shrooms!

I just rinsed off my shrooms and added them to a microwave safe bowl. Then covered them with plastic wrap and zapped them for about 4-5 minutes on high.

Seemed to work okay. Notice that I didn’t slice them yet.

Microwave at work.

Drain the mushrooms in a colander. They will release a lot of liquid in the microwave which is the goal. Then slice them thinly.

For the leeks, slice the white and light green parts thinly and add them to a skillet or medium pot with a drizzle of olive oil. Cook the leeks over medium heat until they are soft (about 4-5 minutes), then toss in your sliced mushrooms and fresh thyme.

Pretty colors.

Cook this for another few minutes just to combine the flavors. Then kill the heat and let the filling cool slightly.

You’ll need a few other items to finish off the filling. The original recipe called for créme fraîche, but I just used sour cream. Seemed like a fine substitution.

Flavor town.

Mix in the sour cream and mustard into your filling and maybe hit it with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Filling is done!

Really tasty.

Making the Galette

Once you’re ready to actually make this bad boy, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Take your dough out of the fridge a few minutes before you want to roll it out. Then roll it into a large circle. Ideally, it would be about a 14 inch circle, but you can just eyeball it. I do recommend taking a knife and actually cutting a round shape out of the dough if you have any ends that are sticking out because it will make the folding easier.

Transfer the dough to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brush the center with some olive oil. Then pile on half of your filling!

NOTE: I made another change to the recipe at this point. Cook’s Illustrated said to cut tiny holes in the BOTTOM of your galette crust before adding the filling. Five holes to be exact. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why you would want to do that and it wasn’t explained at any point in the recipe so I just didn’t do it. No harm done.

Really easy dough to work with.

Crumble on half of your cheese, then the rest of the filling, then the final bit of cheese.

Now it’s time to fold it! Start at one end and just fold the dough to the center.

The first fold.

Rotate the dough and every few inches, just fold the dough toward the center.

Easy enough right?

Get it?

Eventually, you’ll have this wonderful little galette. Once you get it folded all the way around, brush the edges of the dough with egg wash (just an egg scrambled with 1 tablespoon water).

This guy is finally ready for the oven!

Don't forget egg wash.

Oven your galette is in the oven, turn the heat down to 375. Then let it bake for 35-40 minutes.

This guy turned out fantastic.

Nailed it.

The filling for this guy is good, but the crust is amazing. It’s really flakey and flavorful since it has some whole wheat flour in it.

It’s a bit of work, no doubt, but the results are worth it in my opinion.

A more red soup you will not find.

Betsy and I are very into the show Dexter right now. It’s such an original and interesting show.

The problem is that we don’t have cable and so we are always a few seasons behind because we have to rely on Netflix for our Dexter fix.

Anyway, while I was making this soup, which is probably the most red thing I’ve ever made, I thought to myself, “This is what Dexter Morgan must feel like after a kill.”

My cutting board looked like a crime scene.

That’s the price you pay for cooking with beets I guess. It’s a price that I’m definitely willing to pay because they make for a really delicious and healthy soup.

Roasted Beet Soup

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

3 large beets, roasted and cubed
1/2 head garlic, roasted
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large leek, sliced thinly
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 quart vegetable stock
1 bay leaf (opt.)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Stick blender or normal blender

Directions:

1) Slice off root tip and stem tip of three large beets and roast them in a 400 degree oven until they are tender, about an hour.

2) Slice the top off of half a head of garlic, exposing the cloves. Wrap in foil, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Roast for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

3) Once beets are roasted, let them cool and then peel and cube them.

4) In a large pot, add a few tablespoons of olive oil and the sliced leek. Let cook until soft over medium heat, just a few minutes.

5) Add cubed beets and roasted garlic along with thyme and bay leaf. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

6) Discard bay leaf and blend with a blender.

7) Add lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Serve with lots of crusty bread.

Adapted from a Whole Living recipe.

Big Beets

This is not a complicated soup. The flavors are pretty straightforward and the star of the show is definitely the beets. Since there isn’t a lot of other stuff in the soup, the beet flavor is intense.

This is a good thing.

Beets, when they are roasted, have a slightly sweet flavor that rocks when paired with the few other ingredients in this soup.

I’ve made a more complicated beet soup before (cold borscht) and while both soups are great, I loved the simplicity of this one. One big change between that soup and this version is roasting the beets. While it does add about an hour onto your prep time, it’s totally worth it. The beet flavors get a lot more intense after roasting.

You don’t have to do anything fancy to the beets before roasting them. Just chop off the stems and the root tips so they sit flat on a sheet pan. No need to wash them or anything since you’ll need to peel them later anyway.

These were some big beets.

Roast them at 400 degrees until they are tender, probably about an hour. This, of course, depends on how big your beets are. Mine were huge and so I only needed three of them. These were about the size of my fist!

If you use smaller beets, you’ll obviously need to use more of them.

My Favorite Smell

I made a soup a few weeks ago that was all about roasted garlic. While this soup is focused on the beets, it also has roasted garlic in it. Not quite as much, but just enough to give it some nice flavor.

I’m pretty sure that roasted garlic is one of my favorite smells in the whole world. Nothing like it.

I used a half of a head of garlic and just sliced off the tip of if and then drizzled it with some olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Wrap it in foil and roast this sucker for 30 minutes. When my beets were about half done, I just tossed it in with them for the last 30 minutes.

Standard.

Beet Red

Once your beets are done roasting, let them cool for a few minutes and then get down to business.

You’ll quickly understand where the phrase “beet red” comes from. This stuff will stain anything it touches.

The peel on a beet is pretty thick. I’ve never been able to find a veggie peeler that can do a good job, so I always just use a paring knife to peel these guys.

Dexter loves these.

Once the beets are peeled, just cube them up and you’re ready to go! The hardest part of this recipe is dealing with the beets. It’s smooth sailing from here.

There will be evidence of this dish.

The roasted garlic is a lot easier to deal with than the beets. Once it’s done roasting, let it cool as well and then you can literally just pop the cloves out of their skins.

Definitely a top ten smell for me.

Finishing the Soup

This soup is really easy to throw together once you have the ingredients roasted. Just add a few tablespoons of olive oil to a large pot and then throw in some sliced leeks.

I guess you could use onions instead of leeks for this, but I worry that the onions would really overpower the beet flavor. Leeks are a bit more mild so they work better in my opinion.

Just cook them over medium heat until they soften, probably 6-8 minutes.

Onions, but better.

Then add in the beets, garlic, herbs, and stock and bring the whole thing to a simmer.

Let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes and then puree it with a stick blender. You can definitely use a normal blender as well. If you’re using a bay leaf, take it out before blending the soup.

To be honest, if you don’t have a blender, you could just dice up your beets into smaller cubes and serve this soup without blending it. It would have a nice rustic feel to it.

Action shot!

After it’s blended up, add in the fresh lemon juice and taste the soup for salt and pepper. It’ll probably need a good pinch of both, but might be okay on salt depending on the kind of stock you use. Some can be pretty salty.

Sabotage

This soup was actually supposed to be part of a healthy cleanse thing that Betsy and I are half-trying to do. We’re failing pretty badly at it honestly.

We sabotaged this meal by making a huge loaf of delicious garlic bread to serve with the soup. I just sliced up a whole wheat loaf of bread and drizzled on some butter that I melted together with a crushed clove of garlic.

Then I baked it in foil for about 15 minutes while I finished the soup.

Sabotage!

The soup was totally delicious, but I would’ve had a hard time making a meal out of it without the bread.

Great winter meal.

Nothing to fancy about this meal, but it’s a really great winter dish. The flavors are warming and healthy.

If one of your new year’s resolutions is to lose weight, eat better, or cook more, this soup should be on your meal plan soon!

I guess like a farm house would make?

Let me preface what I’m about to write with the fact that I’m an enormous Cook’s Illustrated fan. I love their magazine and cookbooks and all their recipes are almost always surefire.

That said, when “Farmhouse Veggie Soup” won the poll last week, I was expecting to read a recipe involving slow-simmering stocks and farm-raised veggies.

After all, I have a hard time calling a recipe “Farmhouse” unless it’s actually cooked in a farmhouse. Or at a minimum it should use all fresh ingredients.

When I think of a farmhouse veggie soup, I imagine an old grandmother slowly stirring a pot of stock that’s been simmering for hours. She carefully stirs in hand-picked veggies from outside her back door while her lazy dogs lounge around the kitchen.

What doesn’t come to mind is a test cook in a cooking laboratory mixing soy sauce and powdered porcini mushrooms to get the same deep flavors that the grandmother gets.

It’s not to say that the later version isn’t completely delicious (it is), but calling it “Farmhouse” makes me feel icky.

So I’m renaming it Cheater’s Veggie Soup. Because that’s really what it is.

Cheater's Vegetable Soup

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon dried porcini mushroom powder
8 Sprigs fresh parsley + 3 Tablespoons chopped
4 Sprigs fresh thyme
1 Bay leaf
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Large leeks, 1/2 inch slices
2 Carrots, peeled and diced
2 Ribs celery, diced
1/2 Cup white wine
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
6 Cups water
4 Cups vegetable stock
1/2 Cup pearl barley
2 Cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 turnip, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 green cabbage, diced
1 Cup frozen peas
1 Teaspoon lemon juice

Serve with:
Crusty Bread
Lemon Thyme butter (1 stick butter mashed with 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme, zest from 1/2 lemon, and a pinch of salt)

Helpful Equipment:
Dutch Oven

Spice Grinder

Directions:

1) In a spice grinder, grind a handful of dried mushrooms for 25-30 seconds until they are powdered. Measure out a Tablespoon of the powder.

2) Use kitchen twine to tie together parsley and thyme sprigs with bay leaf.

3) Melt butter in a large, sturdy pot (dutch oven works well) over medium heat. Add leeks, carrots, celery, white wine and soy sauce, plus a big pinch of salt. Cook until liquid is evaporated and veggies are soft, about 10 minutes.

4) Add water, broth, barley, mushroom powder, herb bundle, and garlic. Increase heat and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes, partially covered.

5) Add potatoes, turnips, and cabbage. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes.

6) Remove soup from heat and stir in peas and chopped parsley. Remove herb bundle. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with crusty bread and lemon-thyme butter.

Adapted from a Cook's Illustrated Recipe

Some Whacky Ingredients

This recipe is kind of wild, but with good reason. Most cooks know that the way to make the best homemade soup is to start with a really good homemade stock. Without this, you’re already playing catch-up.

But this recipe ingeniously compensates for the lack of a homemade stock with a few ingredients that have a delicious, savory flavor: dried mushrooms and soy sauce. Just a small amount of both of these gives the soup a really deep flavor so you can actually use store-bought stock and still end up with a fantastic soup.

The first ingredient, porcini mushroom powder, is a bit weird. Luckily, it’s actually really easy to make. Just stick a few dried mushrooms in your spice grinder and pulse them for about 30 seconds. BAM. Mushroom powder.

Mushroom powder is strong!

Soy sauce and white wine also give the soup some great flavors.

Normally, when you make a good stock, you let some herbs simmer in the stock, but for this soup, we’ll just throw the herb bundle straight into the soup when we add the store-bought stock.

Herb bundles are smart.

Starting the Soup

Most of the actual vegetables in this soup are pretty straightforward. One thing I was really happy to see was the substitution of leeks for onions. Onions can quickly overpower a soup so the leeks are a great change. They have that same flavor profile, but aren’t quite as strong.

The key part to remember about chopping leeks is to make sure you cut them in half horizontally and run them under water to clean the dirt out between the layers of leeks. Then you can just dice them up.

Don't be intimidated!

Also dice up some celery and carrots and you’re ready to get started on the soup.

Starting the soup...

Using a heavy pot, like a dutch oven, melt some butter over medium-high heat and then toss in your leeks, carrots, and celery. Also add in the white wine, soy sauce, and a big pinch of salt.

Cook this until the liquids all evaporate and the veggies are starting to soften.

Then go ahead and stir in the water, mushroom powder, herb bundle, stock, garlic, and barley.

Stock and water!

The barley is especially important. As it plumps up, it really thickens the soup nicely.

Action shot!

Bring this to a simmer and let it simmer for about 20-25 minutes so the barley can start to cook.

The Starchy Stuff

While that’s simmering away, you can prepare the starchy stuff in the soup: potatoes, turnips, and cabbage. Ok. Cabbage isn’t exactly a starch, but you add it with the starchy stuff so it gets lumped in for purposes of this soup.

The starch business.

Once your soup has simmered for 20 minutes or so, then you can stir in those veggies.

Love these flavors.

Continue to simmer the soup until the veggies are all tender and the barley is cooked. This will probably be another 20 minutes or so.

Finishing the Soup

To finish off this soup, once all the veggies are soft, kill the heat and stir in some frozen peas and fresh parsley. Now would also be a good time to taste the soup for seasoning. It might need another pinch of salt and pepper.

Some green stuff.

Serve this up immediately with some really crusty bread.

Crusty bread is key.

It’s a perfect soup for the fall and you can actually make it on a week day thanks to some of the shortcuts in the recipe.

I’m not sure that I would exactly call it “Farmhouse”, but I would call it a keeper!

You put what in my 'dilla?

“Wait. You put what in a quesadilla?”

That’s what I said when I first heard about this idea from a friend and reader a few weeks ago.

I thought of a million reasons why this shouldn’t work. The strawberries will get mushy. The leeks will overpower everything. Oh. And the strawberries will get mushy!

But, shockingly, I was 100% wrong. (That was sarcasm by the way. I’m generally wrong about such things.)

Turns out that strawberries are one of those hidden quesadilla ingredients that just rocks. It’ll change your Tex-Mex world.

Strawberry Leek Quesadillas

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 large leek, greens cut off and washed
4 or 5 ripe strawberries, sliced thin
Drizzle of olive oil
2 large flour tortillas
1/2 Cup low fat mozzarella
1/4 Cup goat cheese
Black pepper
Cilantro

Directions:

1) Slice strawberries thinly. Cut green stems off of leeks, slice in half longwise, and wash between layers. Then chop into half circles.

2) Add a drizzle of oil to a large skillet. Add leeks and cook over medium heat for a few minutes until they are soft and slightly browned. Season with salt.

3) Remove from pan. Add another drizzle of oil and a flour tortilla. Turn heat up to medium-high.

4) Layer in mozz cheese, leeks, strawberries, and goat cheese. Season with pepper. Add a top tortilla.

5) Cook for about 3-4 minutes a side until tortillas are very crispy and cheese melted.

6) When flipping, I like to slide my full quesadilla onto a plate, invert the plate using another plate, then slide it back in the pan.

7) When done, cut into sixths and sprinkle with fresh cilantro. Serve immediately.

Adapted from a Sprouted Kitchen recipe.

The Main Ingredients

You should be able to find some really nice strawberries and leeks these days in the stores or markets. Obviously, since there are so few ingredients in this recipe, each one is really important. So try to pick some good ones.

Pretty things.

Leeks are kind of strange creatures. The important thing to remember is that they have lots of different layers, kind of like an onion, but unlike an onion, they will get all kinds of dirt in between their layers as they grow.

So you need to do some careful washing anytime you’re using them.

Just chop off most of the green stem (great for compost heaps) and then slice the leek in half. You should be able to peel back the layers and wash between them without too much trouble.

Lots of dirt in there....

Cooking the Quesadilla

I actually made this quesadilla twice. The first time I tried to make it in the oven and it didn’t work out great. It took too long to crisp up the tortilla and the strawberries actually did get mushy.

You want to cook the entire thing in a big large skillet.

Start by adding a drizzle of oil to a skillet and add the leeks along with a pinch of salt.

After a few minutes on medium heat, the leeks should soften a bit and start to just turn brown.

I love the smell of leeks.

Remove them from the pan, add another drizzle of oil and crank your heat up to medium-high.

Add the tortilla straight to the pan and start layering in your ingredients.

I did a layer of mozzarella, then the leeks, strawberries, and goat cheese. Season it really well with black pepper.

Piled high!

Add the other half to the quesadilla and cook it for about 3-4 minutes on each side.

When you’re flipping a full quesadilla like this, I like to slide it onto a plate, then invert the plate using another plate, which flips the quesadilla. Then slide it back into the pan.

If you try to do the air flip thing, it might work. Or it might ruin a really good quesadilla.

Once it’s ready, let it cool for a few seconds and then chop it up.

I was really happy with how it turned out. Nice and crispy on the outside with some delicious flavor on the inside.

CHOP!

In my opinion the cilantro is only optional if you absolutely hate cilantro.

Cilantro is a nice touch.

So yea. Who knew? Strawberries in quesadillas are really good.

It’s quick to make, very delicious, and will totally impress your friends with your abilities to pair berries and melted cheese.

Is a strawberry pizza in the works? Maybe…

Great spring flavors!

With Spring comes some of my favorite veggies of all time. Artichokes. Asparagus. Fresh sweet corn.

I’m in veggie heaven.

All of the dishes in the poll last week were veggie-packed but I was especially excited about the Veggie Stew idea since it gave me the opportunity to just cram in as many things as possible.

The end result wasn’t just tasty, it was also health in a bowl!

Spring Vegetable Soup

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

3 fresh artichoke hearts, cut into eighths
2 leeks, minced
1/2 bundle asparagus, chopped
2 ears fresh corn, cut off the cob
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 Lemon (for artichokes)
1 Quart veggie stock, enhanced (see below)
3/4 ounce dried mushrooms, reconstituted
3 Tablespoons olive oil or butter
Pinch of salt and pepper
Fresh parsley, garnish

Enhanced Veggie Stock:
1 quart store bought veggie stock
2 Cups water
1/2 onion
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
1/2 garlic bulb
15-20 black peppercorns
Few stalks of parsley
Salt to taste

Directions:

1) Prep all veggies before starting soup. For artichokes, cut off pointy tip and cut the stalk down to the bulb. Then pull off outside leaves and use a paring knife to carve down to the heart of the artichoke.

2) Cut artichokes into eighths and put in cold water with lemon juice until you need them.

3) To make enhanced stock, add all incredients to a large pot, bring to a simmer, and simmer for 45 minutes. Strain out veggies.

4) Add 2 Cups of reconstituted mushroom liquid to stock.

5) When ready to make soup, add a few tablespoons of oil to a pot. Add leeks, celery, and artichokes. Cook for a few minutes over medium heat.

6) Add stock, asparagus, and chopped reconstituted mushrooms.

7) Cook for 10-15 minutes until asparagus and artichokes are tender.

8) Add corn and cook for another minute or two.

9) Serve with crusty bread and parsley.

Veggie World

If you need practice on prepping strange veggies, this is the recipe for you. I used four veggies in this post that are all kind of tricky in their own way.

Spring TIME!

Asparagus is easy enough. Snap off the rough ends and chop into about 2 inch segments.

For the corn, just strip off the husks and stand it on its end in a bowl. Use a knife to carve off the kernels. The bowl will catch the kernels so they don’t fly all over your kitchen.

For the leeks, chop off the roots and most of the greens. You’ll probably be left with about 3 inches of leek that’s edible. Slice each leek in half and run it under cold water, pulling the layers apart to wash out any dirt in between. Then chop them up.

That leaves us with the most pesky of any vegetable: ARTICHOKES.

I’ll be completely honest. I hate prepping artichokes like this. My favorite way to eat artichokes is to steam them and serve them with butter (a separate post). But for this recipe you need to trim them down to just the heart.

No two ways about it… It’s hard work.

Start by using a sharp knife (I like to use a paring knife) to chop off the pointy top of the artichoke.

It’ll be pretty, but vexing.

Strange things...

Use your fingers to rip off any of the outside leaves that you can. Then use your paring knife to slowly whittle down to the center of the artichoke. In the center, there are like a thousand annoying little stamen things. The easiest way to deal with them is just to cut out the whole section in one swoop.

Eventually, you’ll be left with a few ounces of artichoke that’ll be very tender and delicious in the soup.

Whoever ate these first must have been very hungry, but thank god they figured it out because they are really tasty.

Carve out my heart!

I quartered my hearts as I did them, but I think that was a bit big for the soup. I’d recommend cutting them into eighths.

When you’re done with each heart, add it to a bowl of cold water with some lemon juice in it. That’ll keep the hearts from turning really brown.

Soak a 'choke.

Enhancing Stock

PHEW. Seriously, the artichokes are the hardest part of this recipe. It’s smooth sailing from here. If you wanted to leave them out you definitely could.

It’s no secret that a good stock is the most important part of any good soup or stew.

That said, sometimes you may not have time to make stock from scratch. The recipe above is what I do to enhance store bought stock to give it a bit more flavor.

I start with store bought stock and a few cups of water and then add lots of fresh veggies and aromatics. I bring everything to a boil and let it simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes or so.

It’ll end up being very good and trim a few hours off of making homemade stock.

Taking stock...

For this version, I also reconstituted some dried mushrooms by adding them to a big bowl of hot water.

After they sat for about 15 minutes, I added 2 Cups of the mushroom broth to my stock also which gave it a great earthy flavor. You can chop up the mushrooms obviously and add them to the stew as well.

Lots of flavors here...

Making the Stew

Before you get started on the stew, make sure you have everything ready. It comes together pretty quickly actually and you don’t want to overcook it or your veggies will get really soggy.

So have everything ready!

Nothing beats fresh veggies.

Start by adding a few tablespoons of oil or butter to a large pot over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, add the leeks, celery, and artichoke hearts to the pan. Cook them for about 6 minutes until the leeks are starting to get soft and are nice and fragrant.

Starting the soup...

Then add all your stock to the pan along with the asparagus and mushrooms. Bring it all to a boil and let it simmer until the asparagus and artichokes are tender, probably another 10-15 minutes.

You want them tender, but not soggy!

Then stir in the corn and cook for another minute or so. It’ll cook really quickly.

Then you’re all set!

Try not to cook it down to mush...

Before you serve this be sure to taste it for salt and pepper. Depending on the stock you use, it may not need much. Mine needed a good pinch of both though.

Serve this garnished with some fresh parsley and lots of crusty bread.

Artichoke pieces were a bit large.

When I was picking veggies for this stew, I just went to the produce section and picked out a few things that looked fresh and nice. I’d recommend you do the same. You could use frozen, but fresh is always best! If you can get your hands on some fresh peas, they would be great in this also.

Betsy and I have been eating on this for a few days now and I feel really healthy every time I have a bowl of it.

Colorful and delicious!

As luck would have it, the New York Times published a piece on quinoa just a few days ago and made it clear that while the grain is growing in popularity here in the states, the rising demand for it has made it impossible for Bolivians to purchase the grain that they’ve grown and eaten for hundreds of years.

I feel bad about this, but you guys should feel worse because hey: You voted for it!

No but seriously, I hope that either A) the quinoa trend will die down a bit and therefore the price will go down or B) the Bolivian government will find some way to subsidize the grain for their people so they can afford the grain they’ve lived on for so many years.

I have a feeling that B is more likely because, frankly, quinoa is really good and I expect that it’ll probably only increase in popularity as people catch on.

Quinoa and Veggie Pilaf

Yield: Serves 6.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups quinoa, rinsed
1 Cup vegetable stock
2 Cups frozen peas, 1 Cup for sauce and 1 for dish
1 clove garlic
1/4 Cup fresh mint, chopped
4 Tablespoons butter
1 large leek, white part only diced
3/4 Cups shallot, diced (1-2 large shallots)
8 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms (or any mushroom)
1 14-ounce bunch of asparagus, cut into sections
Salt and pepper
Hot sauce (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
A blender!

Directions:

1) To make sauce, blend the stock, half the peas, a handful of mint, and a clove of garlic. Once it's smooth, set it aside for later.

2) To make quinoa, add 1 1/2 Cups of rinsed quinoa to 2 1/2 Cups boiling water. Cover and simmer for 15-17 minutes until quinoa is tender and cooked.

3) Dice leeks and shallots. Slice mushrooms thinly and chop asparagus into pieces.

4) Add butter to a large skillet and once melted, add leeks and shallots. Cook until veggies are soft, about 4-5 minutes.

5) Then add asparagus and mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring. Cook for another 5 minutes or so until mushrooms are tender and asparagus is tender, but still slightly crunchy.

6) Once veggies are done, fold in quinoa, pea sauce, whole peas, and season with salt and pepper. Stir until pilaf is warmed through.

7) Serve with hot sauce!

Making the sauce

This dish has a very light pea-based sauce that gives the final dish a tiny bit of sweetness. It’s basically a really simple pea soup.

Frozen peas. So sue me.

The sauce is pretty simple to make. Just add half of the peas, some vegetable stock, a good handful of mint, and a clove of garlic to a blender and blend it up until it’s smooth. Then just set it aside until later.

I used frozen peas for this dish and I think they work fine. No need to go through the trouble of shelling a bunch of peas for it.

Basically pea soup.

Quinoa

I would like to think I was a leader in the quinoa world. I’ve been eating it for many years now and I can say that it’s definitely gone up in price. Almost ridiculously so. I think a bag will run you $4-$5 these days which is more expensive than most grains on the market.

I used to be able to get it wholesale for about $1/pound I think, but I don’t mind paying more for it. It’s still one of the best grains out there in my opinion.

Sorry Bolivia...

The key to quinoa, and one that I’ve messed up a few times, is to make sure you don’t overcook it. If you do, it’ll turn really mushy and not good at all.

To cook 1 1/2 Cups of quinoa (what the recipe calls for), you’ll need about 2 1/2 Cups water. Bring it to a boil with a pinch of salt and then add the quinoa. Stir it and then let it simmer for about 15 minutes covered. That should be enough time for all the water to evaporate, but if there’s still any water, you can uncover the pot so it evaporates quickly.

You should end up with a really fluffy quinoa. The grains should still have some texture to them though.

Don't overcook this stuff!

The Other Stuff

There’s some great flavors in this dish besides the quinoa. Also included is some leeks and shallots which are a great substitute for the standard onion flavor.

If you’ve never chopped up a leek before, don’t fret. Chop off the green leaves, then slice the white part down the center. Under cold water, rinse off the leek halves being sure to get in between the layers of leek. There’s tons of dirt in there that you need to wash out. Then you can just dice up the leek like normal.

Good flavors.

Also, you’ll need some mushrooms and asparagus. I used shiitake mushrooms which have a nice spring lightness to them, but you could use any mushroom you want really.

Asparagus isn’t optional in my opinion for this dish. It really makes it.

Good spring veg.

To start off the dish, add the butter to a large skillet. When it’s melted, add the shallots and leeks and cook them over medium heat until they’re soft. That’ll probably take 4-5 minutes.

This'll smell good.

Then add in the mushrooms and asparagus and continue to cook, stirring every once in awhile. Cook it down until the mushrooms are soft and the asparagus is cooked but still slightly crunchy. Mine cooked about 5 minutes and the asparagus was perfect.

Again. Don't overcook here...

Finally, fold in the quinoa, pea sauce, and whole peas. Stir this all together and once it is warmed through, it’s ready to serve. Season it with salt and pepper at this point. It’ll probably need a pinch of both.

BAM.

Ok. I’ll be honest.

I liked this dish a lot. But I thought it needed something. That something was hot sauce.

Cheating?

Most things are better with hot sauce, but I thought this dish was a lot better with hot sauce.

Betsy liked it without though so do what you want.

But try it with hot sauce.

Mushroom. Packed.

I hope you like mushrooms. I mean I hope you really like mushrooms. If you don’t you might as well hit up some other food blog today because I think that this recipe borders on insane when it comes to the amount of mushrooms.

But if you like mushrooms. Well. Then you are in for a treat!

I should note that the original recipe for this dish was mushroom-packed, but not mushroom-explodingly-packed. The thing is that when I put it on the poll last week I thought it was a vegetarian recipe. This is largely due to my inability to read the English language.

Anyway, only after the recipe had secured victory did I realize that it was, in fact, pretty meat-packed. So I decided to make it vegetarian. That meant substituting about 2 pounds of ground beef with 2 pounds of mushrooms and vegetables.

Honestly, I didn’t even think it would work. Luckily, it not only worked, but turned out to be very delicious!

If you like mushrooms that is.

Mushroom Meatloaf

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

The Loaf:
2 1/2 pounds assorted mushrooms (I used a mix of cremini and white button), chopped
3 large leeks, cleaned, quartered, and chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 large eggs
1 Cup bread crumbs
2 Tablespoons heavy cream
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 Teaspoon cayenne
1 Teaspoon garam masala (optional)
1 Teaspoon salt
1 Teaspoon pepper

The Gravy:
1 1/2 pounds mushrooms, sliced thin (I used all cremini for this)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme
1 Cup dry red wine
6 Cups low-sodium vegetable stock
2 Tablespoons butter, soft
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 Cup cream

Glaze for Loaf:
1/3 Cup ketchup
1 Teaspoon soy sauce
1 Teaspoon chili sauce (like sriracha. You could up this if you want.)
1 Teaspoon vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
Pinch of salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Loaf pan

Directions:

1) For the gravy, chop up all the veggies and add them to a medium to large saucepan along with the olive oil and cook them over medium-high heat until they cook down and most of the moisture from the veggies evaporates, about 15 minutes.

2) Add red wine and salt and pepper. Stir until red wine cooks down. Then add thyme and vegetable stock. Bring to a simmer, turn heat down to low, and simmer, uncovered, until sauce reduced to 4-5 cups of liquid, about 30-45 minutes.

3) For loaf, chop mushrooms, garlic, and leeks and add to a large pan with olive oil over high heat. Cook until veggies reduce down and most of the liquid evaporates, about 15 minutes.

4) Let cool to room temperature and then mix with all the other loaf ingredients in a large bowl. You might need to add more or less bread crumbs based on how much liquid your veggies had.

5) Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and scoop in your loaf mixture. Invert on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Remove pan and plastic wrap to leave a free-standing loaf.

6) Bake loaf at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove and brush on glaze. Return to the oven to cook for another 15-20 minutes (Note: If you use meat instead of mushrooms, you'll need to cook this for closer to 75 minutes total).

7) Back to gravy, mix soft butter, flour, and cream together to form a smooth paste.

8) Whisk paste into simmering sauce until smooth. Simmer until thick and silky smooth. Taste for salt and pepper.

9) Serve gravy and sliced loaf together. Garnish with fresh thyme.

OPTIONAL STEP: Slice loaf and then pan fry the slices in a skillet with a tiny amount of vegetable oil for a few minutes per side over high heat to crisp up the sides of the slices.

Mushroom Heaven

I guess that I should’ve known that this recipe wasn’t vegetarian because it’s called meatloaf and not mushloaf, but for some reason I just didn’t get the memo. Obviously, I’m not opposed to meat, I was just in the mood for a veg dish. You could substitute some of the mushrooms in the loaf for ground beef and continue with the recipe.

As is though, you need to wash and slice a huge amount of ‘shrooms.

Just some of the many mushrooms needed.

Making the Gravy

The gravy takes longer than the loaf to make so it’s a good idea to get it started first. Chop up all your veggies pretty evenly (the mushrooms can be sliced as pictured above) and add them all to a medium saucepan with the olive oil.

Put this over medium-high heat and cook it, stirring occasionally, until all the veggies start to cook down.

Gravy is good.

It’ll take probably 15-20 minutes (you can start making the loaf while it cooks), but eventually most of the water should be cooked out of the veggies. Add the red wine at this point along with a pinch of salt and pepper.

It should be smelling good!

A little wine goes a long way.

Once the wine cooks down for a few minutes, add all your vegetable stock and thyme and bring the sauce to a simmer. Turn your heat down to medium-low and let it simmer uncovered for 30 minutes or so until it reduces by about half. You should have about 4-5 cups of gravy at the end.

Making the loaf

Since the gravy is pretty low maintenance (just stirring occasionally), you can prep the loaf while it simmers.

You start by, yep you guessed it, chopping a huge amount of mushrooms. The recipe says to process these, but I just sliced them and then chopped them up roughly. I figured they would cook down quite a bit, which they did.

More mushrooms!

Chop up the leeks as well and add the mushrooms and leeks to a large skillet over medium-high heat with a few Tablespoons of oil. Stir them occasionally and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid and most of the liquid cooks out.

If it gives you an idea of how much these will cook down, this pan was completely full when I started cooking them.

All cooked down.

Once the veggies cook down completely, cool them down until they are room temperature and then mix them up with all your other loaf ingredients. Depending on how much liquid is left from the mushrooms, you might need to add more or less bread crumbs.

The original recipe called for 1/2 Cup but I had to double it to get my loaf to stay together.

Once the mixture is moldable and sticks together, line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and shovel in all the mixture. Really press this down to make sure the loaf is well formed.

Betsy was skeptical...

Next, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, invert the loaf pan and pull it off. It should slide right off and then you can remove the plastic wrap revealing a perfectly formed free-standing loaf!

Victory!

Why not just bake it in the loaf pan?

Well, you definitely can. In fact, the recipe says to. Obviously, if you want to bake it in the loaf pan, DON’T line the pan with plastic wrap before you bake it.

Ever since I tried the free-form loaf for my magnificent meatloaf, it’s just the way I always make any kind of loaf now.

Either way though, slide your loaf into a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes to set. Since there’s no meat, it’ll cook a lot faster. If you use meat, you’ll want to cook it for probably 75 minutes.

Back to the gravy!

Your gravy should be reduced by now, but still very liquid. We need to thicken it up a bit. I was skeptical of the method that BA recommended for this as I’ve never done it before, but it actually worked like a charm.

Instead of making a traditional roux on a stove top, they instructed to just mix together the flour, soft butter, and cream in a small bowl until it forms a smooth paste.

Cheater's Roux...

While your gravy mixture is simmering, whisk this into the pan and continue whisking until there are no lumps. I really didn’t think this would work, but it thickened up my sauce almost immediately and it all turned a very silky smooth consistency.

See?

Yum.

Back to the loaf!

The good think about baking a loaf free-form like this is that you can slather on a glaze all over the entire thing. If you use a pan, this isn’t nearly as effective since the pan has, well, walls.

The glaze I used for this recipe is really simple. Just mix up all the ingredients and slather it on all over the loaf. I like to add my glaze about 10-15 minutes before the loaf is done cooking. Earlier than that and it’ll burn.

Once your loaf is done, let it cool for a few minutes and slice it up!

A slice of mushroom heaven.

Serving.

Obviously you serve this with gravy. Visually, it looks better if you put the loaf on top of the gravy.

Also, if you want to get really fancy and take this up another notch (like it needs another notch), after you slice your loaf, sear it off in a skillet for a few minutes per side over high heat.

That’s how I got my pieces to be nice and crispy on the sides. I also sprinkled on some fresh thyme which goes well with mushrooms.

Very delicious.

The Mushloaf.

This ended up being kind of a whacky recipe and definitely not a weeknight situation. But the flavor was surprisingly awesome!

In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that I didn’t miss the meat one bit in this meal. The mushrooms actually give it a pretty meaty texture and deep earthy flavor that is very satisfying.

I think you could maybe even stuff a slice or two in a pita or between a few slices of bread and have a pretty decent sandwich the next day!

Couple that with the cold weather and all signs point to pasta carbonara for me. It’s one of my favorite ways to prepare pasta. Instead of a tomato or cream sauce, pasta carbonara is basically just eggs that are stirred into cooked pasta. The eggs cook slowly and make a kind of creamy and delicious sauce.

To change up the normal, I used bowtie pasta for this and added some crispy bacon and sauteed leeks for even more flavor.

A kind of carbonara

There’s really nothing fancy about this dish and you could even strip away a lot of the ingredients I use if you wanted to simplify it even more. You could ditch the bacon and leeks and have a much more traditional pasta. A little cheese grated on top with maybe some chopped parsley and you’d still be in good shape.

Bowtie Pasta Carbonara with Bacon and Leeks

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound bowtie pasta
4 strips bacon, diced
1 leek, diced
1/2 Teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 eggs, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper
Grated Parmesan
Chopped parsley

Directions:

1) Get water boiling for pasta. Salt it with 1 TBSP. salt per gallon of water. Cook pasta according to package.

2) Dice bacon and add to pan over medium heat. Cook until it's nice and crispy.

3) Dice leek making sure to rinse well to remove dirt.

4) Prep other ingredients for the dish.

5) Remove crispy bacon from pan. Add leeks to pan with a drizzle of olive oil if the pan is very dry. Cook for a minute or two and add red pepper flakes and garlic. Cook for a minute to soften the veggies.

6) Add bacon back to pan. Drain pasta and stir cooked pasta in with leek and bacon mixture.

7) Drizzle in egg mixture and stir like crazy. Kill the heat on the pan. The heat from the pan and pasta should cook the eggs and thicken the dish.

8) Season with salt and pepper and serve with grated parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.

Making the dish

The good news about this dish is that it takes literally 30 minutes to make, start to finish.

To start, get a large pot of salted water boiling for the pasta. Bowtie pasta takes a bit longer to cook than spaghetti, so definitely get your water going at least.

I like to use a little bacon for this dish and trust me a little goes a long way. Just dice it up into pieces. I used four thick strips for a pound of pasta so it’s really not all that much once it’s in the finished dish.

A little bacon goes a long way

Throw that into a pan and let it start to brown. The crispier the better in my opinion!

Meanwhile, dice up a leek. The important thing to remember about leeks is that they tend to have a lot of dirt in between their layers so chop it in half horizontally and wash it under cold water. You can kind of peel apart the layers a bit to get it nice and clean. Then dice it up!

Pretty straightforward

I like to get everything ready for this recipe because it all comes together really quickly.

These are all the things you’ll need. The chopped parsley is just for finishing the dish.

All you need.

When your bacon is crispy, move it onto a paper towel and then add your leeks to the rendered bacon fat. Oh yea… that’s flavor. You shouldn’t need any additional oil, but if it looks really dry, add a tablespoon of olive oil. I also added a pinch of red pepper flakes just to give it some heat.

After the leeks cook for a minute or two, add your garlic also. You don’t want to completely caramelize these guys, just cook them down a bit until they’re soft.

Just a few minutes

Meanwhile, make sure to have your eggs ready – just lightly beat them!

Sauce of sorts

Once your leeks are cooked, add your bacon back to that pan and stir it all together.

When your pasta is done, drain it and then add the pasta back to the pan over low heat. Now for the fun part. Add your leek/bacon mixture to the pasta and mix everything together.

Then drizzle in your beaten eggs and stir like a banshee! Don’t let the eggs clump together too much or you’ll end up with scrambled egg pasta – not as tasty. The key is to make sure you work quickly after you drain the pasta so it’s still very hot.

This is what you’re going for:

Stir stir stir!

After you add in all your eggs, stir it for a minute to make sure the eggs are cooked all the way and then taste for salt and pepper. The bacon will add some saltiness, but you’ll probably want to hit it with a good pinch of both.

Serve it right away! It’s best with grated Parm cheese and chopped parsley.

Parsley and Parmesan are good things

The dish is actually a lot lighter than it looks. Remember that there is no cream or anything in the dish (although you could add some if you wanted), that’s just from the eggs.

Yummy bite.

This is such a great dish and one that I think anyone can master. It’s perfect for a cold winter night when you don’t have a lot of time.

Give it a shot and get on the carbonara train.

Just to show spanakopita who’s boss, I decided to make two different varieties: A larger spinach pie version and smaller individual spanakopitas that are easily frozen for later.

My results were much improved this time around!

A slice of pie!

Before I get down to business with this recipe, let me thank everyone who personally emailed me recipes. And who knew I had so many Greek readers! I got about 20 different spanakopita recipes. That’s pretty awesome stuff.

And I promptly decided to not follow any of them and instead try to meld them all into one master spanakopita recipe. So if you sent me a recipe, you’ll probably find little pieces that are yours, but it probably won’t look exactly like yours. But I would’ve never been able to get this far without all the recipes so thanks again spanakopita fiends.

Spanakopita: Two Ways

Yield: Makes a 9X9 pie and also 6 individual spanakopitas.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pounds spinach (I got this from 4 bunches of fresh spinach, but you could also use frozen spinach)
2 leeks, washed and chopped
1 bunch of scallions, chopped
4 cloves garlic
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large egg
1/3 Cup chopped dill
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 Cup ricotta cheese
1 pound feta cheese, well crumbled
Salt and pepper to taste
1 package phyllo dough or if you are making it, about 20 sheets
2/3 Cups of clarified butter or olive oil

Helpful Equipment:
Pastry brush! (Kind of a must have when working with phyllo dough)

Directions:

1) Make sure spinach is clean and then blanch for a minute in simmering salted water. Drain the spinach and move it to some paper towels. Let it cool briefly and then squeeze out as much moisture as possible from the spinach.

2) Then coarsely chop the spinach.

3) Chop leeks and scallions and saute them for a minute or two over medium-high heat with a drizzle of olive oil. You just want them to soften up a bit.

4) Add leeks to chopped spinach and stir in all other filling ingredients.

FOR THE PIE:

1) In a 9X9 baking dish, brush the bottom with a light coating of clarified butter and fit in your first layer of phyllo dough. If it rips a bit, that's fine! The additional layers will cover your problems.

2) After your first layer of dough, brush the surface well with butter and lay down your second piece perpendicular to the first - just to make sure the layers are even on the sides. I did 8 layers on the bottom, but I heard anywhere from 4-10 in the recipes I read.

3) After you build a firm, solid base, poke it with a fork a few times so steam can escape. Then fill the shell with a good amount of filling. I filled it about 1/2 an inch high.

4) Then add two more layers of phyllo dough.

5) Then another 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch of filling.

6) Finally add 4 more pieces of phyllo on top. Again, you always always brush with butter in between layers! When you're done, you can fold over the edges toward the center so they don't stick out too much. Also, you can pre-cut through all the layers to make it easier to get out. I just cut mine into 4 large pieces!

7) Bake this at 375 for about 35-40 minutes! It will be completely delicious.

FOR INDIVIDUAL PIES:

1) Take one sheet of dough and brush it well with butter.

2) Fold it in half horizontally and brush that surface with butter.

3) Add a few Tablespoons of filling to the bottom right corner of the phyllo.

4) Then fold the left corner over the filling to form a triangle!

5) Continue to fold triangle up to form a triangle of filled dough. Brush with more butter and add to a baking sheet.

6) Freeze the wraps or bake them for 25-30 minutes at 375.

Making the Filling

I used fresh spinach for this batch, but I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t lose much by using frozen spinach. I wouldn’t try canned though. Popeye can keep the stuff.

If you’re using fresh though, make sure your spinach is very clean and washed.

You could use frozen.

Then blanch it for a literally a minute, using a colander, in simmering salted water. When you pull it out of the water, set the hot spinach in a few paper towels. Bunch of the paper towels and (over the sink) squeeze out as much moisture as you can.

Then give the stuff a coarse chop!

Actually, this is a lot of spinach.

Once you’re spinach is done, chop up your leeks and scallions. Again, be sure to wash everything well. The leeks especially have a tendency to accumulate dirt between the layers. I like to split them down the middle and then wash them to get in all the layers.

Chopping leeks!

Some of the recipes I read called for the leeks and scallions (if they were used) to be raw, but I decided to saute them for just a minute or two to bring out the flavors and soften them a bit. I sauteed them along with the garlic in about 3 Tablespoons of olive oil.

Just a minute or two people.

Once those are cooked you can add them to the bowl with the chopped spinach.

Now let’s talk cheese. You could definitely use just feta for this and I think that would be just fine, but I decided to do some mixing and added a tiny portion of ricotta cheese.

That's right. Ricotta baby.

The filling is pretty easy to finish at this point. Just mix together your cheeses with your vegetables and then stir in your egg, spices, and salt and pepper.

The only thing to remember on the cheese is to make sure you crumble your feta up very well before adding it in. Spend a few minutes breaking it up into tiny pieces.

This stuff was delicious just like this!

Don't tell anyone... I snuck a few spoonfuls.

Dealing with Phyllo

Phyllo is fickle. The real problem with it is that because it’s so incredibly thin, it dries out very fast. So if you aren’t careful, by the end of your spanakopita adventure, your phyllo will be impossible to work with. It will just flake apart in your hands. Also, be sure to read the package to make sure your phyllo dough is thawed enough to work with!

The way to make sure it stays flexible is to keep your phyllo dough under a barely moist dish towel. Be careful to just barely get it wet (damp is the word that comes to mind) or it will fuse all your phyllo sheets together!

Making the pie

Basically, the spanakopita pie is layers of phyllo dough, brushed with butter or olive oil in between and packed full of spinach filling.

This was my method:

1) In a 9X9 baking dish, brush the bottom with a light coating of clarified butter and fit in your first layer of phyllo dough. If it rips a bit, that’s fine! The additional layers will cover your problems. (Top left)

2) After your first layer of dough, brush the surface well with butter and lay down your second piece perpendicular to the first – just to make sure the layers are even on the sides. I did 8 layers on the bottom, but I heard anywhere from 4-10 in the recipes I read. (Top right)

3) After you build a firm, solid base, poke it with a fork a few times so steam can escape. Then fill the shell with a good amount of filling. I filled it about 1/2 an inch high. (Mid left)

4) Then add two more layers of phyllo dough. (Mid right)

5) Then another 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch of filling. (Bottom left)

6) Finally add 4 more pieces of phyllo on top. Again, you always always brush with butter in between layers! When you’re done, you can fold over the edges toward the center so they don’t stick out too much. Also, you can pre-cut through all the layers to make it easier to get out. I just cut mine into 4 large pieces! (Bottom right)

Get it?

Bake this at 375 for about 35-40 minutes! It will be completely delicious.

Making individual Spanakopitas

Now for a different method.

1) Take one sheet of dough and brush it well with butter. (Top left)
2) Fold it in half horizontally and brush that surface with butter. (Top right)
3) Add a few Tablespoons of filling to the bottom right corner of the phyllo. (Bottom left)
4) Then fold the left corner over the filling to form a triangle! (Bottom right)

Perfect for snacking!

Then fold that formed triangle up and continue to fold up and over to make a nice-sized triangle of enclosed dough with filling! As you make these, brush them with yet more oil or butter and add them to a baking sheet.

These keep excellently in the freezer.

Stick these in the freezer to freeze completely through and then take them out and wrap them in foil or plastic wrap and stick them all in a large sealed plastic bag to prevent freezer burn. They will keep in the freezer for a long time!

I made my individual spanakopitas while my larger pie cooked. This was the finished flaky version:

So delicious.

On the individual guys, you don’t even need to thaw them before cooking. Just toss them in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes and they will puff up, crisp up, and be as delicious as on day one!

Nice.

So that’s it! That was a long post, but hopefully it was useful! Both of these versions were completely delicious and so much better than my original fail.

Thanks again to everyone who sent me recipe ideas!

Betsy was sick a few weeks ago, and maybe she didn’t have the swine flu, but she was definitely sick and I decided to make a dish that my mom used to make for me: chicken and dumplings. When I told Betsy I was going to cure all her illnesses with chicken and dumplings she replied, to my shock, “I’ve never had that.”

I was stunned by that, but it made me even happier to make it for her.

I kind of feel like I don’t need a flu shot now.

The cure.

The thing about this recipe is that there are a lot of shortcuts to take if you want, but I do recommend the full process. Sure, it takes some time, but it’s a great recipe to make on a lazy Sunday, it makes A LOT, and the quality difference is noticeable. IF you wanted to take some shortcuts though, you could use canned stock and maybe buy a roasted chicken or something for the chicken meat.

Another shortcut is to use Bisquick for the dumplings, but I think it’s worth it to pick up some cake flour and mix them up from scratch. It makes them incredibly fluffy and delicious.

Chicken and Dumplings

Yield: Serves 6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

5-6 pounds of chicken. I used one full chicken (4 pounds) plus about a pound of chicken thighs.

Stock:
2 Carrots
3 celery stocks
1 onion, quartered
15-20 peppercorns
1 garlic bulb, horizontally sliced
2 bay leaves
Carcass from full chicken
6-7 Cups water (until it covers everything)

Gravy for final dish:
6 Tablespoons butter, or fat reserved from chicken stock
6 Tablespoons flour
6 Cups stock

Dumplings:
2 Cups cake flour (you can sub all-purpose flour, but seriously. Try cake flour.)
2 Teaspoons baking powder
1 Teaspoon Kosher salt
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 Cup milk

Finishing Veggies:
1 bag frozen peas
1 Cup carrots, chopped
1 leek, cleaned and chopped
1/4 Cup parsley

Directions:

1) Cut apart a whole chicken.

2) Throw all the carcass/bone pieces along with the wings in a large pot with a few tablespoons of oil. Let these brown really well for a few minutes over the highest heat. Then add the veggies and peppercorns and bay leaves for the stock. Let this all brown up for probably 5 minutes.

3) Add water. Scrap up all the brown bits on the pan and the water should change color really quickly to a nice brown/tan color.

4) Bring to a boil and add all of the chicken pieces (take the skin off or else the final stock will have too much fat). Just kind of tuck them in there. Add a bit more water if necessary to cover everything.

5) Cover this and let it simmer on medium-low for about 45 minutes.

6) After 45 minutes take the chicken pieces out and strain the stock. You should end up with 5 or 6 cups of pretty dark stock.

7) Let the chicken cool for 15-20 minutes and then pull it all apart into chunks. Feel free to move on with the recipe while you’re waiting for it to cool.

8) Chop the finishing veggies. Mix dry dumpling ingredients together, then add milk, and then stir in melted butter. Stir that all together.

9) Using the same pot that you used to make the stock (no need to wash it!), and melt the butter. Then stir in flour a few tablespoons at a time and took that over medium heat. Let this simmer for a few minutes to cook out the flour flavor.

10) Slowly add the stock that you made earlier. Add it slowly and whisk the entire time.

11) Add leeks and carrots to the gravy mixture and stir that together well for a minute or two.

12) Add dumplings using a tablespoon. Just toss them into the mix!

13) Cover this let it steam and cook for 15 minutes. Check the dumplings with a toothpick after that and if the toothpick doesn’t come out clean, cook them for another 5 minutes.

14) Stir the pulled chicken back into the dish and add the peas! Stir everything together and let it simmer for just a few more minutes. Serve it up like a stew.

Adapted from Simply Recipes, and Smitten Kitchen.

Making the Stock

In my opinion, this is not a recipe that you should try to make quickly. Spend the time to do it right. It’s makes a ton of food and the substitutions will really affect the final dish. So step one is making the stock.

The first leap you’ll have to take if you want to do this right is to cut apart a whole chicken. If this is just too much for you, you can probably get your butcher to cut it up for you or use your favorite mix of white and dark meat, but to make a good stock, you need some bones and fat so if you are using shortcuts pick up some chicken wings to at least get your stock started. If you don’t know how to cut up a whole chicken, this video is about as good as I’ve seen.

Assuming you have your chicken cut up, throw all the carcass/bone pieces along with the wings in a large pot with a few tablespoons of oil. Let these brown really well for a few minutes over the highest heat. Then add your veggies and peppercorns and bay leaves for the stock. Let this all brown up for probably 5 minutes.

Making a stock.

After the chicken pieces are browned (it’s a good thing if there are a lot of brown bits on the pan), add your water. Scrap up all the brown bits on the pan and your water should change color really quickly to a nice brown/tan color.

That's lots of flavor.

Cooking the chicken

It doesn’t really make sense to take shortcuts for this recipe because you have to bring a stock to boil anyway to poach your chicken, so you might as well make a good stock to do it in.

Anyway, once your stock is boiling, add all of your chicken pieces (take the skin off or else your final stock will have too much fat). Just kind of tuck them in there. Add a bit more water if necessary to cover everything. (I added a bit more water after I took this photo.)

Pretty simple really.

Cover this and let it simmer on medium-low for about 45 minutes. Your house will begin smelling awesome at this point. After 45 minutes take your chicken pieces out and strain your stock. You should end up with 5 or 6 cups of pretty dark stock. Something like this.

Really Good.

Let your chicken cool for 15-20 minutes and then pull it all apart into chunks. Feel free to move on with the recipe while your waiting for it to cool.

No need to do this before it cools.

Other veggies

You need some veggies for the final stew, and you can prepare these whenever. I chopped mine up while I was waiting for my chicken to cook actually. I chopped up a leek and some carrots. You could use a normal onion instead of a leek if you wanted and I think frozen peas are fine for this dish. No need to use fresh.

Get your veggies ready!

Making the dumplings

Believe it or not, I’ve actually had a number of chicken and dumplings recipes in my life and sometimes you get these really dense dumplings that are very rock-like. This is not that recipe. If you use cake flour and cook them like I do below, they will be like little clouds of deliciousness.

I really think cake flour makes a huge different, but if you use all purpose flour, reduce the total flour to 1 3/4 Cups flour.

Best. Dumplings. Ever.

Mix your dry dumpling ingredients together, then add your milk, and then stir in your melted butter. Stir that all together, but don’t over mix it. Keep the mixture light!

Should be like a thick pancake batter.

Making the gravy

I call this a gravy for lack of a better word, but if it’s a gravy it’s a pretty light one. Use the same pot that you used to make your stock (no need to wash it!), and melt your butter. Then stir in your flour a few tablespoons at a time and took that over medium heat. Let this simmer for a few minutes to cook out the flour flavor. It should start to turn a light tan color.

Then slowly add your stock that you made earlier. Add it slowly and whisk the entire time. If you add your stock too quickly, it will form lumps and that’s definitely not what you want. The bottom right photo below shows the final product.

Get it?

Cooking the dumplings

Add your leeks and carrots to the gravy mixture and stir that together well for a minute or two.

Then add your dumplings using a tablespoon. Just toss them into the mix!

Cover it. Forget it.

Cover this and whatever you do, don’t peek. Just let it steam and cook for 15 minutes. Check your dumplings with a toothpick after that and if the toothpick doesn’t come out clean, cook them for another 5 minutes.

Then stir your pulled chicken back into the dish and add your peas!

Your house will smell amazing.

Stir everything together and let it simmer for just a few more minutes.

Then serve it up like a stew!

This will cure your ills.

I’m not kidding when I say there is something magical about this dish. It takes a few hours to cook everything, no doubt, but the whole time everyone in the house will be smelling what’s cooking and anticipating the flavors.

Betsy and I ate this for a few days and whaddaya know – she was feeling better and I’ve yet to get sick this flu season!

Flu Shot. Schmlu Shot!