Dutch Oven Lasagna Attempt #1

Last week I decided to pull out the dutch oven. I scrubbed it with soap, and then followed the instructions for seasoning the pan. Once all the rust was off I put it in the oven and just as it got too hot to hold I put olive oil all over it (a thin coat). Then I put it back in the oven to cook upside down for an hour with the windows open (it's pretty stinky!) After repeating the process 3 times, I figured it was ready.

Lasagna was the first dish. I used another recipe from Allrecipes. It claims it is the "World's Best."

I started it and then realized with all the seasoning of the pan I had run out of time to actually cook it... because I wanted to scrapbook with my neighbor. It takes 3 hours! Cliff volunteered and I accepted :) So while he was slaving away, I was chatting it up and relaxing kid-free. I'm spoiled I know. Anyway, he was not into photographing much of the cooking stuff, so this is all I got out of him:

Yes. He's just that dramatic...

The only thing he did differently was to put spiral noodles in instead of lasagna noodles. I turned out to be more of a lasagna soup... It could have probably used twice the amount of noodles and been pretty good. We all rated it an average of 6, but we'll have to think pretty long and hard about whether or not we want to make this again. It took so long!

There were about 20 grams of carbohydrate per 1 cup serving, but that would change if we ended up adding more noodles.

World's Best Lasagna

Rated: Submitted By: Johnchandler Photo By: Heather Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 2 Hours 30 Minutes Ready In: 3 Hours 15 Minutes Servings: 12

"Filling and satisfying lasagna with sausage, ground beef and three types of cheese."

Ingredients:

1 pound sweet Italian sausage 3/4 pound lean ground beef 1/2 cup minced onion 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste 2 (6.5 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce 1/2 cup water 2 tablespoons white sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning 1 tablespoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 12 lasagna noodles 16 ounces ricotta cheese 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1.	In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
2.	Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
3.	Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
4.	To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.
5.	Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Potato Basil Frittata with Gruyere

I have more cheeses than ever in my fridge! Here is what I'm working with... and believe me, I will use every last bit of these because most of them are so expensive!

Yesterday was Gruyere.

I used a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa's Family Style cookbook.  She must not cook for many people, because this recipe barely fed my family of 6. I will double it next time for sure... then we'll have leftovers!

This dish takes a little planning (for a breakfast), so it took me a while to get my act together for an early prep breakfast. I got started before anyone woke up with potato calculating, peeling and chopping. By the time I had them frying...

 Cambria woke up and wanted to help :)

Once the potatoes were fried it was no big deal at all. The only things I did differently, were not adding as much basil as the recipe called for (because I didn't want to completely kill our sweet little basil plant that we've miraculously kept alive for months...)

and I didn't have a pan (yet) that could work on both the range and go in the oven. So I just heated up a pyrex pan and put everything in over the potatoes.

It worked great!

The family rated it at an average of 7-8. I would have added more cheese (I LOVE CHEESE!) but Cliff said that would be a critical error, so I guess I'll keep it the same next time even though Cambria liked it only this much...

We are definitely keeping this dish and it will probably make it's camping debut this summer with the cast iron dutch oven I recently got from a friend.

 This will be even more fun with the dutch oven liners I just learned about! Easy cleanup + really good + healthy = good camping dish.

My First Mystery Ingredient: Orzo

Cliff came home from work exhausted and Kaiah (who has Type 1 Diabetes) has been having an epic blood sugar drop tonight. I hadn't planned on making a whole new dish tonight, but Cliff seemed like that would help him for his lunches at work tomorrow. So while he was chasing her dropping sugars with cereal, juice, candy, and yogurt.... I started looking through our 3 cookbooks. I found a recipe that had things we already had in our cupboard and was healthy! I decided it was a good place to start because it had an ingredient that I know nothing about and for some odd reason it was in my cupboard... probably expired... don't tell Cliff! Anyhoo. I had a box of Orzo, whole wheat non-the-less! So I read the directions, and started to assemble the dish.

 

Ok. So there must be a technique where I don't waste this much chicken. I'm embarrassed to show the picture. I think I just need new knives... It takes me so long to hack them into pieces, that one half of the chicken bits are mostly cooked by the time I put the other ones in the pan.

 

Also, I dripped chicken juice all over the floor. So I had to use an antibacterial wipe to clean the floor and my feet before going on.

 

This is Orzo (some kind of rice-looking pasta).

 

Look! Herbs!

After simmering everything together it looked pretty good. 

I also plan on calculating the carbohydrates and calories of each meal. We have to have the carbs for Kaiah's Type 1 Diabetes and both Cliff and I occasionally go on calorie counting kicks. Of course if the meal is gross I won't bother. :)