Season

Lasagna, of the cheesiest variety

Lasagna // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Lasagna // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Lasagna // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Sometimes you need to make those meals that yield a million servings so you can eat it all week. The week before the CD release concert we had for Jonah’s new album was absolutely one of those weeks.

We had a few guests staying with us, band practice almost every night, and I had work on the nights I wasn’t rehearsing. It was a busy time, to say the least. So the night of our Kickstarter team meeting, to discuss merch and social media, etc. I made this lasagna, so that we could eat it throughout the week. It was high up on the list of best lasagna I’ve ever made. What made it so good? The homemade sauce, the homemade noodles, and some absurd amounts of cheese.

I’ll admit, however, that this uses a lot of dishes, and has a fair amount of ingredients. But when you’ve got some time and you’re making a meal that will carry you through the week, it’s worth it. I like to think of it as an entire week’s worth of mess (and cleanup).

Cheesy Meat Lasagna

Note: I used a 13×9 inch baking dish, and filled it right up to the brim. I put a baking sheet underneath it to catch any overflow (which was minimal), but still, if you’ve got a slightly bigger baking dish, it might be a good idea to use it.

Ingredients

Noodles

3 eggs
2 cups flour

Meat Sauce

Olive oil
1 medium white onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
3/4 lb ground beef
3/4 lb ground italian sausage
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt, pepper, other Italian seasoning (parsley, basil, oregano, to your liking)
1 12 oz can tomato paste
1 28 oz can crushed (or diced) San Marzano tomatoes (yes, these are expensive, but I found it to be terribly worth it, and they weren’t THAT MUCH more than the other brands)

Ricotta Filling

3 cups ricotta
2 eggs
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 cup freshly grated parmesan
2-3 cups (preferably freshly) grated mozzarella

Instructions

Noodles

In the bowl of an electric mixer, or using a bowl and whisk, or a bowl and fork, mix up the eggs and flour into a dough. If it’s too wet, add more flour 1 tsp at a time. If it’s too dry, add water 1 tsp at a time. Dump the dough out onto floured surface, knead a few times, and wrap in plastic (or put in a bowl and cover with dishtowel) and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Meat Sauce

In a large pot, heat 2 Tbl olive oil over medium heat, and add the onion and carrot. Cook until starting to soften. Add the garlic, beef, and Italian sausage, and cook until the meat has browned. Add 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp ground pepper, and whatever other spices you’d like (I did 1/2 tsp dried basil and 1/2 tsp dried parsley). Add the tomato paste and canned tomatoes to the pot (no need to drain them!) and stir to combine. Turn the heat to low and cover, letting it simmer for ~30 minutes.

Ricotta Filling

While your dough is resting and your sauce is simmering you can whip up the ricotta filling. In a bowl, combine the ricotta, eggs, pepper, and 1/2 cup of both the grated mozzarella and parmesan. Store in the fridge until you’re ready to assemble your lasagna.

Roll out your pasta into sheets for lasagna and set aside, covering so that the noodles don’t dry out. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and lightly coat your baking dish with oil. Spread ~1 cup sauce in the bottom of the dish. Here’s how you’re going to do this: noodles, ricotta, sauce, cheese. That’s your order. On top of the sauce in the bottom of the dish, arrange a layer of noodles; spread 1/3 of the ricotta mixture on top, then 1 cup sauce, and sprinkle with cheese (a mixture of the mozzarella and parmesan). Do that twice (now we’ve got sauce, noodles, ricotta, sauce, cheese, noodles, ricotta, sauce, cheese), and in the next layer, leave out the cheese (so just noodles, ricotta, sauce). Put another layer of noodles on top, spread the rest of the sauce on top, and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Phew! If you don’t feel like following my layering instructions, just do whatever you want. It’ll probably work, and you’ve probably eaten enough lasagna in your life to figure out how it works.

Bake the lasagna for 30-40 minutes, rotating it half way through, until the cheese on top is melted and turning golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool/set for 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Fig and Olive Oil Challah

Fig Challah // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Fig Challah // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Fig Challah // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

On Rosh Hashanah, I did something really un-Jewish and un-Kosher by making shrimp for dinner. But I kind of half made up for it by making fig, olive oil, and sea salt challah from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. And that makes things kind of ok, right? (Let’s not even talk about the fact that there was no fasting or breaking of fast on Yom Kippur as I had band practice and work, both of which require much sustenance. Don’t tell my Bubbe.)

This challah has been on my “to make” list for so long. I was waiting for figs to be in season (only to realize after I went to the store and bought fresh figs that the recipe calls for dried figs… oops… way to follow your own rules, Annie) AND I’d never made challah before. TERRIBLE JEW, I know. But you know, bread is mildly scary to me, and braided bread that’s supposed to look all shiny and pretty? That much scarier. But a holiday is a good enough reason to man up and do anything, so I went for it. And man oh man, it was good. This recipe is pretty much straight from Smitten Kitchen.

Fig and Olive Oil Challah

Ingredients

Bread

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 packet)
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp honey
1/3 cup olive oil, plus some for the bowl
2 eggs
2 tsp flaky sea salt (such as Maldon, which you really should have around because you should be putting it on everything because it is awesome)
4 cups all-purpose flour

Fig Filling

1 cup dried figs, stemmed and roughly chopped
1/8 tsp orange zest (I eyeballed this, because you know, who has an 1/8 tsp measure)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice
1/8 tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper (you’ll only need a few grinds)

Egg Wash

1 egg
flaky sea salt

Instructions

Bread

In a small bowl, combine the yeast and 1 tsp of honey with 2/3 cup of warm water. Stir it up, and let it sit for a few minutes until it gets foamy. In the bowl of your mixer with the paddle attachment (or you know, with a wooden spoon and a bowl if that’s your jam), combine the yeast mixture with the rest of the honey, the olive oil, and the eggs. Then add the flour and salt, and mix it until the dough starts to come together. Once it comes together, switch to the dough hook and let it run on low for 5-8 minutes. Put the dough on the counter for a moment while you coat the bowl in olive oil, put the dough back in the bowl, and cover with saran wrap for an hour, or until the dough doubles in size.

Fig Filling

While the dough is rising, it’s fig paste time. Put the figs, zest, water, juice, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook this fig mixture until the pieces of fig are soft, having absorbed the water and juice, stirring occasionally (should take about 10 minutes). Turn off the heat, and allow to cool for a while before putting it in a food processor and processing until it resembles a paste, like a relatively smooth jam. Set it aside to cool the rest of the way.

Once your dough has roughly doubled, turn it out onto a floured surface and divide it in half. Roll the first half out into “an imperfect rectangle,” spread half of the fig filling over the dough, and roll it up into a long log, trapping the filling within. You’ll want to be careful when you roll out your dough that it still has some thickness to it, as I had a few tears in mine which made everything a little tricky for me. Roll out/stretch the log as long as you can without breaking or tearing it, and then divide it in half. Repeat this whole process with the second half of the dough. You should have four fig-filled ropes of dough.

Next comes the weaving, which I’m not even going to try to explain. Instead, you should head to over to Smitten Kitchen to look at the pictures and read her instructions. I never could have woven it without those pictures. Oy. Once woven up into a beautiful mound of deliciousness, transfer the dough to a baking sheet prepped with parchment paper (or silpat, I suppose).

Egg Wash

In a small bowl, beat the egg for the wash, and brush it over the challah. Let it rise for another hour, but start heating your oven to 375 degrees about halfway into the rise. Before putting it in the oven, brush the challah again with the egg wash, and bake it in the middle of your oven for 35-40 minutes. If it starts to get dark (like mine did), you can cover it with foil for the rest of the bake (like I didn’t). Remove from oven and allow to cool before serving. Tear off pieces with loved ones, and add a dab of butter and jam, if you like. Enjoy.

Blackberry Coffeecake

Blackberry Coffeecake // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Blackberry Coffeecake // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Blackberry Coffeecake // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

I do hope I’m getting you this blackberry coffeecake recipe before it’s absolutely impossible to find blackberries. Please don’t hate me if I’m not.

I’m feeling really torn about summer’s departure and fall’s arrival. I know earlier I said I was excited, but now that it’s happening, and there’s that chill in the air, and there have been a few days of drizzle, I find myself kind of having to mentally prepare myself for the gray that comes and stays for months and months and months. I like the chill, and I can’t wait to wear sweaters and drink tea and cook the food that comes with fall… but I don’t know. It doesn’t have that same carefreeness that summer has.

But I’ll live. This recipe came from my having leftover blackberries, and just really wanting to make coffeecake. I woke up one morning, Jonah was still in bed, the roommates were out of town, and I snuck downstairs and made a coffeecake (adapted from Tide and Thyme) on a Sunday morning. It was a lovely peaceful way to spend the morning. And everyone likes coffeecake. Everyone.

Blackberry Coffeecake

Ingredients

Crumb Topping

½ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp lemon zest
4 tbsp. (2 oz.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Blackberry Cake

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups fresh blackberries

Instructions

Crumb Topping

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10-inch springform pan (which, by the way, I’m convinced might be the greatest things ever, if you grease it enough). Make the crumb topping by combining all of the ingredients except the almonds in a bowl and mixing it up to combine. It should be kind of crumbly. You can also add some oats if you’d like. Set the topping aside.

Blackberry Cake

In a large mixing bowl (perhaps maybe the bowl of an electric mixer), combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt. In a separate mixing bowl, use a whisk to mix together the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. Make kind of a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, pour in the wet, and stir it up just until it’s evenly combined and there are no flour patches or streaks. Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and make sure it’s evenly distributed. Place the blackberries gently on top, making sure they are evenly distributed (wow, can’t get enough of that phrase, huh?) and covering the top of the batter. Now sprinkle the crumb topping on top of the blackberries, and then top with the sliced almonds.

Bake the coffeecake until the top looks all perfectly golden brown, and it passes the clean toothpick/knife test, 40-50 minutes. Put the pan on a cooling rack, and let it cool for ~20 minutes, or as long as you can wait. Run a knife around the edge before removing the sides of the springform. Slice it up and serve with coffee or tea, and maybe a bowl of fruit.

Corn Salad

Corn Salad // Serious Crust by Annie FasslerCorn Salad // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Guys, it’s September, and I have a few summer recipes, like this corn salad, to get to you before the season slips from our fingers. At this point, it feels like summer might never end in Portland – it cooled off a bit last week, and this week hit a high of about 98 degrees (get it? like the band? ok. I’ll stop.). But this weekend, it’s supposed to rain, and the temperature is supposed to drop, and I am feeling strangely ready for that to happen.

I usually mourn the end of summer, but lately I have been craving heartier dishes and squash, specifically butternut and acorn. I’ll take peaches and tomatoes, but the hankering for those fall dishes is starting to nag at me.

But while it’s hot and there are still things like corn and nectarines, you should eat things like this corn salad. Inspired by a few different recipes, this is one of those dishes that uses corn as a base, but you can really toss in whatever you have around. Quickly cube and cook up some zucchini and throw it in, or add in some chopped tomatoes (seed them first), or chop up some basil. Here’s what I used.

Corn Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 ears corn, lightly cooked (boiled), and kernels cut from the cob
2 nectarines, cubed
1 bell pepper, cubed
1 jalapeño, seeded, chopped
1-2 limes, juiced (start with one, see how you like it)
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
Salt and pepper

Instructions

Combine ingredients in a bowl, stir it up, add more of anything you like, and eat with friends as the hot day starts to cool off, preferably accompanied by grilled chicken or fish or something like that, as well as some cold beers.