Scott's Italian-Themed Birthday Dinner

     My husband is half Sicilian.  So, when I asked him what kind of food he wanted for his birthday dinner, he replied, after a moment's hesitation, Italian.  To satisfy his Italian needs, I came up with a delicious birthday menu: Caesar salad, Meat Lasagna, Garlic Bread and Tiramisu.  This meal required some advanced planning as I wanted to make as many items from scratch as I could (which, alas, could mean several days).  So, in order of preparation, here are the recipes:

Garlic Croutons from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything


Ingredients:

4 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, butter, or a combination
4 cloves garlic, peeled
4 to 6 slices any bread, cut into cubes if you like
salt to taste


Procedure:

1) Place the olive oil in a large skillet and turn the heat to medium-low heat.  Add the garlic and cook it in the oil, turning occasionally, until it is lightly browned.  Remove the garlic and reserve it for another use or toss it in a salad or soup; it will be very mild.

2) Turn the heat to medium and cook the bread in the oil, turning occasionally, until brown all over.  remove and sprinkle lightly with salt.  Store in a covered container at room temperature for up to a week.

Garlic croutons

     I've made these croutons several times before and they've come out deliciously.  This time, however, they tasted delicious but didn't quite have the right texture.  They were more crumby than crunchy, if that makes any sense.  Still good in a salad, but not quite the same as traditional croutons.  Perhaps it is because I used whole wheat bread?  Perhaps it was because the bread was not stale?  Maybe the fact that my stove doesn't get that hot made a difference?  Who knows... Anyways, I'd still use this recipe again because it has turned out perfectly for me every other time...

Sponge Cake from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything


Ingredients:

1 cup cake or all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
5 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. grated or minced orange or lemon zest
1 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice or 2 tbsp. freshly squeezed orange juice


Procedure:

1) Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Mix the flour and salt together.

2) Use an electric miser to beat the egg yolks until very thick and light, about 5 minutes.  Gradually add half the sugar and beat another 5 minutes or so.  The mixture should be thick and light-colored.  Beat in the zest and juice.

3) Beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks; the tops of the whites should droop a little bit when you remove the beaters.  Gradually add the remaining sugar and continue to beat until the peaks become a little stiffer.

4) Use a rubber spatula or your hand to gently but thoroughly fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Stir the flour-salt mixture into this batter, a little at a time, gently but thoroughly folding it in after each addition.  Turn the batter into an un-greased 9 or 10 inch tube pan (not one with ridged sides) and bake 40 to 50 minutes, until the cake is firm, resilient, and nicely browned.

5) Invert the cake onto a rack and let cool thoroughly, about an hour.  Cut carefully around the sides of the cake and remove.  Cool completely before slicing and eat within a day.

Sponge cake still in part of the pan.  See how much the cake
encrusts the pan?  A pain in the butt to clean!

     I made the sponge cake for the tiramisu.  It was a bit difficult finding a tube pan (having never heard of one before this recipe!), but fortunately our neighbors/friends Jennifer and Martin had one that I could borrow.  The recipe itself came out delicious (I decided to go for the orange theme), but it didn't rise quite as much as I had expected it to.  Also, because the pan is un-greased, it stuck like crazy to the pan.  I wonder why Mark Bittman says to leave it un-greased?  Maybe the butter or oil or whatever you grease it with would interfere with the rising?


Caesar salad (Katie's recipe)

Ingredients:

romaine lettuce (I bought a bag that was already washed)
Caesar salad dressing (I used Brianna's homestyle Asiago Caesar dressing)
parmesan cheese, shredded
garlic croutons


Procedure:

1) Mix all ingredients in a bowl.  Serve.

    The salad was something I decided to make a little easier for myself by buying a good quality already made dressing rather than make my own salad dressing.  I tried making Caesar salad dressing once before and wasn't that impressed with my results.  I'll probably try again at some point, but I already had so much to make I figured I'd take this one short cut.

Caesar salad

World's Best Lasagna from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Worlds-Best-Lasagna/Detail.aspx

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.

The amazing tomato sauce

"World's best" lasagna

Piece of lasagna

     This lasagna really is worth the extra time to make it.  The most incredible thing about it is the sauce: meaty, rich-flavored, "tomatoey" with just the right amount of spices.  Amazing!  I cooked the sauce the night before and then made the lasagna on the day of his birthday.  When Scott and I smelled the sauce cooking (and then tasted the final product), it was all we could do not to eat the whole thing then and there!  This recipe calls for less cheese than I normally use in lasagna recipes.  It was okay with the parmesan and ricotta (in fact, I didn't even measure the parmesan), but I ran out of mozzarella fast.  I've never used sliced mozzarella either, but it surprisingly works in the recipe.  It has the lovely effect of leaving gooey melty parts of cheese in lasagna that stretch on the way to your mouth.  I did like the addition of the egg to the ricotta cheese; it made it a lot easier to spread!
     I think this was definitely the best lasagna I've made.  It is delicious and filling and we had leftovers for like a week afterwords!


Roasted Garlic Bread from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Roasted-Garlic-Bread/Detail.aspx

INGREDIENTS:

3 bulbs garlic 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 (1 pound) loaf Italian bread 1/2 cup butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (optional) 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Slice the tops off of the garlic bulbs so that the tip of each clove is exposed. Place the bulbs on a baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until garlic is soft.
2.	Set the oven to broil. Slice the loaf of bread in half horizontally, and place cut side up on a baking sheet.
3.	Squeeze the cloves of garlic from their skins into a medium bowl. Stir in the butter, parsley, and Parmesan cheese until well blended. Spread onto the cut sides of the bread.
4.	Broil for about 5 minutes, until toasted.

French bread for the garlic bread My tragically burnt garlic bread     In order to make the garlic bread, I baked a large loaf of french bread (see http://insearchoftheperfectmacaroniandcheese.blogspot.com/2011/01/dinner-for-game-night.html for the recipe).  I made the dough the night before, and baked the bread the day of his birthday.  This recipe came out delicious except for one (not so minor) problem: I burnt it!  Ack!  I left it in the broiler for the five minutes that the recipe recommends only to find out that that was one or two minutes too many.  It came out all blackened, and there wasn't much that we could do to remove the burnt part.  The few parts that weren't burnt were amazing but the rest had kind of a burnt taste to it.  Tragedy!  ::sigh::  I guess this happens to every chef once in a while.  I would definitely make this recipe again, but this time I would really watch it in the broiler! Tiramisu from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Ingredients: 1/2 cup sugar 1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch pinch salt 2 cups milk 3 eggs 1 tbsp. unsalted butter 1 tsp. vanilla extract about 2 cups broken or torn-up leftover sponge cake, or any yellow cake, lady fingers, or even biscotti 1 cup strong cold coffee, preferably espresso unsweetened cocoa powder as needed Procedure: 1) In a small saucepan, combine the sugar with the cornstarch and salt.  mix together the milk and eggs.  Stir the milk-egg mixture into the sugar-cornstarch mixture over medium heat; at first, whisk occasionally to eliminate lumps.  Then stir almost constantly until the mixture boils and thickens, about 10 minutes.  Stir in the butter and vanilla extract.  Cool, then lay plastic wrap onto the surface of the custard and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. 2) When the custard is cool, prepare the cake (or cookies) by dividing half of it among four dessert bowls.  Sprinkle with about half the espresso and dust with a little cocoa powder.  Spoon half the custard over it.  3) Top with the remaining cake, then repeat the process,finishing with a dusting of cocoa powder.  Chill until set, at least 1 hour (and probably longer) and serve cold.  This keeps well for a day or more, covered and refrigerated. Tiramisu.  Don't make it in a loaf pan Pretty good, but not the greatest      I first made this recipe many many years ago with my then-boyfriend when I was first learning how to cook. I remembered liking it very much and being impressed with how it came out.  I was complimented on my custard's professional taste and appearance.  I was amazed at using cocoa powder and cornstarch for the first time.  What were these ingredients?  I remembered going to Starbucks to get a cup of espresso and the weird looks the staff game me.  With all these fond memories, I knew I wanted to make this recipe again.      I wish I could say that it lived up to the memories, but, alas, I cannot.  Don't get me wrong: it was good.  But it wasn't the great thing that I had remembered it being.  To start off with, I wasn't the biggest fan of my homemade sponge cake in the tiramisu.  It wasn't layered evenly and the espresso didn't soak through evenly which meant that I had layers that tasted like orange sponge cake and not much else.  On the flip side, I had layers that tasted far too strongly of coffee.  I think lady fingers would be a better choice.  The custard was good on its own, but not quite flavorful enough to match up again the strong-flavored espresso.  Plus, I wasn't sure which pan to make the dessert in so I used a loaf pan which really wasn't the best.  Things didn't spread out as evenly as I would have liked.  I think I will definitely make tiramisu again in my life.  But next time I make it, I'm going to make a more traditional recipe using marscapone cheese.  I bet you that would be amazing! Our Italian dinner     Even though I bought some rather expensive ingredients (high-quality organic meat and milk, for example), it is still amazing to me how much cheaper it is to cook at home.  I spent a lot of money on groceries (about the same as I would have spent in an Italian restaurant), but I had leftovers that lasted me a week or more.  Plus, most of what I made was probably as good as if not better than what you get in a restaurant.  Best of all, I knew exactly what I was putting into my body.  I sure do count my blessings that I have the ability and the passion to cook.  It's really not that hard once you get used to it, and the results are delicious!