Three Cheesecake

Just as we were starting to lose faith in Martha.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• cooking spray
• 1 & 1/3 cups crushed cinnamon graham crackers
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  

For the filling:

• 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 4 oz mascarpone cheese, room temp
• 4 oz cream cheese, room temp
• 2 oz soft goat cheese, room temp
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup heavy cream

Make the crust the way you normally would. Coat a 9" springform pan with cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper. Crush the graham crackers in a food processor, adding the butter slowly. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate while you make the filling.
Beat the sour cream, 1/3 cup of the sugar, the cheeses, vanilla, and lemon with an egg-beater on medium speed until very smooth, about 4 minutes. DO NOT pass through a sieve at this step. MARTHA. Add the heavy cream and the other 1/3 cup sugar and beat on medium until medium peaks form.
Spread evenly over the crust. Smooth top and freeze until firm, about 2 hours. Move to the refrigerator for about 45 minutes about serving.
Can be topped with fruit compote of your choosing.

Thoughts: Hot damn. This is the best cheesecake I have eaten. Dan agrees. The goat cheese really does good things here. The only thing I would do differently is add more butter to the crust. There wasn't nearly enough to make the crust adhere properly, so it sort of crumbled away when you cut a slice. But that's easily remediable. We would maybe double the amount of butter in the crust to 4 tbsp. It's also a little tricky to move the cake from the freezer to the fridge, and then back to the freezer. You have to remember to let it thaw a little before you eat it, otherwise it just sort of tastes like the freezer. But I don't think you can just leave it in the fridge 24/7, because it's no-bake and it might de-constitute itself or something. All in all, this is hella easy to make and hella delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10, even with the imperfect crust

Sausage and Swiss Chard Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 lb Italian sausage (casings removed), chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced or chopped or whatever
• 1 can tomatoes (14.5 oz) - we used "fire roasted," which worked really well
• 2 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 10-12 lasagna noodles
• 1 16-oz package of shredded mozzarella cheese
  
• 1 container ricotta cheese (1.75 cups)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 tbsp dried parsley
• 2 eggs
• 1-2 ozs chevre cheese (we used herb & garlic chevre)
• 1/4 fresh basil, shredded
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 (large) bunch swiss chard, bottom inch of stalks removed
  
• 1 yellow summer squash
• 6 oz frozen spinach

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Brown the sausage over medium-low heat until it's pretty cooked through. Add the garlic, tomatoes, dried basil, dried oregano, and 1.5 tsp salt. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. You can add some water to it if it gets too thick. Remove from heat.
Boil some pasta water in a large pot and cook the lasagna noodles in batches.
In the meantime, saute the onions over medium-high heat until almost translucent.
While you're sauteing the onions, prepare the Swiss chard. This is how you do it:
remove the stalks from the leaves and chop the stalks into smallish pieces. Chiffonade the leaves.
When the onions are almost translucent, add the stalks of the Swiss chard. Cover and cook for around 8 minutes, or until the stalks are tender, stirring occasionally. When tender, remove the onion/chard mix from the heat and set aside.
Take the chard leaves and add them to a smallish pot with the 6 oz. of frozen spinach (which you need to thaw ahead of time. Do it now if you haven't yet.). Cook the chard leaves and spinach, covered, over low heat. Add a few tablespoons of water to facilitate wilting. Cook for 5 minutes, or until wilted. Remove from heat and mix with the onion/chard mixture.
In a large bowl, mix ricotta, mozzarella, eggs, fresh basil, dried parsley, Parmesan, and some salt. Mix thoroughly. When the onion/chard/spinach mixture has cooled a little, add it into the cheese mixture and mix thoroughly.
Wash the summer squash and chop off the ends. Slice length-wise into sheets and grill until softened.
Now assemble the lasagna:
Coat the bottom of a glass lasagna with olive oil.
Put as many noodles as you'd like on the bottom. Put a layer of tomato/sausage mix on the noodles. Then add a layer of yellow squash. Then add a layer of the cheese/vegetable mixture. Then more noodles, then more tomato sauce, then more squash, then more cheese/vegetables, and then a final layer of noodles. On top of that we drizzled some olive oil and then the chevre.
Put in the oven and cook for 30-40 minutes.

Thoughts: Delicious. We based this loosely on a recipe we found online, and then added all sorts of stuff (swiss chard, spinach, yellow squash, chevre, onions, fresh basil). The flavor was fantastic. Maybe it was the sausage, maybe it was the swiss chard, maybe it was the yellow squash, but either way, it was fantastic. We didn't have as much tomato sauce as I would have liked, so we didn't get to put a layer of tomato sauce on top of the whole concoction. So next time I would have added another can of tomatos or something. I don't know. Fantastic.

Disaster Index:1/10

Pasta with Broccoli-Herb cream sauce

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound pasta (we used radiatore)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half (or quarters, if you want to be fancy)
  
• 1 cup chopped broccoli, steamed
  
• 1 oz chevre
• 3 tbsp chopped chives
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 3 tbsp dried parsley
• 1/4-1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
  
• salt and pepper, to taste

Boil water and cook the pasta. Set aside.
Steam the broccoli in a pot until it is tender. Add the chevre and the milk, and cook on low-ish heat until the chevre has melted.
Add the chives, parsley, and fresh basil. Stir until well-incorporated.
Simmer. When the milk has thickened a little, remove the sauce from heat and transfer it to a blender. Blend until smooth.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix with pasta and top with cherry tomatoes. Eat.

Thoughts: You'll probably need to add a reasonable amount of salt to the sauce, but other than that, delicious. Just fantastic. And you get your vegetables too. I hate eating whole vegetables with my pasta because it ruins the pasta. But if you chop everything up and put it in a sauce, it's like you aren't eating vegetables at all, and that's something we can all get behind.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pasta with Sausage and Mushrooms in Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

• ~1lb smallish pasta, like rigatoni or radiatori
  
• 2 hot Italian sausage links, chopped into 1/2" slices
  
• 2-3c cremini mushrooms, quartered
  
• olive oil, cooking wine, salt, pepper
  
• about 1c half-and-half
  
• 2oz chevre cheese
  
• 10-20 kale leaves, steamed, or a roasted red pepper, seeded and chopped
  

Set the pasta cooking. In a separate pot, cook the sausage in some olive oil until it gets some caramelization. Add the mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring occasionally. Once they are fairly well cooked, add a splash of cooking wine and scrape the bottom of the pot to get the well-caramelized bits of sausage up. Set aside.

In the mean time, blend together the cooked kale or pepper, the half-and-half, and the chevre. Don't add all the half-and-half at once - slowly add it until the thickness looks right (and it blends). In the case of the kale, we had to return the mixture to the stove, cook for a while, and then return to the blender. Kale can be kind of tough.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it (thought not necessarily all the way - the starchy pasta water helps the sauce stick). Combine all the parts of the recipe together and stir to coat. Season as needed.

Thoughts: This was great, both times we did it. It would be really easy to modify the recipe by using frozen spinach, which is easier to come by, or you could just use tomato. It was really easy to make (especially with both of us working on it). I would continue to talk about the virtues and flexibility of this recipe, but I can't think of anything else, and I'm watching the Oscars right now. It's kinda tough to concentrate.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Shrimp and Orzo pilaf

Well, I don't know if this is exactly a pilaf, but it looks a lot like one. And it makes this recipe sound fancier.

Ingredients

• 1 lb frozen shrimp (ok, you're SUPPOSED to use fresh shrimp, but seriously, we're college students)
• salt and black pepper
• 1 medium red onion, minced
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp of crushed/minced garlic
• 1 lb pastina (we used orzo and something that looked like spaghetti-o's)
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup water
• 1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes, drained
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 4 oz chevre, crumbled (if you CAN)
• 4 tbsp of chopped chives

Preheat oven to 400.
Combine olive oil, minced onion, and some of the salt in a stockpot of Dutch oven. Cover and cook on medium-low heat until the onions have softened, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the pastina and cook, stirring frequently, until the orzo is coated with oil and lightly browned, about 4 minutes.
Stir in the broth and water and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is MOSTLY tender but still firm in the middle (this is sort of tricky to do), about 12 minutes.
Stir in the tomatoes and oregano.
Pour into a 9x13 glass baking dish and put the chevre on top, in whatever form you think is best. Bake for 20 minutes.
In the meantime, thaw the shrimp until they are cool but soft.
When the pilaf is done, take it out and put the shrimp in it and stir it all around. This will warm the shrimp sufficiently to eat them without getting them all rubbery.

Thoughts: Pretty delicious, actually. I was sort of skeptical of the dish, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The original recipe calls for 1 large red bell pepper as well, but we didn't have one. But I would definitely put one in next time. The original recipe also calls for saffron, but seriously. Come on. The pasta was pretty difficult to get to the right consistency. I think you're aiming for al dente on this one, which is what the recipe is going for when it says cook "until the grains of orzo are mostly tender yet still slightly firm at the center". Why don't they just SAY al dente? Whatever. I think we may also have felt a little ambivalent about chevre. I mean, it doesn't really melt, so it just sort of sits on top of the pasta. I don't know. I doubt feta would be much better, since it doesn't melt either. Mozzarella? Maybe. Look into.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Liquored-up French Onion Soup

Ingredients

• 4 cups of sliced yellow onions (we used a mandolin slicer. It was awesome)
• olive oil
• 1 cup medium-dry sherry
  
• 1.5 cups white wine
• 4 cups beef stock (or veg)
  
• 1 tsp salt
• freshly ground pepper
• goat cheese
• toasted croutons (optional)
  

In a large stockpot over medium high heat, saute the onions with the oil for about 20 minutes, until the onions turn a rich golden brown color.
Deglaze the pan with the sherry.
Simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.
Add the white wine and cook for 15 more minutes, still uncovered.
Add beef stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for 20 minutes.
If you want to make croutons, simply grill (or toast) some stale bread and then chop that into small pieces.
Add the croutons to the bottom of your soup bowl, spoon in some soup, and then dot with goat cheese.
Eat.

Notes: This soup would have been delicious but there was TOO MUCH BOOZE. I made a semi-serious error and accidentally put in twice as much alcohol as was necessary. The measurements in bold are INCORRECT. Halve those numbers. That's how much alcohol you need for this recipe. No more than that. We tried to remedy the situation by boiling the soup and cooking the excess alcohol off, but I think we just ended up over-cooking the onions. SO. Dan didn't mind it as much as I did. I couldn't finish the rest of mine. He actually ate leftovers.
This recipe could be good if I knew how to measure things.

Disaster Index: 4/10 (with right proportions, there is hope. Stay tuned)

Portobello Pizza

Ingredients

• 2 large portobello mushrooms, de-stemmed and de-gilled
• olive oil
• goat cheese
• pesto
• salt
• pepper
• garlic powder
• tomatoes (grape or normal ones)
  

Heat griddle to high heat. Brush the tops and bottoms of the mushrooms with olive oil.
When the griddle is hot, place the mushroom bottom-side down on the griddle and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Grill for 2-3 minutes.
Flip the mushrooms, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Grill for 2-3 minutes.
After 2-3 has passed, fill the mushroom caps with pesto. Then dot with goat cheese. Cover the mushrooms with the lid of a soup pot (one that will cover the mushrooms completely without squishing them). The original recipe calls for these to be cooked on a grill, and to melt the cheese by covering the top of the grill. If you have a grill, you can do this, but if you're doing it on a griddle, then covering the mushrooms with a lid is as close as you're going to get. Just make sure the lid isn't plastic or anything.
Once the cheese has melted to your satisfaction, remove the mushrooms from the griddle.
Slice the tomatoes into appropriate slices and put them on the mushrooms.
Eat.

Thoughts: This was pretty delicious and pretty easy. It is not in the least bit healthy for you, despite the mushrooms and tomatoes. At least we're using olive oil, which has the right kind of fat. The kind of fat in goat cheese is NOT the right kind. You could probably substitute goat cheese for something like mozzarella, which would be WAY healthier. It would probably be pretty good too. Also you could lighten up on the pesto, which is like, 115 calories per 1/8th cup. So think about that. Overall, pretty delicious though.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Prosciutto, Chevre, and Spinach Pizza

Ingredients

• Several slices of prosciutto
  
• 1.75 oz. chevre
  
• half a red onion, slices separated into ribbons
  
• spinach or arugula
  
• olive oil
  
• garlic
  
• salt and pepper
  
• One recipe pizza dough (see the relevant post)
  

Preheat oven to 500.
While the dough is rising, caramelize the red onions with salt, pepper, and garlic. Set aside.
After putting the dough on the pizza pan/baking sheet, brush the dough with olive oil until coated.
Layer the spinach/arugula/whatever onto the dough.
Add the prosciutto, chevre, and caramelized red onions.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is lightly golden.

Thoughts: This pizza works really well, but be careful not to skimp on toppings. Next time I make it, I plan to adjust up the amount of cheese used to 4oz. Past experiments have also included fresh fruit such as strawberries or pears along with tangy cheeses (feta or chevre) and prosciutto.

All in all, you won't be disappointed with this.

Disaster Index: 1/10