Three-cheese Veggie Strata

Ingredients:
- 2/3 stale baguette, sliced
- 1 onion
- 2 chili peppers
- 5 small tomatoes
- 10 mozzarella balls, quartered
- 3 eggs
- 1 C ricotta cheese
- 2 C milk
- Parmesan cheese
- Salt
- Pepper

Here's the story: I had a bunch of stuff I needed to use up. Among these were a partial and very stale baguette, and three eggs that had been hanging out in my fridge too long. Stale bread and eggs spells Strata, so that's what I made!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Butter the bottom of a round, deep 4-quart casserole dish

Slice up the baguette enough to cover the bottom of the casserole dish, then roughly chop the rest into crumbs and dump those in to fill in the holes

Dice up the onion, peppers (remove seeds), and tomatoes and spread it over the bread

Sprinkle with salt & pepper to taste (keep in mind you're adding more s&p later)

Quarter the mozzarella balls and press those into the top

Break eggs into a 4-cup liquid measure and beat them
Add ricotta and mix in with the eggs until smooth
Add salt & pepper to taste
Add milk until the total volume is 4 cups
Stir/beat until smooth
Pour slowly over the stuff in the casserole dish, giving it time to soak in to the bottom

Sprinkle the top with parmesan, and additional salt & pepper if desired
Pop it in the oven, uncovered, for about 70 minutes or until the top is browned, edges are bubbly, and the middle has puffed up a bit
Remove and let sit for ten minutes
Scoop & serve with a big spoon!

I'm quite sure this would do very well as a make-ahead, spending one night in your fridge before baking.

Was the recipe easy to follow? I made it up as I went, so...yeah.
Did it taste good? Goodness, yes. You could pour 3 cheeses and some egg over just about anything and it would taste good.
Would you make it again? This was one of my semi-regular episodes of throwing everything I need to use into a casserole dish (or saute pan, or baking dish, or whatever makes sense for what I have) and calling it dinner. So, probably not exactly this, but I'm sure I'll keep using the same strategy over and over, and strata is often what comes out if we have old bread and eggs on hand! This particular version would have also been great with some additional herbs (basil, maybe?) or some protein (crab or bacon comes to mind, or some sausage).

Lemon Cornmeal Cake

I don't have my own picture to post because we've already eaten it all up. So yummy!

My new favorite thing is lemon and lime desserts. They're so refreshing! I love a few bites of a rich, chocolate dessert, but it doesn't have the staying power of a tart, sweet, citrucy lemon cake.

This was so easy and pretty, I highly recommend it for your next brunch. I used the leftover crushed blueberry sauce in my oatmeal all this week, too.

Without further ado, I give you Lemon Cornmeal Cake!

I followed the recipe exactly (one exception: I had white cornmeal, not yellow, but it's the same thing, and the barely-yellow color in the resulting cake was so pretty that I'd even recommend white cornmeal if you have it!), although next time I would use less sugar all around, and I'd make less glaze and thin it out more with additional lemon juice.

I recommend juicing an entire two lemons into a bowl, after zesting them both to get the full tablespoon of zest you need for the cake, plus some more for the sauce. Then whatever juice you have leftover from the cake and glaze (I used more than it called for already, and would use even more next time with less sugar for a thinner glaze), just dump the rest into the blueberries and cook it until you have the consistency you want.

The blueberry sauce does great in the fridge for a week, and probably more, but here's betting it won't last that long! Using brown sugar with the blueberries is inspired. And the dark purple texture of the blueberry sauce against the barely-yellow cake and white glaze is so pretty! But not quite too pretty to eat. YUM!

Salmon & Rice Casserole

Tonight I was in charge of dinner, and I was in the mood for rice.  We also had a can of salmon in the cupboard, so I typed in both ingredients and came up with this. I thought that sounded a little boring, so I planned to add some dill and lemon juice, and then when I got home and peeked in the cupboard for the salmon, I spotted a can of 98% fat free cream of celery soup, so I grabbed it. Here's what I ended up with:

1 cup uncooked rice
1 can salmon
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can skim milk (using the empty soup can)
juice of 1 lemon
2 eggs
pepper, dill, and parmesan cheese (1/8 or 1/4 cup at the most) to taste

Cook the rice according to package directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees

Grease a small casserole dish (or use a non-stick dish like the cool ones my aunt got for me)

While rice cooks, mix soup, milk (measured using soup can), eggs (slightly beaten), and lemon juice, and mix well. Add seasoning to taste. I didn't add any salt at all because the soup and the salmon were both already quite salty, and I didn't regret it - the dish was just right in the salt department, so unless you have low sodium everything else, I would highly recommend NOT adding any additional salt. I thought I had used a lot of pepper, but I would have liked even more. I could have left out the parmesan cheese and probably would have been just as happy with it, but it was good. I used a lot of dried dill, and I'm not sure if it made a difference or not, but dill goes very well with salmon so I wouldn't leave it out.

Once rice is cooked, spread 1/3 of the rice on the bottom of the casserole. Follow with a layer of 1/2 of the salmon, then another 1/3 of the rice, the rest of the salmon, and top with the remaining rice. Pour the soup/milk/egg/lemon juice mix over the whole thing, letting it soak in. Sprinkle the top with parmesan cheese if desired.

Bake uncovered at 300 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until it's all set and the top has started to brown nicely. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes before serving. This would be really great with a simple mixed green salad, or broccoli, or green beans. It was quite yummy! Also, you could leave out the parmesan cheese and use an egg substitute to easily make this low-fat and still just as delish. As it was, I don't think it was too fatty, just enough to make a good, hearty, satisfying dinner.

So I think this blog will mainly be food and not so much books, and I'm sure it will only be very occasional. Also, I'm far too lazy to take pictures, so I doubt you'll get many - you'll just have to imagine. But this evening I actually made something new, and it came out well, and I thought I would share! If you ever try it, let me know how it works out.

Happy eating!