So, today’s wondrous dive into the realm of food-that-cannot-possibly-be-good-for-you-no-matter-how-hard-you-try has been inspired by Michele, Jen, and Sean Paul Ellis (who has actually inspired two posts this month.)

Thanks to all three of you because without your comments, we might not have an unResolution month post on …

Paninis

To be fair, Michele, Jen, and Sean all mentioned grilled sandwiches, but I don’t know, there’s something cool about the word Panini.  And a Panini is a grilled sandwich, after all.

Still, it’s kind of hard to give the definitive Panini recipe since, really, Panini is a technique more than an individual sandwich (as far as I know…), but perhaps that’s why they are so popular.  Really anything can be good Panini fodder, all you need is a little butter/vegan margarine (or a lot!), some cheese (vegan or otherwise) to act as glue and some bread.  After all, it’s not much of a sandwich without the bread!

With that being said, the following recipe is one I tend to like a lot.  It’s simple, delicious, and I think it fits the month.

Ham, Apple, Caramelized Onion, and Baby Swiss Panini

To make this sammie, you are going to need:

• 6 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 8 slices of sourdough bread (this was Jen’s suggestion and I like it.)
• 2-4 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 8 slices baby Swiss
• 1 apple, diced (if you want to keep this sandwich unhealthy, deep fry the apple ;))
• 1 pound sliced ham

Caramelized Onions

Okay, the first thing you are going to do is caramelize your onions.  If you haven’t caramelized onions, you don’t know what you are missing.  Caramelizing onions is a little like culinary alchemy.  It takes onions, even really spicy white ones and through gentle heat and time, turns them into something sweet and delicious.  And I really like them.

The good news is they are really easy to make!  All you need is a little time.  Here’s what you do:

Heat a skillet over medium heat.  When it is hot, add 2 tablespoons of butter and let them melt.

Once the butter is melted, immediately add the onions and a healthy pinch of salt and pepper.  Cook the onions over medium heat until they begin to turn translucent (maybe 6-8 minutes) then cover the skillet with a lid and reduce the heat to low.  Cook for 45 minutes and then get ready to slather them on a sandwich!

Stack the Panini

Arrange 8 pieces of sourdough into 4 pairs.  Smear the mayonnaise on one of the pairs and put the baby Swiss on the other.

Next, add the onions to the cheese half of the bread.  Then put the diced apples on top of the onions.  Finally, add the ham to the mayonnaise side and close the sandwich.

Produce the Panini

Okay, if you have a sandwich press, then your job is easy.  Butter the outside of both sides of the bread and follow the directions.

Now, if you don’t have a sandwich press, it’s mad scientist time.  You are going to need two skillets and a brick.  (Okay, if you don’t have a brick, use a couple of cans. :))

Heat one skillet over medium heat until it’s warm.  While the skillet is coming to heat, butter one side of the sandwich.

Put two sandwiches in the skillet, butter side down, and place the second skillet on top.  Add the brick and cook for 2 minutes.

Remove the skillet and butter the exposed piece of bread.  Flip and replace the skillet and brick.  Cook for another 2 minutes or until the cheese gets melty.

Cut in half and do that cool half stack thing you see in the TV shows and, of course…

Enjoy!

Photo credits go to ishane and iLoveButter.

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Now, I must admit, until the last few years, no one in my house ate ziti.  Our baked noddle dish of choice was always lasagna so it was only until recently that I understood the magic that is ziti.  And now, I share it with you!

Baked Ziti

Perhaps I’m not up on my baked noodle trivia, but it has always seemed to me that the big difference between lasagna and baked ziti is the difference between order and chaos.  Lasagna, it seems to these eyes, is neatly stacked layers of noodle, cheese, and sauce whereas baked ziti is a crazy free-for-all of noodles and cheese and ground beef or ground faux beef.  Two different philosophies on life, but both equally good!

Making Baked Ziti

Really, because ziti is more freeform, it is actually far easier to make than lasagnas.  To do it…

You will need:

• 1 box penne noodles
• Garlic powder to taste
• 1 pound ground hamburger or 1 package faux ground beef
• 1 tablespoon oregano
  
• 1/2 recipe of Elegant Marinara (divided)
  
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup ricotta
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella
  
• 1 cup Italian bread crumbs
• Parmesan cheese to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Boil the package of penne pasta noodles according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  However, when boiling the noodles, make sure the water is salty and has a good amount of garlic powder.

While the water is boiling, brown the hamburger in a skillet with salt, pepper and oregano.  If using faux ground beef, crumble with a spatula.  The ground beef can be browned in two tablespoons of olive oil along with the oregano.

Also, while the water is boiling, mix 2 cups of the marinara and cream.

When the noodles are al dente (in other words firm, not floppy) drain them and pour them into a oven-safe dish.  Add the marinara/cream mix and the ricotta with the noddles.

Top with mozzarella, breadcrumbs, and Parmesan cheese.  Bake for 6-8 minutes or until the cheese achieves the desired level of doneness.

Cut into pieces and top with more marinara.  Enjoy!

Thanks to robot-girl for the image.

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I immediately save my file, call my wife into the kitchen, and we get down to cooking.

At this stage in what can only be a distinguished culinary career, my son makes a mean breading for fried chicken.  We give him a cup or two of whole wheat flour and his very own spices (usually whatever is on sale at the supermarket for ninety-nine cents) and he stirs like a mad man.  It’s nice because it gives us a chance to chat about cooking or Thomas or race cars.

Anyhoo, normally I would take this opportunity to make something healthy we could all enjoy for a mid-afternoon snack, but given that this is unResolution month, I thought I had better bake cookies.  Besides, I had some Buddha’s Hand sitting around that I wanted to use up.  (Buddha’s Hand being the crazy Cthulhu looking thing up top.  It’s a citrus fruit with basically no meat.  The zest, however, is wonderfully fragrant and sort of lemony.)

Here’s what we did.

First, we used a family favorite recipe.  My wife found this recipe for Lemon Cookies on RachelRayMag.com a long time ago and we have been making them ever since.  However, in this case, I wanted to veganize them so that my vegan readers could enjoy them (non-vegans, they’re still good!).  This is the recipe I used.

You will need:

• 1 stick vegan margarine
• 1 1/4 cup vegan sugar (divided)
• 4 tablespoons Buddha Hand zest (divided)
• 1 egg’s worth egg replacer
• 1 1/2 All-Purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Put the vegan margarine and 1 cup of the vegan sugar in a bowl and mix with a fork.  Add 3 tablespoons of zest and the egg replacer and stir gently.

Once the ingredients are combined, add the flour, baking soda, and the salt.  Stir to incorporate the flour.  You may need to add just a bit of very cold water.  We added about a 1/2 teaspoon to get the dough to come together right.

Once the dough is ready, divide into 16 pieces and use your hands to roll each piece in a ball.

Put the rest of the sugar and the final tablespoon of zest into a bowl.  Roll each ball in the sugar/zest mix and put on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake for fifteen minutes or until the cookies look almost ready.  Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

Notes:

1. When you are mixing, try not to overmix or you will start to form gluten and you will get harder cookies.
2. Remember, if a cookie is still in the oven and it looks like it is done baking, it is over cooked already.  Cookies continue to bake once they are out of the oven (called carryover cooking.)
3. My son, who inspired me to bake these here cookies, of course, did not like them because they lacked the essential chocolate chips.  Ingrate!

Oh yeah, did I mention, “Enjoy!”?

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Killer Mashed Potatoes

What makes them killer?  Well, two things really.  First, they are really, really good or as Guy Fieri would say (”killer”.)  Secondly, they use so much cream and butter that … well, you get the picture.  So yes, these potatoes are definitely a sometimes food, but who cares?!  We have some resolutions to break!

Making Killer Mashed Potatoes

This one is pretty simple and can be done in one pot unless you want to add faux bacon (or real bacon.)

You need:

• (Optional) 4 slices faux bacon or real bacon
• 4 tablespoons olive oil*
  
• 4 pounds of potatoes, cut into pieces
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup Romano cheese
  

* You only need 1 tablespoon of olive oil if you are using real bacon

In a skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add the faux bacon and cook until it is crunchy.  Set aside to cool.

You can peel the potatoes if you like or make them skin-on for more texture and nutrients.  In a large pot, add them peeled or unpeeled and cover with cold water.  Salt the water so that it tastes slightly salty.  Bring the potatoes to boil and cook until fork tender (usually 10-15 minutes.)

Drain the potatoes of most of their water (in other words, don’t be too concerned if there is water left, it helps with mashing.)  Using a hand masher, give the potatoes a rough mash.  Do not mash them to their final consistency.

Add all the ingredients but the bacon and continue mashing until the potatoes are to the consistency you like and all the ingredients are well incorporated.  You can also use a hand mixer to whip them and make them light and airy.

Top with the bacon and serve.  You can also garnish with sour cream (for more milk fat) and scallions (for something resembling a vegetable.)

Okay, get to mashing.  Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of ninjapoodles.

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Today, we are going to rock yours senses with seven cheese mac.  Why seven cheeses?

Because a mere 3 or 5 or 6 cheeses, just would not do, now would it?  We don’t do anything halfway at BlogWellDone.

Seven Cheese Mac and Cheese

First, a moment of your time.  Before we get into the recipe, there is some debate over the type of macaroni to use in any mac and cheese, no many if uses a paltry one type of cheese or amazing seven.

Conventional wisdom says use elbow macaroni, which is all fine and well and good.  However, I like spirals.  My friend Joy turned me on to them when she made mac and cheese.  When she first told me she used spirals, I scoffed, like the good food snob I am.

However, after tasting them, I was forced to agree they have a better texture and they hold more cheese. So, I say use spirals if you have them.

Oh, and angel hair noodles, for the record, are right out.

Making the Mac and Cheese

This is really pretty simple.  The key to getting it right is making sure the noodles are undercooked.

You need:

• 24 oz spiral macaroni
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons white flour
• 2  cups cream
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup fontina, shredded
• 1 cup mozzerella, shredded
• 1 cup Gruyere, shredded
• 1 cup sharp yellow cheddar, shredded*
• 1 cup Emmenthaler, shredded
• 1 cup sharp white cheddar, shredded
• 1 cup Roblechon, shreded
• (optional) 1 cup of Parmesan, grated
• (optional) Toppings such as panko, bread crumbs, or corn flakes

* You need at least one yellow cheese so that the dish has the traditional yellow color.

Preheat the oven to 350. This one is super simple.  In a large pot, bring enough water to cover the macaroni to boil with 2 tablespoons of salt and the garlic powder.  When the macaroni is just al dente (soft, but with a definite bite to it), pull it off the stove and drain it immediately.  Put it in a large bowl.

While the macaroni is cooking, melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the flour (making a roux) until the mixture smells nutty.  Add the cream and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Once the macaroni is in the bowl, pour in the thickened cream, the nutmeg, and all the cheeses but the parm.  Stir well until the cheese starts to melt. Transfer the macaroni and cheese to a buttered, oven safe dish with high sides.  (I used a lasagna pan.)  Fill about 3/4 of the way and top with the cheese and panko.

Bake until the mixture sets and the top starts to turn crispy. This recipe serves enough to feed a small army.  Enjoy!

Special thanks to Ellen Malloy for helping me remember how to spell Roblechon!

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Vegan Gnocchi in Cheesy Bechamel with White Truffle Oil

This recipe starts vegan with the gnocchi, but ends up being vegetarian with the yummy 5 cheese bechamel.  However, vegans, please do not go away.  You can remove the bechamel and replace it with some Elegant Marinara or a sage-brown vegan margarine sauce.

Either way, the party ends with a delicious garrnish of white truffle oil and a little basil for green and flavor.

Vegan Gnocchi

My challenge to myself in making this dish was making the gnocchi vegan.  Gnocchi recipes abound and are not terribly difficult, like this one at 101 Cookbooks I really liked.   Most recipes call for around 2 pounds of potatoes, 4 eggs, and some flour, salt, and nutmeg to add flavor to the party, but I wanted to eat some, too so I had to veganize it.

The easiest thing to do would have been to swap out the eggs with Ener-G egg replacer, but there are two problems with that.  First, while Ener-G egg replacer works great as a binding agent, it’s not so good at providing the protein matrix I wanted to make the gnocchi fluffy.  To address this issue, I added a scant teaspoon of baking powder (you can add more, but be careful, it has a bitter taste).  Second, Ener-G egg replacer needs to be blended with water and I did NOT want watery gnocchi.  For this, I used the novel approach of cutting the amount of water in half.

So here’s what I ended up doing:

• 8 small potatoes (probably four pounds), peeled and cut into large pieces
• 4 egg’s worth of egg replacer, but only 2 egg’s worth of water
• 3 cups whole wheat flour + more for bench use
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder

Boil the potatoes until they are just fork tender.  Rinse with cold water until they can be handled.  Drain thoroughly in a collander.

Add the egg replacer, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder.  Using your hand or potato masher, mash the potatoes and mix the ingredients.  If the dough is too wet, add more flour a quarter cup at a time.

Cover a clean surface with whole wheat flour and begin kneading the dough until it is the consistency of cookie dough.  If the dough does not want to stay together, add more flour or a bit more egg replacer.

Once you are happy with the dough, do what Heidi recommends and cut the dough into eight pieces.  Roll each piece into a long strip and cut that strip into bite-sized pieces.  Let the dough rest for a few moments as you get the water ready.

Ready the water by bringing to boil enough water to cover the gnocchi and one tablespoon of salt in a sauce pan or pot.  When the water is boiling, add the gnocchi to the pot in small batches.

How do you know when the gnocchi is ready? Now, here’s where Herve This and I agree.  FORGET THE ADAGE THAT THE GNOCCHI IS READY WHEN IT FLOATS!  It’s a myth and I ate raw gnocchi to prove it.  Boil the gnocchi for three minutes and fifteen seconds.  Use a timer.

Serve with a sauce like a marinara or the bechamel below and enjoy!

Five Cheese Bechamel

I really wanted to gild the lily with this recipe, mainly because I was showing off.  This cheese sauce uses five cheeses to give it the extra zing and junk-foodiness that one needs to truly shatter one’s New Year’s Resolution.

You will need:

• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
• 2 tablespoons white flour (for the love of all that is good, DO NOT use whole wheat flour.)
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup fontina
• 1 cup aged Gruyère
• 1 cup Asiago
• 1 cup Emmenthaler
• 1 cup mozzarella
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• (optional) grated Parmesan

As my one concession to meat eaters, you can use rendered bacon grease instead of butter.  I hear that is might tasty.

Add the butter to a cold skillet.  Bring it to medium heat and continually move the butter around to prevent burning.  Immediately after the butter is melted, add the flour and stir.  (You are making a roux, the king of French thickeners.)  Cook the roux until you begin to detect a nutty aroma.  This should take anywhere from 2-4 minutes.

Add the cream and give it a good stir to make sure the roux is removed from the bottom of the skillet.  Begin bringing the cream to a boil, stirring occasionally.  As the cream starts to boil, add the cheeses, the nut meg, and the white pepper.  That much cheese makes the sauce thicken VERY quickly so you will only need to stir another 30 seconds or.  Remove from the heat and add the parm, stirring to incorporate.

Pour over gnocchi, cauliflower or anything else you want.

Bringing Vegan Gnocchi, Cheesy Bechamel, and the Truffle Oil Together

Get out a large bowl and dump the cooled (though hopefully not cold) gnocchi into it.  Top with the bechamel.  Now, if you have time, you can top the dish with breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and parsely and bake the dish like a casserole until it gets crusty on top, or you can skip this step.

Baked or not, top with a light drizzle of white truffle oil and a chiffonade of basil.

Grab and spoon and get to eating.

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Friday night was date night for me and my wife and she REALLY wanted to see Twilight. We compromised for our date night. First, we went to go to Spin (which I like) and then we went to see Twilight (which she liked.)

While I could talk about Twilight for a while, BlogWellDone.com is not a movie review site. Thus, I shall spare you my feelings about the movie as a piece of cinema. However, there was one part I found particularly disheartening. Not irritating and it did not make me mad, just disappointed.

Twilight and Vegetarianism

The main character of the movie, Bella (the lovely damsel), is vegetarian (yay!!) and the vampires who drink only animal blood are called vegetarian (which is, a little perverse since to qualify for vegetarian status they have to eat animals as if humans aren’t animals…) I could let that slide, though. Who am I to lecture a vampire about terminology? They have supernatural strength. And fangs. And a unique sense of style that just doesn’t look good on me.

Anyhow, the part of the movie which actually got my to talk back to the screen (a habit I normally reserve for watching Jayhawk football and basketball games) was when Edward (our handsome hero) told Bella that being a vampire vegetarian was like eating tofu. “Sure”, he said. “You can life on tofu your entire life, but you won’t be satisfied.”

Grrrrrrr!

Twilight Could Have Promoted a Healthy (Vegetarian) Diet

A million things popped into my head about the relative amounts of saturated fat in meat vs. tofu, the differing amounts of unnatural hormones in tofu and meat, etc. It was also obvious that Edward had not read my blog, which was, of course, really disheartening.

Still, it really did bother me that a movie that has grossed as much as Twilight and has attracted as many young teenage girls as it has is going around insulting a vegetarian diet. In an age of teenage obesity and eating disorders, where girls are maturing much faster due to hormones in their food, why take a shot at a vegetarian staple? Why not encourage healthy eating habits?

So, there’s my soapbox. Thanks! Next up, a recipe. I promise!

Image courtesy of StephanieMeyer.com.

PS…to be fair, I have NOT read the book.  The book may be more veg*n friendly.

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Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Cooking Is the LAST Thing I Want to Do

Anyway, what all of this means is that if you are like me, standing over a stove and eeking out dinner is probably no where on the ol’ list of priorities.  Calling for takeout sounds so much better.

Solution?

What you need is a personal chef and since I cannot possibly keep up with the volume (ha ha), fortunately PersonalChefToGo.com is here to help.  PersonalChefToGo.com offers several meal plans geared towards singles, couples, and families on the go.  Meals arrive every weekend via FedEx in specially lined containers and the food can be stored in the fridge for a while or frozen up to 30 days and lose no taste.  (Did I mention they are healthy, too?)

And for those of you sweating Christmas meals, PersonalChefToGo.com also has holiday dinners which will arrive at your door.

So, If you need a personal chef, I have two $25 gift certificates to PersonalChefToGo.com that need a home, which I am willing to barter for some suggestions. 

Just leave me a comment with your favorite oh-so-not-good-for-you comfort food.  The more fried, greasy, sugary or cheesy the better!  Also, if you blog about this contest or Twitter about it, leave a second comment with “EXTRA” in it.  Anyone with “EXTRA” in their second comment will also be eligible for a special mystery prize and a high five.

In the hopes you can get your certificate in time for a holiday meal, I will be picking winners at random on Tuesday morning… so get to commenting!!!

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Vegetarian Stuffed Shells: The Right Place at the Right Time

So stuffed shells has been one of those dishes that has been a family favorite since my wife and I were dating. I threw it together one night because I thought it might be fun to take traditional lasagna stuffing and put it into shell pasta. My wife loved them. For a while they were the best dish she ever had (or so she said…)

However, stuffed shells require stuffing and, frankly, lasagna speaks to my inner lazy so we do not eat them that offen. Still, we do keep a box of shells around just in case.

Just in case happened this weekend. Normally, we do grocery shopping on the weekends, but last week we just never made it to the store. So come Sunday night, the pantry was bare. No fresh fruit. A few onions formed the bulk of the fresh veggie supplies… We had no bread that was not stale, no milk, no yeast… We were sunk.

What we did have was some Rondele Garden Vegetable spreadable cheese and frozen spinach, a can of tomato sauce, and of course, the abovementioned shells. And thus, we had dinner.

Stuffed Shells

You will need: (meat items are highlighted in orange):

• 2 1/4 tablespoons, salt
• 2 tablespoons, garlic powder
• 1 large box of shell pasta
• 1 package, frozen spinach
• 3 tablespoons, olive oil
• 1 white onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 package faux breakfast sausage or real sausage
• 1 tablespoon, breadcrumbs of smashed crackers
• 1/2 container of Rondo veggie spread
• 2 12.5 oz cans of tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Preheat the oven to the 350 degrees.

If you are using real sausage, put it in an oven safe dish and bake for 20 minutes. Once it has been cooked through, drain the grease. If you skip this step, all you will taste is sausage grease.

Make the Shells

Add two tablespoons of salt and all the garlic powder to a pot and add enough water to cover the shells. Bring the water to boil and add the pasta. Follow the cook time listed on the box.

Make the Vegetarian Filling

Take the spinach out of the freezer and let it thaw.

While the pasta is boiling, heat a skillet over high heat. Add two tablespoons of olive oil. When it is hot, add the onion, the rest of the salt, and the garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent. Then add meat (faux or not) to the skillet and cook until fully browned.

Add the spinach and the breadcrumbs to the mixture and cook until the spinach is heated through. Turn off the heat, add the Rondo and stir until well mixed.

Pull out a large baking dish (my wife used a thirteen inch baking dish) and cover the bottom with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and about half of one can of tomato sauce. Then stuff each shell with one heaping spoon full of mixture (do not overstuff unless you want exploded shells.) Put the shells in the baking dish open side down.

Once you are done stuffing all the shells, cover with the rest of the tomato sauce and mozzarella and bake until the cheese is melted and slightly brown.

More Italian Tomorrow

Tomorrow we’ll be talking lasagna and then I think I’ll try bread gnocchi. Then maybe I’ll take the plunge and we’ll do real vegan gnocchi. Until then, enjoy!

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