Jacques Pepin Inspired Rotisserie Chicken Your Way

 In a pot add a couple of tbsp. of butter and saute up your favorite vegetables such as a carton of tomatoes cut in half or quartered, 2 cups of spinach, 2 cups of zucchini, 1 carton of sliced mushrooms, 1 large onion or 2 smaller onions, and whatever else you like.  Saute and simmer until all soft and then add to the pot the cut up rotisserie chicken.  It's so easy to tear away the legs and wings and then just cut the breast and put into the pot and spoon the sauce over.  To serve, put chicken on a platter and spoon the veg and sauce over.  Garnish with fresh parsley.  Easy and fabulously delicious!

One Pot Pasta

This is easy and delicious. You've probably seen pasta packages in the grocery store filled with spice and dried noodles that you just toss into a deep pan, add water, herbs, spices, meat if you like, bring to a boil, then simmer until all of the liquid is absorbed. Well, you don't need to buy it, you can make it.  Here you go!

I made a wine version at home today.  

Get a deep wide pan, add 4 cups of water, 1 cup red wine, one larger can of diced tomatoes, add a handful of basil, 1 tsp. chili spices (optional), 1 tbsp. oregano, 1 tbsp. powdered garlic, or 2 cloves of fresh, and anything else you like, including the olives I added the other day.  You can also add meat if you desire. Then add 2 handfuls of spaghetti.  I find spaghetti works best. You can also drizzle a little oil over so pasta doesn't stick.

Add 2 tbsp. chicken soup paste or any other flavorful chicken broth, to water for extra flavor.

Add everything to a pan including pasta, bring to a boil, simmer, and toss about a little now and then so pasta doesn't stick.

Once the pasta has absorbed the liquid over a period of 20 to 30 minutes, finish your pasta off.  Stir it up and add additional 1/4 cup red wine if you like, season with salt and pepper and 1/2 cup of tomato sauce too if you so desire and your favorite cheese.

Portokalopita (Greek Orange Phyllo Cake With Cinnamon Syrup). It’s like a Greek Bread Pudding

 

This is a really unique cake and the first time I made it.  The bottom got a little doughy, but that is apparently because I didn’t distribute the yogurt evenly, AND didn’t bake the phyllo prior. To remedy the doughy texture on the bottom of the cake, I put into a pan with a little olive oil to brown and crisp up the bottom.  Once the cake is done and warm, pour cinnamon syrup over – a tasty unique cake with an eggy texture and the beautiful fragrance of orange and cinnamon. I think topping it with fresh whip cream, ice cream, and/or crushed pistachios/almonds would be nice too. 

Shred the Phyllo – This was fun!  Get out a baking sheet, spray with Pam, and put all of the shredded phyllo on it.  Put into the oven at 200 degrees for about an hour.  Keep an eye on it.  You don’t want too brown, but you do want crispy.  Once it comes out of the oven, you will crumble it into batter.

In the Meantime, Make the Syrup -  In a pot over medium high heat, add 2 cups white sugar, 1 ½ cups water, 1 orange cut in half, 1 tsp. ground cinnamon.  Bring to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes.  

For the Cake - 1 package of crispy phyllo, 3 oranges, 5 eggs, 7 ounces plain Greek yogurt, ¾ cup olive oil, ½ cup white sugar, 1 tbsp. baking powder.   Mix olive oil, sugar and eggs together in a mixer and mix until nice and frothy. Then add the juice of oranges and the zest from 1 ½ oranges.  Add yogurt and continue mixing.  Then add baking powder.  Add crushed phyllo to batter a little at a time.  Then put cake into a greased up cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  Once baked, spoon syrup over and cool the cake.  It should be served cold.

 

 

 

Garlic, Truffle Hummus with Crackers and Crudites

 Use a blender or food processor to blend.

1 can chickpeas, 2 tbsp. of chick pea water (aka aquafaba), 1-2 garlic cloves, 3 tbsp. white truffle oil, 2 tbsp. olive oil, ¼ lemon juice (2 lemons), 2 tbsp. tahini (found at all grocery stores), salt and pepper.

Mix all of the above!  Put into a pretty bowl with a few chick peas and olive oil for decoration.  Serve with crackers or chips and some celery, carrots, cucumber.

Pastitsio with Bechamel (Greek Lasagna)

Pastitsio with Béchamel (Greek Lasagna)

 

Note:  This is at least a 2 hour commitment.  This is why it’s nice to have some wine while cooking.  You will layer like a lasagna!  The meat sauce however is a little different than a traditional Italian meat sauce, as there is no tomato sauce and you will be using cinnamon and oregano to flavor up the meat. Additionally, you will be using tubular noodles called, Ziti Campani.  I used No. 8 size, you may use another size – whatever fits your casserole dish or lasanga pan. 

Your Pan:  Get a lasagna or casserole dish to put your pasta in.  I say, use whatever fits your noodles.

Your Noodles: I use long ziti for effect!  You will see why.  Though you can use short tubular pasta as well but they may not line up straight.

There are 3 steps. You are going to cook noodles and set aside, then you will make a meat sauce and then a bechamel sauce.

Cook Pasta:  Boil up your long pasta according to package directions, in a tall wide pot of salted water until just done.  You can even cook 2 minutes under since the noodles will further bake in the oven. This is a tough pasta by the way, very hard to break the noodles, HOWEVER, I didn’t drain but rather picked out with tongs and set aside in a pan.  I then tilted pan and soaked up water with a paper towel.  While this is a nice tough pasta, I didn’t want to drain just in case the tubes broke, but you can absolutely drain instead.  Because I put them aside, I put a little olive oil over noodles and tossed around so they wouldn’t stick.

The Meat Sauce:   (I doubled this recipe for leftovers), but this is the regular recipe. I like to make more of everything, including bechamel sauce as I hate running out.  Anything leftover can be repurposed in another dish or frozen for a future dinner.  Remember, the secret to any sauce is to taste it once the ingredients are all together.  Add more seasonings if you like, more salt, or more pepper.

3 lbs. lean ground beef, 1 medium onion chopped, 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1 small can tomato paste, ½ cup water, 1 cup red wine, 3 garlic cloved, minced, 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon, 1 tbsp. oregano, 1 tbsp. paprika (I used smoked), pinch red pepper flakes, optional, 1/2 tbsp. salt, 1 tsp. pepper.

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil in pot until soft.  Once done, add all of the spices and stir for a minute to cook spices. 

Add hamburger and water to spices and stir to evenly distribute the spices and onion into hamburger and break it up with large spoon.  When cooked through, add the tomato paste and wine, put the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or longer if you like.  I simmered for 2 hours!  Set aside and skim off any fat.

Bechamel Sauce (it’s like a white sauce, but you are going to add an egg or two to the sauce). Once again, I doubled the amount of sauce because I made a large pastitsio.

In a pot add ¼ cup butter and melt.  Then add ¼ flour and whisk.  Then add 4 cups of whole milk and whisk more until it becomes thick.  Add a handful of mozzarella cheese to sauce to melt, and then add a tsp. of nutmeg and salt and pepper.  You don’t even need to cool the bechamel before you add one or two blended eggs. Add eggs and whisk vigorously and leave until you are ready to assemble.

Time to assemble.

First layer add ½ cup of bechamel sauce to lasanga pan. Then add some of the ziti noodles.  Top with ½ cup of mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, make sure cheese gets all over noodles.  Add more cheese if you like. Repeat with noodles and cheese.  When all the noodles are in the pan, top with meat sauce, then lastly, top with bechamel sauce and bake at 350 degrees for at least one hour.  Feel free to add some parsley for decoration.

Make it Your Own:   The cinnamon is simply divine and is what makes this dish extra special, but you can also add chopped tomatoes to your sauce and if you like, when layering add bechamel to every layer.  My whole family absolutely loved this comforting dish.  It is truly delicious!