Madhu Knits and Cooks

New Go-To Roasted Broccoli Approach

I find roasting vegetables to be a great, low-intensity approach to add vegetable sides to any meal.   I usually just make up my roasting approach, but inspired by a very pretty Cook's Illustrated picture, I decided to try an actual recipe for my latest broccoli roasting attempt.  

The Cook's Illustrated Roasted Broccoli with Optional Garlic recipe produced a really great roasted broccoli.  The broccoli had the texture of a perfectly roasted vegetable, but retained the flavor of fresh broccoli.  

The bit of sugar added to the broccoli pre-roasting also added some great sweetness and crispness to the broccoli edges.  The only modification I would make in the future is to use more than a tablespoon of minced garlic to have that flavor come out more.  Otherwise, this will definitely be my go-to approach in the future.

KAF Chocolate Dreams - Great Shortbread Wafers Shaped with My New Geometric Stamps

I have to admit that I've been on a bit of months-long shopping spree at King Arthur Flour's online store.  Among my recent purchases have been a Chocolate Butter Cookie Set, huge 16 oz. container of vanilla extract, biscuit cutter set, and a pasta flour blend.  

What prompted this rash of (impulsive) purchases?  The absolutely delightful geometric cookie stamps that have perhaps transformed me into an actual cookie baking enthusiastic.  The first time that I used these stamps to fashion homemade cookies convinced me that I may be starting a new phase in my baking life.

My first use of these tools were on an almost equally awesome KAF recipe, Chocolate Dreams.  Chocolate Dreams is a simple chocolate shortbread recipe that produces a slightly crisp and dense cookie.  I think their rich chocolate flavor makes them particularly good for adults, though my five-year old niece ate several in succession one afternoon!  

I made just a few modifications to this recipe - I made the cookies slightly larger, resulting in 38 cookies instead of 48, and reduced the baking time to 16 minutes to get slightly softer cookies.  

Out of the oven, they were slightly soft (yet firm) and crumbled a bit.  The next day, they were certainly more crispy and flaky.  And thankfully, both days, they were rich with chocolate flavor and delicious!

NY Times Red Lentil Soup with Lemon - Quick Weeknight Meal

The revamped NY Times Cooking Section continues to displace my ambitions to use more of my stack of dust-collecting cookbooks.  In addition to the Times easy-to-navigate website, they also send out lovely, picture-rich emails daily which always have some tantalizing seasonal vegetarian recipe.  

The latest recipe to catch my eye was the Red Lentil Soup with Lemon recipe by Melissa Clark.  The recipe seemed like a great way to cook through the new bag of masoor dal (Indian red lentils) that I bought, and also a great way to get some weeknight protein.  

True to the description, using red lentils and a healthy amount of lemon juice produced a much lighter version of lentil soup that one gets with brown or green lentils.  It felt almost refreshing, not a description one often writes for pulse-based soups.  

The best part of the recipe is that you only have to cook the masoor dal for fifteen minutes before the lentils are tender and can be blended - amazing!  

The only critique I have of the recipe is that it so closely resembles an Indian lentil meal that it didn't necessarily feel like a unique dish. But for a quick, healthy weeknight meal, it definitely fits the bill.

The only modifications I made to the recipe were to use one tomato in place of the tomato pasta; slightly less than half of a lemon's juice; and one cup less water (so one qt. broth and one cup water).  

Blizzard Lasagna...Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

NYC was hit by a blizzard earlier this winter.  The blizzard was accompanied by nonstop TV news and weather app broadcasts of stern warnings against venturing outside during the projected 24 - 48 hour period.  

While we generally have an overstocked kitchen, and I did an extra grocery run to prepare even more, somehow I wasn't prepared for what I wanted to make during the blizzard - lasagna.  Among the critical missing ingredients were mozzarella (instead use some white cheddar cheese squares and a cheddar cheese snack, broken up - yes, desperate), an adequate amount of canned tomatoes or tomato sauce (had 2/3 of a cup left), not completely dried out parmesan (mine resulted in grated cardboard flakes), and compliant frozen vegetables.

But the real point of this post is to make two points.  First, as I learned years ago during the "kitchen sink" lasagna episode, it's actually not hard to cobble together a decent tasting lasagna.  Pasta, sauce and cheese can make almost anything taste good!  

Second, a notable exception to that rule-of-thumb is frozen spinach.  This recipe helped me fully understand my dislike of frozen spinach.  I just hate the taste of it, whether it's sautéed, microwaved or baked.  It just tastes too chalky, grainy, and has the flavor of wet grass.  I think the only preparation of frozen spinach that is passable is that used in spinach pappu, and even that dish tastes far better with fresh spinach.  So while this lasagna ended up being passable, the thawed and squeezed spinach, which was mixed with cottage cheese to fill the lasagna, just didn't work.

So note to self - don't use frozen spinach in the future!