Eggplant Rollatini

Now here is a dish that looks difficult but is relatively easy and kind of fun.  It is slices of eggplant rolled around a filler of ricotta (a light and moist cheese) and spinach.  Not big on spinach, this can change your mind.  You do have to do the first step early, maybe in the morning (see note #1) but that isn’t much to ask.

Notes:

1.      Measure the ricotta into a fine strainer then put the strainer over a small bowl.  Put the strainer, bowl, and cheese into the refrigerator and leave it there for a few hours to get rid of the liquid.  You can do this in the morning before going to work or right when you get home unless you are planning on eating right away.  You don’t want to press down on the cheese because that will force the ricotta through the strainer but maybe if you put it in cheese cloth then compressed it you could get rid of the liquid.  I never tried the cheese cloth method so if you do, let me know how it comes out.

2.      Make sure you check the expiration date of the eggs because they don’t have to small to be bad.

3.      To help protect against bad eggs and having egg shells in things, crack each egg into a small bowl then empty the bowl into whatever you are working from.  If you  are using two or more eggs, do this each time.

4.      To save time the day you plan to eat these, cook the eggplants (steps 2 thru 9) earlier and put them in the refrigerator.

5.      Straining the spinach isn’t all that difficult.  Take it out of the packages, put the spinach into a strainer, put the  strainer into a bowl or sink, and forget it for a while.  You can do this in the morning and put the strainer and bowl into the refrigerator in the morning and it should be good at dinner time.  If it is still a little frozen just break the spinach up with your hands, leave it in the strainer, and put the whole think in the sink or on the counter until you need it.  Still overly wet?  Then squeeze it over the sink with your hands.  You don’t want it bone dry, just get rid of the bulk of the moisture.

 

Eggplant Rollatini

Ingredients

·         3 1/2 cups of ricotta chees

·         Olive oil, to coat pans

·         2 good sized eggplants

·         Course salt

·         5 eggs

·         Salt and freshly ground black pepper

·         About a cup or two of All-purpose flour

·         2 12 oz. packages of frozen spinach, thawed and strained

·         1 ½ tsp of minced garlic or 3 finely chopped cloves

·         3/4 cup grated Romano or Parmesan or buy a combo of the two in a package

·         3 1/2 cups tomato sauce

·         2 to 3 cups of shredded mozzarella

Directions

1.      Prepare the ricotta as in Note 1.  You can then discard the excess liquid or use it for something else like the liquid in a ricotta bread,

2.      Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F,

3.      Spray a baking or cookie sheet with olive oil.  If you have them, spray 3 sheets and if you don’t, don’t worry because the cooking stage can be done in several stages,

4.      Wash the eggplants and cut off the ends. Put one of the cut sides down on your cutting board and slice downward, about ¼ inch strips.  You are not cutting little circles but instead you are cutting lengthwise.  This should result in about 15 pieces,

5.      Shake some course salt on each slice then put the slices on a cooling rack or at least a towel.  The salt will draw out some of the moisture.  They should be left alone for 15 minutes or so but if you don’t have the time just eliminate this step.

6.      Crack 4 eggs into a bowl, season with small amounts of salt and pepper, then beat them slightly just enough to crack the yolks and combine the eggs,

7.      Pour the flour on to a small dish but not a coffee cup dish, that would be too small.  You can use a dinner plate if you want,

8.      Dredge each eggplant slice through the flour, then dip it into the beaten eggs, drain any excess egg mixture back into the eggs, and lay the slice on baking sheet.  Do this with each slice until you have filled the baking sheet but not overcrowded it.  If you can’t or don’t want to cook everything at one time, don’t worry, you can do them in batches,

9.      Bake the eggplant slices until they are golden brown, about 15 minutes.  Transfer the slices to some cool baking sheets or dishes and let them cool to about room temperature.  You see, doing these in batches doesn’t do much more than add 15 minutes per batch,

10.  Crack the last egg into a small dish, possibly the one you used for the four eggs earlier,

11.  Combine spinach, ricotta, remaining egg, garlic, and 1/2 cup of the grated Romano, Parmesan, or mixture in a bowl. Add some salt and pepper to your liking and mix everything completely.

12.  Spoon about 1 cup of the tomato sauce onto the bottom of a small baking dish.

13.  Spoon 1 or 2 tablespoons of filling onto the wide end of each piece of eggplant dependent on the size of the slice.

14.  Roll up each slice lightly and put them into the baking dish with the ends, not edges, down.  If need be, use a toothpick to hold them together but remember to remove the toothpicks before serving,

15.  Pour the rest of the tomato sauce, then the shredded mozzarella, and remaining grated Parmesan on top of everything,

16.  Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes, until the tomato sauce is bubbling and the filling is hot,

17.  Let everything them rest for 15 minutes before serving to let the juices and all settle and merge.

 

Authentic Italian Meat Balls

“Authentic”, don’t you love that word in a recipe title? As if somebody got everybody in Italy together years ago and said, “here isa da way we goin to makea da meatAball.” It never happened but having grown up in an Italian family I can tell you there are some things that are common and often not copied by cooks in other countries. Probably the biggest thing is bread. Most of us don’t use bread crumbs, we use slices of bread that are pulled apart into small pieces. Another is meat, we include veal when at all possible.

But like I wrote, we didn’t get together and come up with the “authentic” recipe so if you want to add pine nuts, diced prunes, ricotta, pecorino, mint, chives, or tarragon, go ahead.

Ingredients:
About 3 slices of bread. I like a white bread for this because of the absorption factor.
¾ cup Milk. Whole milk is normal but I use what I have, including non-fat
20 oz Meatloaf mix (lean beef, pork, and veal)
2 Eggs
2 cloves Garlic
¼ cup Grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbl Italian parsley

Directions:

1. Pour the milk into a large bowl.
2. Cut the crusts off the bread. You wont need it anymore so use it for crotons or at least give it to the birds.
3. Put the bread into the milk and press down with your hands or a large spoon. Don’t use much pressure though, you just want the bread to absorb the milk. Flattened bread won’t be any better than bread crumbs.
4. Put the meat into a bowl. If you had to purchase the beef, pork, and veal separately then mix them together by hand.
5. Squeeze the milk out of the bread, tear it into small pieces (about a half inch wide), and add to the meat.
6. Add the eggs, garlic, Parmesan, and parsley.
7. Mix everything together with your hands. Feel free to add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Pull out small portions of meat and form into balls of about 1 ½ inches thick.
9. You can cook these in several ways but I really like to just drop them into a tomato sauce. It will take about a half to three quarters of an hour and help flavor the sauce at the same time.

Gnocchi with a Parmesan-Beer Sauce

First let me say that most of us with an Italian family history believe “potato gnocchi” is redundant. We never learned to make gnocchi with anything but potatoes, the flour type was always called Cavatelli. But now between “fusion” cooking and the Americanization of ethnic dishes many restaurants and food producers use the words “potato gnocchi”. Funny though, they never make gnocchi with anything else. Oh well like Shakespeare would have said, gnocchi by any other name would still be fantastic.

Second, it isn’t Ga Nochi.

Third, you can make your own or buy it at the store. I’ll show you how to make it from scratch in another post but for now, buy it. I want this to be simple.

Fourth, Parmigiano-Reggiano is the legal name for a specific cheese made in a specific area of Italy by a specific recipe. It is fantastic and has a great melting ability but if you are only using it to lightly cover something, then buy a less expensive parmesan for dishes like this or topping spaghetti.

As for this recipe, it was inspired by one I read on Oklahoma Beer. That is a good site for both recipes and facts about beer. Try it sometime.

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbl Butter, divided
• 2 ½ Tbl Flour
• 1 cup Pumpkin ale (a good Lager or Cream ale will also do and produce interesting alternative flavors.
• 1 ¼ cups Half and Half
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated and divided
• 1/8 tsp Nutmeg, ground
• 1 lb Gnocchi
• 10 oz frozen peas and carrots
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Put water into a large pot, add some salt, and heat to a boil at a medium high heat setting.
2. Butter a glass baking dish or casserole about 11x17. Don’t use too much butter, only about ½ to 1 tablespoon.
3. Melt the remaining butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. If you used too much butter on the glass dish then make sure you have 2 ½ tablespoons of butter for this stage.
4. Slowly add the flour to the butter and whisk them together.
5. Pour the beer into the butter mixture and continue to whisk.
6. Now add the Half-and-Half to the butter mixture and keep whisking. In fact keep whisking until everything begins to boil. After about 3 minutes this stuff should begin to thicken.
7. Begin to preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
8. Add ¾ cup of the parmesan cheese and all the nutmeg to the butter mixture and cook for another minute. Add salt and pepper if you like and take the saucepan off the heat.
9. The water should begin to boil around now so add the gnocchi and cook according to the package instructions. That normally means about 3 minutes when the pasta begins to float.
10. Drain the pasta and return it to the pot. If you would like, take the gnocchi out of the water by using a slotted spoon and put it on a plate. Then dump the water and gently return the gnocchi to the pot.
11. Add the butter mixture, which is no a nice cheese sauce, to the pasta.
12. Add the peas and carrots to the pasta.
13. Stir gently to make sure everything is covered.
14. Using one of those big spoons take the pasta and everything out of the large pan and put it into the baking dish/casserole.
15. Sprinkle the remaining Parmesan cheese on top.
16. Cook in the oven uncovered for 12 to 15 minutes. It should be bubbling.
17. Let it sit for a minute and serve it hot.

Ravioli Lasagna

Lenten meals don’t have to taste like Lenten Meals.  I grew-up eating PB&J, Mac & Cheese, Tuna fish, and fish sticks during Lent.  It wasn’t bad enough I had to give something up that I enjoyed but I had to forfeit satisfying my taste buds also.  On top of that were those fasting days where all I got was three meals and the best was cereal in the morning.

Well, things have changed.  I have done my own research and experimenting and developed some meals that can be enjoyed both during and outside lent. 

Note:

The baking dish should have high sides if you want more than two levels of Ravioli’s.  I used a standard 8x8 only to find that I had enough material left to do an additional smaller pan.  That was OK though, I just had more leftovers that were very easy to store in the freezer.

Ingredients:

·         2 cups ricotta cheese

·         1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach - thawed, drained and squeezed dry

·         1 1/2 to 2 cups of grated Romano cheese divided (I used 4 cheese Italian)

·         2 eggs (still don’t know why eggs don’t count as meat)

·         salt and pepper to taste

·         1 cup spaghetti sauce (I used an Artichoke Pesto Pasta Sauce)

·         1 (25 ounce) package frozen cheese ravioli (I used a mixture of Spinach & Cheese and Asparagus & Cheese ravioli)

Directions:

1.           Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

2.            Spray an 8x8 inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.

3.           Mix the ricotta cheese, spinach, 1 cup of Romano cheese, eggs, salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.

4.           Spread 1/4 to 1/3 cup of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the prepared baking dish

5.           Place frozen raviolis on top in a single layer, flat side up.

6.           Spread about 1 cup of the ricotta mixture over the raviolis.

7.           Repeat the layers until the baking dish is almost filled. 

8.           The last row should be ravioli, spaghetti sauce, topped with the remaining cheese.

9.           Cover the dish with aluminum foil.

10.      Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, until the casserole is bubbling.   It took mine closer to 50 minutes,

11.      Remove the aluminum foil, and bake another 10 minutes to brown the cheese on top.

12.      Let sit for 10 minutes before serving