Cheesy Noodle Bake

I don't come from a long line of chefs. My parents and grandparents have a handful of "signature" dishes between them, but probably not enough to fill a cookbook.

But, one of the dishes I remember both my grandmother and my mother making was baked pork chops on top of cheesy noodles. The pork chops were never my favorite part, but the cheesy noodles? They are the definition of comfort. I've been craving comfort food lately, so I decided some updated cheesy noodles were in order.

Notes: Cheddar cheese is what gives the cheesy noodles their signature taste, but use a different cheese if you must! I decided to make this one vegetarian, so I opted for greens instead of pork chops.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb of pasta (spaghetti, linguine, angel hair)
2 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups of milk
1 cup chopped greens (swiss chard, kale, shredded cabbage)
Salt
Pepper
Butter (for greasing the baking dish)

Directions:

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Bring a stock pot of water to a boil, add a small handful of salt to the water, and cook the pasta according to the directions. While your pasta is cooking, chop your greens and grate your cheese.

After you drop your pasta, heat the milk over medium heat until it's scalded -- warm and steaming with little bubbles around the edge, but not boiling. Season with salt and pepper.

When the pasta is done, drain it and pour it into your buttered glass baking dish. Turn the heat off the milk, add 2 cups of the grated cheese, and stir until melted and smooth. Pour the cheese and milk mixture over the noodles. Add the chopped greens and stir to combine. Top with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese.

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Let it stand 5 minutes, serve it up and enjoy!

Comfort on a plate!

Q.E.D.: Sardines and Greens on Toast

My friend Stacy over at Lola & Zoe recently did a post on kicking the winter blues. I have been confronting some winter blues (though they feel more like winter blahs) lately. Normally, cooking is one of the ways I solve the winter blues, but for some reason I haven't felt like doing much of that either. Even when I don't feel much like cooking, I still like to make my own food. For times like that, it's nice to have meals that are more assembly than cooking and this is one of those meals.

Notes: Haven't tried sardines? Well, why not? They're delicious. If you like tuna, salmon, and other steak-y fish, you'll like sardines. Sardines are also rich in healthy omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, and calcium. So not only is this meal Q.E.D., it's healthy too. Opt for the wild-caught sardines if you can find them.

This makes enough for one, so if you want to feed two people, I would double the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 tin sardines, packed in either oil or water (I used water)
Half of a large baguette or a whole small baguette
1/2 cup of cilantro
1/2 cup of swiss chard leaves (or your favorite leafy green)
The zest and juice of 1 lemon
5 drops of Tabasco
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Directions: Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Finely chop your cilantro and your swiss chard leaves and add them to a medium-sized bowl. Zest your lemon and add the zest to the bowl. Season the mixture with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Slice your baguette into toast rounds. Lay them on a baking sheet, drizzle them with olive oil, and sprinkle them with salt. Once the oven is heated, bake them for between 4-6 minutes until toasted.

While the bread is toasting, drain the liquid out of your sardines. Lay them on a paper towel and pat them dry. Add them to the bowl with your greens mixture. Mash the sardines with a fork and stir everything to combine. Cut your lemon and squeeze the juice over the mixture, add the Tabasco, and stir again. When the toasts are done, spoon the sardine mixture on top and enjoy!

Ricotta Stuffed Swiss Chard

With all the innovations in food, why have we not come up with more no-boil pasta? Seriously. No-boil lasagna noodles are easily on my top ten list of food innovations. Why has no one gotten on the train and invented no-boil manicotti? No-boil jumbo shells? This cuts your cooking time almost in half, people! I'm aiming to stuff some pasta with things and I got no no-boil options.

Enter this dish. I saw a recipe that used collard greens as a wrap instead of flour tortilla. Aha! Why not use leafy greens in the place of manicotti? I suppose necessity really is the mother of invention. Tasty, tasty invention.

Notes: There are a couple of tricks you need to make this dish successfully. When you're de-stemming your swiss chard, try your best to keep the large leaves in tact. This may require some delicate fingers. Instead of the grab-and-pull method, you can use the fold and separate method. Fold the leaves like you're closing a book. Then pull the stem away from the folded leaf like you're tearing a sheet of paper out of a notebook. You'll end up with more whole leaves that way.

Because you're using a veggie, you'll end up with a lot of excess liquid in the bottom of your pan. As such, you'll want to minimize the amount of liquid you add at the beginning. Opt for a thick marinara sauce and drain the liquid out of your ricotta. The excess liquid is not really a deterrent, just something to watch out for.


Ingredients:
10-12 large swiss chard leaves, cleaned and de-stemmed
1 container of ricotta cheese (approx. 15 oz)
1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce (approx. 26 oz)
1 ball of fresh mozzarella
2 teaspoons of dried herbs de provance
2 teaspoons of kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
Pepper

Directions:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Put your ricotta cheese, herbs, red pepper, salt, and pepper to a bowl and mix well.

Lay your chard leaves out on a flat surface. Put between 1 to 1 1/2 heaping tablespoons on the lower end of the leaf in the center. Tuck the end around the cheese and bring in the sides. Roll it over continuing to tuck in the sides as you go. Roll it up until you have a neat little bundle. Put them seam side down in a glass baking dish. Repeat with all the leaves until the ricotta is used up.

Once your bundles are in the dish, top it with your sauce. Slice the mozzarella ball and lay the discs on top. Cover it with foil and bake it for 30 minutes. Take the foil off and bake for 10 more minutes to brown the cheese on top.

Serve it up and enjoy!