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November 26, 2012 · 11:29 am

Homemade Crepes

I thought crepes would be incredibly complicated, but they are in fact just milk, flour and eggs! I’m sure there are plenty of other ingredients (i.e. sugar) that some people add to this recipe, but I was taught that one should start at the very beginning (it’s a very good place to start). So I kept it simple:

crepes, recipes, walnut, pear, bleu cheese, arugula, lunch

1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 2 eggs, pinch of salt.

Mix-eems up!

Now came the hard part. I wasted one entire batch of batter attempting to swirl the batter evenly in our cast-iron skillet. The trouble is the batter starts cooking as soon as it hits the pan, so make sure you have a strategy. I didn’t need much butter, just a light greasing of the pan and about 1/3 cup of batter did me just fine. 🙂

Swirl evenly into pan on med heat.

It’s definitely a learning curve.

After several tries, I finally found my swirling sweet spot. Hours later, I read that an easy way to make it even is to tilt the pan and pour the batter in on an incline — if anyone has tried this, please let me know if it works!

As soon as the batter starts to bubble, flip-eems around and cook the other side. Afterward you can set them aside until you have as many as you need.

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Chicken Caprese Crepe for my man.

Heat it up on a warm pan and serve!

When it’s time to build the crepes, turn the pan on very very low and lay your crepe down, throw on your toppings and fold hot-dog, then hamburger (the nineties kids know what I mean).

The time had come to attempt the crepe of all crepes. The one I had placed up so high on a pedestal, I was bound to be disappointed, right? WRONG! I had seen this done so many times, I knew all of the components. I knew the order the ingredients needed to go in and what sorts of dressings topped them. It went crepe, bleu cheese, pears, honey, walnuts, balsamic, then arugula.

I topped this with black pepper and honey.

Served with arugula and a balsamic glaze.

And it was delicious! I’ll have to work on my crepe technique, but the integrity of the crepe was there. I considered this a huge victory and I intend to enjoy this for lunch every day this week because me and this crepe? We’re married. What’s your crepe soul-mate?

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Tagged as bleu cheese, cast iron skillet, chelsea market, crepes, gorgonzola, home made, home made crepes, nyc, pear, recipe, skillet crepes, walnut

October 19, 2012 · 9:48 am

Vegetarian Pesto Lasagna

The crisp autumn wind that blew in last week made me want to cook comfort food. However, since we are heading to Southeast Asia for the first time next weekend, my main mission has been to cook meals to boost our immune systems (a tip I read for combatting tummy troubles while traveling in a new region). So while everyone knows I’d prefer a nice lamb bolognese or beef chili, I’m here to prove I can cook vegetarian meals that fill the “comfort” quota as well.

I settled on a roasted vegetable pesto lasagna. This was a bit of a process, but since I’d rather spend more time and do less dishes, I roasted the veggies separately. If you have a big pan or a dishwasher, it would be easy to throw them all in together, effectively cutting the cooking time down. Totally up to you. Me? I began roasting the red peppers and mushrooms.

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Roast red peppers at 500 for 20-30 min.

mushrooms, roasted vegetable lasagna, vegetarian, pesto lasagna, lea craft spencer, lea spencer

Roast mushrooms at 475 for 10-15 min.

The mushrooms and red peppers supposedly need to be heated at a higher temperature than the rest of the vegetables I chose, although I maintain that throwing them all in one pan together would work just as well. If they’re a little undercooked, that’s okay, because everything will go back into the oven at the end.

zucchini, roasted cheery tomatoes, onions, roasted garlic, roasted vegetable lasagna, vegetarian, pesto lasagna, lea craft spencer, lea spencer

Roast other veggies at 400 for 20 min.

whole wheat lasagna, roasted vegetable lasagna, vegetarian, pesto lasagna, lea craft spencer, lea spencer

Boil the lasagna for 10 min

In addition to mushrooms and red peppers, I roasted zucchini, cherry tomatoes, red onions and garlic. I also went with a whole wheat lasagna because that’s what we had in the house; whatever type of lasagna tickles your fancy will work just fine. Next up, the pesto:

creamy pesto, roasted vegetable lasagna, vegetarian, pesto lasagna, lea craft spencer, lea spencer

Basil, parmesan, walnuts, garlic, olive oil

Then mix and add cream until smooth.

I know a lot of people make pesto with pine nuts, but I’ve seen it done many time with walnuts, which are healthier and (again) what I had lying around the house. So I processed the basil leaves with the parmesan, walnuts, olive oil and garlic, then added cream until it was smooth.

(In retrospect, I would have added more salt to the pesto itself instead of just seasoning the veggies as I built the lasagna, but hindsight is 20/20, no?)

roasted vegetable lasagna, vegetarian, pesto lasagna, lea craft spencer, lea spencer

Then start building the lasagna.

After I chopped up all the veggies and mixed them together, I built the lasagna like this: pesto, pasta, veggies, pasta, pesto, veggies, pasta, pesto, mozzarella/parmesan. I read a lot of recipes that included ricotta cheese, but since I was using creamy pesto, I skipped that step. I’d rather have twice the mozzarella if we’re being honest. And I did:

Top with fresh mozzarella and parmesan.

Then into a 375 oven until cheese is bubbly.

I cracked a little pepper, threw a little salt, then popped my super-sexy tin foil lasagna pan into the oven at 375 until the cheese began to bubble bubble. This dish made a great little dinner for me, plus lunch for both me and mi amor the next day.

roasted vegetable lasagna, arugula salad, creamy pesto, vegetarian, pesto lasagna

Served here with an arugula salad.

Healthy? Check. Comforting? Check. Delicious? Double check. Traveller’s tummy? Bring it on, Thailand; we’re ready. POP POP.

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September 11, 2012 · 5:33 pm

Green Bean Casserole

We were invited to a BBQ in Queens last month, and I was asked to bring a dish but offered very little guidance as to the type of dish. So since no one said I couldn’t, I decided to whip up a batch of green bean casserole, just like we do down home. My version started with onions, garlic and mushrooms in one pot and green beans in the other:

Saute garlic, onions and mushrooms for 10 minutes.

Boil green beans in salty water for about 15 minutes.

Once the veggies were all cooked through, I threw them into the skillet and added a can of cream of mushroom soup. I then let all this cook together for another 5-10 minutes on low heat. Turn on that oven to 350!

I first threw everything down in a lil’ bit o’ butter.

Then add the soup, bring to a boil, then back down to a simmer.

Then I poured this tasty mixture into one of my uber-classy foil baking dishes, added french fried onions and baked at 350 for 20 minutes, or until bubbly and brown.

Mmmm…. smells like Thanksgiving, y’all.

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Tagged as astoria, barbecue, bbq, bbq side dishes, green bean casserole, lea spencer, new york, outdoor recipe, queens, recipe, side dish, southern recipe

August 22, 2012 · 12:37 pm

Roasted Veggie Lasagna

Since my man decided he was sick of taking sandwiches to work for lunch, my main dinner mission has been to cook meals that yield leftovers, which sounds easier than it is when you’re also trying to cook new things every week. Last week we decided to pay homage to our community and cook a nice Italian meal. I wanted to do a roasted veggie and lamb lasagna, but alas there was no lamb at my market, so beef had to suffice. It started with the veggies and the sauce:

lasagna, italian recipe, roasted vegetable, recipe, italian, whole wheat pasta, lea spencer, lea craft spencer

Red peppers & zucchinis into the oven at 450.

I started the sauce at the same time.

I drizzled the zucchini and the red pepper with some olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, then popped them into a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until they’re nice and blistered. For the sauce I used one can of plain, unseasoned tomato sauce and half a can of tomato paste. To this I added fresh oregano and basil from my garden, 2 cloves garlic, 1/4 medium red onion, some salt and pepper and let that baby simmer! (The longer, the better).

We used whole wheat lasagna.

Then we added beef to the sauce.

I didn’t make the pasta, just picked a box of whole wheat lasagna and followed the directions. I then browned the beef with some garlic and onions and added it to the sauce (leave this step out to make it vegetarian). Since I’m far from vegetarian, I let the beef simmer with the sauce while I finished the rest of the dish.

Then I chopped up the veggies.

And started building the lasagna.

All I had in the house were loaf pans, so I made two “loaves” of lasagna and it worked out great. I layered them like this: sauce, pasta, veggies, pasta, ricotta, veggies, sauce, pasta, sauce; did you get all that? If not, just wing it, delicious will always be delicious no matter the order 🙂

Into the oven at 350 for 30 min.

Top with mozz and back in until it melts!

Then I sprinkled with the top with a little parmesan and into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I topped it with some sliced of fresh mozzarella and then back in until it’s nice and brown.

Served with a leafy green salad!

Italian? Check. Leftovers? Check. Delicious? Double check. POP POP.

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Tagged as fresh mozzerella, homemade lasagna, italian cuisine, italian recipe, lasagna, leafy green salad, recipe, roasted veggie lasagna

July 30, 2012 · 10:26 am

BBQ Chicken with Scalloped Potatoes

On my final night in Blue Eye, Mary must’ve known I had just crossed the Mason-Dixon and was hankering for some BBQ because she made my absolute favorite: Barbecued chicken with scalloped potatoes au gratin. BAM!

She started with the potatoes:

potatoes au gratin, scalloped potatoes, bbq chicken, barbecue, chicken, recipe

She began by slicing the potatoes and onions, to which she added cream and milk.

For 3 lbs of potatoes, add 3 cups milk and 1 cup cream. Let this simmer until it gets thick. Then remove the pan from the heat and layer the potatoes into a casserole dish with a good melting cheese in between each layer. Add the milk from the pan to the dish, which should cover the potatoes. Then shred some cheddar on top and pop that baby into a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until it looks like this:

…I’ll wait while you wipe the saliva from your lips…

I wish I knew what Mary’s secret was for baking chicken because she manages to do it in such a way that it turns out fork tender and this is something I’ve not been able to master. She assured me it’s not that hard, and I did see one trick I’m going to try: she pokes holes in the chicken, which allowed the sauce to get into the chicken, making it cut like butter:

Served in a Kentucky-Style BBQ sauce

with cauliflower, carrots and broccoli

To my extreme delight, there was plenty of this meal leftover for lunch the next day. It was tasty, it was tender, it was cheesy, it was perfect:

An insanely delicious southern dish.

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Tagged as barbecued chicken, bbq chicken, dinner, homemade, midwest recipe, mixed vegetables, potatoes au gratin, recipe, scalloped potatoes, southern recipe

July 23, 2012 · 12:39 pm

Shirred Lemon Eggs

On our second morning in Blue Eye, I could smell the biscuits baking before I was able to imagine the glorious breakfast we would be enjoying. This is something I had never seen before, so I was thrilled to get to learn how to make it:

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These are called “Shirred Eggs”

Biscuits made with a touch of cayenne.

For this recipe, you need 4 eggs, 1/2 cup cream, 1 tsp orange zest, 1/3 cup mild cheese. Make sure you butter the muffin tin. Then fill the tins with with 1 tsp cream, then brake the eggs in, adding some lemon zest and shredded cheese to each. You can use orange zest if you prefer and any meltable cheese will do. Mary then added some “essence,” which makes all the difference :-). These went into a 325 degree oven for about 12 minutes.

Mary bakes her biscuits with a dash of cayenne, so they come out with just a hint of spice — divine! She also made some sausage patties, which I used to make little biscuit sandwiches and she flourished the plate with some fresh oranges, which really brought out the flavor in the eggs.

Served with sausage biscuits and orange slices.

A fancy presentation of eggs that can be served with many things. POP POP.

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July 17, 2012 · 10:25 am

Frittata a la Mary

This is Mary, Queen of Blue Eye.

I had the good fortune of spending last weekend with my family just outside Blue Eye, Missouri. I had heard my father gush for months over my Aunt Mary’s cooking, so you can imagine my delight not only to be able to eat her food, but to be able to record it. She was kind enough to let me invade her kitchen with my camera to capture a few gems for this blog. Today I’ll be sharing a brunch recipe I’m calling Frittata a la Mary. Her spin on this egg-based dish includes a bottom layer of shredded potatoes.

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She began by browning some shredded potatoes.

After she browned the potatoes, Mary mixed 6 eggs with 1 cup of half & half and 2 tablespoons of butter and added that to the pan right on top of the potatoes. Then she added about 4 ounces of cheese, which needs to be gruyere or some kind of good melting cheese. She then added a special seasoning we call “the essence.”

She added the eggs, tomatoes and cheese.

Then baked it at 350 for 30 minutes.

After laying the tomatoes across, she added a little more essence and into the oven! Adding some final flourishes, this is what was served:

Frittata a la Mary

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July 5, 2012 · 12:38 pm

The 4th of July Means Burgers and Beer

Falling on a Wednesday, this 4th of July seemed to catch everyone a bit off guard. Do we celebrate the week before? The week after? The whole week? What’s the American thing to do? Duh… Work. So since everyone in my home had to work on the 3rd and the 5th, we decided to stay close to home this year, but that didn’t stop us from celebrating the day the American way: with lots of food!

We began by indulging ourselves in our absolute, hands-down, bar-none favorite lunchtime meal: fruit and cheese. Now it may not seem American, but when I put it to you like this:

cheese board, fruit and cheese plate, brie cheese, bleu cheese, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, pecans, olives, cornichons, gherkin

Brie and bleu cheeses, assorted berries, olives, pickles and pecans. Nums.

I think you’ll be forced to agree. The colors are even overwhelmingly red, white and blue. The brie, the bleu, the berries, the pickles… so many flavors to wash down with an ice cold American brew. Snobbishly unwilling to drink any form of mass-produced light lager, we went with two ales from the Captain Lawrence Brewing Company, based right here in Queens. I enjoyed a pale ale, as per my modus operandi, while my mate enjoyed a belgium-style brew as per his. Yes, it’s a little douchy. Yes, we’ve embraced it. Yes, it complimented the cheese and fruit perfectly. And we knew it would pair well with the little challenge we’d arranged for ourselves at dinnertime: Re-create the Ring of Fire Burger at Queens Comfort, with this we decided to make buttermilk battered baked onion rings (try saying that 3 times fast).

buttermilk battered onion rings, baked onion rings, 4th of july recipes

1 egg, 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1/4 cup flour, cayenne, salt and pepper

Dip in the batter, dredge in the breadcrumbs, then onto a plate.

Baking the onion rings rather than frying them had very little to do with calories, as should be made obvious by the fact that they are battered in buttermilk (Thank you, Martha Stewart). It was mainly because we don’t possess a deep fryer and we have only one skillet suitable for pan frying many things as once. So I battered and dredged the vidalia onion rings and put them on an oiled cooking sheet before popping them into a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes (flipping them halfway through).

fried jalapeños, ring of fire burger, queens comfort, 4th of july recipes

Jalapeños 2.0: Battered and Fried

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Our take on the Ring of Fire burger.

If you’ll remember, the Ring of Fire Burger at Queens Comfort has fried jalapeños and sriracha and was incredibly well-recieved by my person. It was his idea to recreate the burger, adding avocado obviously (since it would appear we don’t really know how to eat meals that don’t include this fruit). I added bleu cheese to mine for funsies and it was ta-styyy. A bit wider and flatter than the one at Queens Comfort, but all-in-all, I’d say we made our forefathers proud. Happy Birthday, America!

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Tagged as 4th of july, 4th of july recipes, baked onion rings, berries, bleu cheese, brie cheese, burgers, buttermilk battered onion rings, cheese and fruit, fried jalapenos, gherkins, olives, pickles, recipe

June 8, 2012 · 12:44 pm

Mustard and Herb Glazed Salmon

Some people like to eat healthy in the summertime because it’s beach season or whatever. I like to make eating healthy a game with cancer. I’m playing my hand, which is strong, so cancer’s going have to work hard to get me. With that said, I live in New York, so there’s no telling the amount of carcinogens that ravage me without me knowing. Because of this, I’m always upping the ante with cancer; my latest re-raise has been adding a serious amount of salmon to my diet. There is a lovely fish market in my neighborhood, so last weekend, we ventured in and purchased some fresh wild salmon. I also bought some yellow potatoes and some red potatoes, some shiitake mushrooms and asparagus for a side dish, which I had to start first for this meal:

Mix potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, thyme and sage. Then into a 450 degree oven.

After 20 minutes, add the mushrooms, then 10 minutes later, add the asparagus and garlic.

I rubbed the salmon with lemon, then topped it with a mixture of: 1 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp dijon mustard, 1 tsp whole grain mustard, 1/2 tsp rosemary, 1/2 tsp thyme, some breadcrumbs and a little parmesan cheese.

You can either take the side dish out or leave it in when you put the salmon in (depends on how well-done you like veggies), but the salmon goes in at the same temperature (450) for about 12-15 minutes. A little tip: just keep an eye on it, a minute or two can make or break the doneness of this delicate fish.

Top salmon with mustard, rosemary, thyme, breadcrumbs, and parmesan cheese (optional).

It’s silly that I captioned the photo “cheese (optional)” because everything on this blog is “optional.” I view all recipes as merely jumping off points, ripe for adjustments and modifications. I do hope you’ll view these recipes in a similar manner. Remember: Can’t nobody teach you how to do you; you just gotta do you.

Delicious + Healthy = WINNING!

Suck it, cancer.

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Tagged as asparagus, easy recipe, healthy recipe, herb salmon, mustard glazed salmon, potatoes, recipe, salmon, shiitake mushrooms, summer recipe, wild salmon

June 5, 2012 · 1:07 pm

Homemade Whole Wheat Pizza

Last weekend, after some inspiration from friends of ours that this can indeed be done without a lot of fancy cooking equipment, we decided to make homemade pizza. This was partly inspired by the fact that my herbs are finally grown up enough to eat, so I used them to both make the sauce and to season the dough.

This was the first use of my lovely garden herbs!!

I made the sauce with onions, green peppers, garlic, oregano and basil.

I began by making the sauce, which was from a can of tomato sauce and half a can of tomato paste, to which I added onions, garlic, green peppers, oregano and basil. I let it simmer; the longer, the better.

Test the yeast in some warm sugary water.

I then mixed flour, salt, water, olive oil and yeast with some fresh herbs and garlic.

This was the scariest part for me and it turned out to be the simplest. If the yeast doesn’t get foamy in the water within 10 minutes, it’s dead, so try again. The recipe I used called for 2 cups of wheat flour and 1 cup of all-purpose flour, a tablespoon of olive oil, a pinch of salt, along with the water and yeast. I added some fresh herbs and garlic to the dough for extra yumsies.

Then cover it with a towel for 1 1/2 hours.

Roll the dough out on a clean, floured surface.

After about an hour and a half, the dough should double in size, indicating that it’s ready to be rolled out. You can make the crust as thin or as thick as you like. Me I like it thin, so we rolled it out tenderly and topped it up.

We did half Margherita and half Mediterranean.

We popped this baby into a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes and pizza came out the other side!

Homemade tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil from my garden.

Pesto, red onions, white onions, green hot peppers, red bell peppers, olive-marinated chicken and feta cheese.

I’m not one to toot my own horn, but for a couple of first timers making homemade pizza, this was a big victory… TOOT TOOT.

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Tagged as fresh herbs, homemade pizza, homemade tomato sauce, margherita pizza, mediterranean pizza, pizza, pizza recipe, recipe, whole wheat pizza

Tag Archives: recipe

Homemade Crepes

Vegetarian Pesto Lasagna

Green Bean Casserole

Roasted Veggie Lasagna

BBQ Chicken with Scalloped Potatoes

Shirred Lemon Eggs

Frittata a la Mary

The 4th of July Means Burgers and Beer

Mustard and Herb Glazed Salmon

Homemade Whole Wheat Pizza

Let’s Twat!

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