Cabernet poached pears with blue cheese

My husband and I tried this dish on our 1 year wedding anniversary. We stayed in a B&B in Bar Harbor, and popped into this little place for appetizers and cocktails before dinner. We ordered the only vegetarian appetizer on the menu and were blown away with how amazing it was. If we weren't in a fancy restaurant, I think both of us would have licked the plate. EJ asked me how happy I would be if I had the recipe for the dish, and I agreed that it would be amazing to be able to recreate this exactly. Lo and behold, at the hostess stand was a book featuring restaurants throughout Maine, and Mache Bistro was in the book. What recipe did they decide to submit for the publication? Why, the Cabernet poached pears, of course!

I made this for my in-laws on the 4th of July, and it was a hit! Of course, I can't take credit for the recipe. This is unaltered from the original. I'm thinking about experimenting with different fruits instead of pears, though the pears were out of this world.

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French Cheese Puffs

These were so easy and very good party pleasers! Make sure to eat them fresh out of the oven, or just re-heat leftovers!

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Ingredients:
2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 c flour
2 eggs
1 cup grated Swiss/Gruyere cheese
poppy seeds

1. Preheat oven to 425 and spray 2 cookie sheets with some oil.

2. Bring 1 cup water to a simmer in a saucepan. Add the butter, pepper and salt, and bring to a boil. When the butter is melted, remove from heat and add the flour. Stir constantly - you'll end up with a thick paste. Return to low heat and stir for another minute or two (this is where I taste it to make sure its salty enough).

3. Remove from heat and beat in 1 egg at a time until the mixture is creamy and smooth. Add the grated cheese and mix well.

4. Drop by the spoonful on the cookie sheet. Top with poppy seeds. Bake 25-30 minutes, until they are brown and slightly crispy.

Try stirring in some finely chopped broccoli and using cheddar cheese for a variation. I've been wanting to try some sweet ones with ricotta and sugar, or brie and apricot.

Black Truffle Mac n Cheese

So anything with truffle oil is automatically amazing, right? I don't even like mushrooms! This recipe calls for a few different kinds of cheese, but feel free to change it up if you don't like something. I subbed the american cheese for a cheese I found at Earth Fare, a truffle-infused creamy goat cheese, which was amazing. If I could have changed anything, I would have added more blue cheese, but if you don't like blue cheese, leave it out all together! I also couldn't find shaved black truffle in tallahassee, but I bet if you live in a real city you can find it. I fixed it by adding a little more truffle oil, and the truffle flavor in the goat cheese helped.

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Ingredients:

1/4 c butter
1/4 c flour
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
8 oz dry macaroni
2 oz american cheese
2 oz cheddar cheese
2 oz swiss cheese
2 oz blue cheese
2 tbsp Worchesterchire sauce
2 tbsp hot sauce
1 tsp thyme
Black truffle, shaved, to taste
salt and pepper
bread crumbs
black truffle oil, to tasste

1. In a large saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and add the flour. Whisk constantly (LOW heat) for about 5 minutes. Slowly pour in the milk and cream, continue to whisk. Bring to a low simmer. The recipe said to simmer (while whisking constantly) for 30 minutes or until the sauce became thick, but that happened for me after about 10 minutes.


2. While this is happening, cook your pasta till its al dente.

3. Once the sauce is thick, turn heat to its lowest setting and stir in the cheese, sauces, truffle shavings, salt, pepper, and thyme. Taste it to see if you like it. I added more salt, pepper, and thyme than the recipe called for. Stir until all the cheese is melted.

4. By this time your pasta should be done. Strain and drizzle with about 1 tbsp truffle oil.

5. Add the macaroni to the cheese sauce and stir to evenly coat. Divide the dish into individual serving dishes, top with bread crumbs and more thyme, and broil until the tops are golden brown. Drizzle with truffle oil, and serve!

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Veggie enchiladas

This dish is super easy and great for a crowd.

Ingredients:

tortilla wrap (whole wheat)
mozzarella/cheddar cheese mix
1 zucchini
1 squash
1 green or red bell pepper
1 block extra firm tofu, drained and cubed
1/2 white onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
refried beans (make sure they're vegetarian!)
handful fresh spinach
olive oil
salt, pepper
enchilada sauce (i buy the premade stuff in the can. choose your own spicy-ness)


1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a large baking dish.

2. Cube all veggies (except spinach) and the tofu, so they are bite sized. Toss in a bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper. Sometimes I add some extra garlic or onion powder.

3. Take a wrapper, spread it generously with refried beans and top the beans with a couple of spinach leaves. Spoon the veggie mixture into the center and wrap the enchilada closed, as tight as you can. Don't use too many veggies here or you'll have a huge enchilada that will never close. Put the enchilada in the prepared baking dish, and if it won't stay closed, seal it with a toothpick.

4. Repeat for the rest of the enchiladas.

5. Drizzle the enchiladas with the enchilada sauce. Don't use too much or they'll get really soggy, but you want it to be enough so that you can taste it. I would say about 2-3 tbsp per enchilada.

6. Top with shredded cheese. My favorite is to use a blend of sharp cheddar and mozzarella, but you can use anything you want. That prepared mexican cheese would be good for this too.

7. Cover with tin foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the tin foil, and if the cheese is not completely melted, bake uncovered for 5-10 more minutes.

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"Creamy" Mac & "Cheese"

I have been on the search for a good vegan mac and cheese for a long time. True, EJ and I aren't vegan, and we have a lot of love for cheese. I mean a LOT of love for cheese. But, we also try to be health conscious at least part of the time, and I can't justify making a homemade mac and cheese all that often. But with this recipe, I can.

I have had some disasters in the kitchen when it comes to making vegan mac and cheese - some things were completely inedible. Seriously, my big piece of advice is this: avoid recipes that call for 3 cups nutritional yeast and claim it tastes just like cheese. This is a LIE. Nutritional yeast is good, but only in moderation.

Another note about this recipe. I don't feel comfortable saying it is completely original. I have tweaked it a bit, and I'm pretty happy with the results, but I wouldn't have been able to do it without a little help from Vegan Planet.

This recipe is dedicated to Rachel, who asks me for it all the time :)

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Vegan Mac and Cheese

Ingredients:
Elbow macaroni
1 block soft silken tofu
2 cups soy milk
1/2 chopped yellow onion
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp miso paste
1 tbsp dry mustard
1-2 tbsp nutritional yeast
large sprinkle nutmeg
Cajun seasoning, to taste (I use about 1-2 tbsp)
salt, pepper, to taste
bread crumbs
Spinach (I use about half a bag of fresh spinach but frozen will work too, just thaw it and get out as much water as possible)
3 tbsp olive oil


1. In a large pot of salted water, cook the macaroni until al dente.

2. Preaheat the oven to 375.

3. Meanwhile, get out the blender and blend together the onion, tofu, soy milk, garlic, miso, mustard, nutritional yeast, nutmeg, olive oil, about 3/4 the cajun seasoning, salt and pepper until smooth. At this point, I taste it to see if I like the flavor. If not, add more spices.

4. Spray some oil on a 13 x 9 casserole dish. Drain the macaroni and dump it all into the casserole dish. Pour the tofu mixture over it, reserving about 1-2 cups of the liquid. Mix well, cover all the pasta. Break the spinach up into small pieces and mix it here, too. The heat of the pasta will help steam it, so it might be easier to mix the spinach with the pasta before adding the tofu mixture. Another trick that I do is take about half the spinach, and throw it in with the boiling water when cooking the pasta. It only need to be in the water for a second, so I put it in, stir it, and drain the pasta. Don't do this with all the spinach because it will clump. I recommend doing that to half and adding the other half when mixing it in the casserole dish.

5. Cover the casserole dish with tin foil and bake 25 minutes.

6. Remove from oven. Pour the rest of the tofu mixture over the macaroni and mix well.

7. Mix the bread crumbs (about 1/4 - 1/2 cup) with a little olive oil and sprinkle about half of it all over macaroni. Mix lightly, just mixing the bread crumbs with the top layer of pasta. Sprinkle the rest over the top with the rest of the cajun seasoning.

8. Bake, uncovered, for another 10 minutes.

NOTE: Instead of bread crumbs, spin some almonds in a coffee grinder until coarsely powdered and use in place of the bread crumbs.

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Cheese and garlic bread

This recipe goes along with comfort foods, because there is nothing better than hot bread, fresh from the oven. This was also the first recipe I could put together on my own. My mom's kitchen was the best to cook in (of course I didn't realize at the time - I only realized when I had my own kitchen and discovered that my gadgets aren't nearly as high quality as my mother's. Nor do I have as much counter space). When I tried the recipe (and it worked!) I was ecstatic, and baked the bread all the time. As time went on, I baked less and less, and cooked more and more, until here I am, 15 years later, in search of that original recipe. I tried several, and none were quite right, and after a lot of tweaking, I finally decided on the final version. And now I present Baby Melissa's Cheese Bread (with modifications).

Ingredients:
2 cups warm milk
2 packets active dry yeast
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
5 cups flour

1. Heat milk - I microwave 2 cups of milk for 2 1/2 minutes. You want it hot, but not so hot that it gets a skin. Mix the milk and the 2 packets of yeast in a bowl. Let sit 5 minutes.

2. After 5 minutes, add garlic, onion, salt, sugar, butter and about a quarter of the cheese. The reason I add some of the cheese now is because the hot milk will melt it, mixing it with everything. I like to keep some of it for later so that there are also pieces of cheese in the bread.

3. Add the flour, a little at a time. Also add the rest of the cheese, but reserve a little Parmesan for a garnish. When it becomes too hard to stir with a spoon, I knead it in the bowl with my hands. If you choose to do this (if you don't have an electric mixer, like myself (ahem, christmas present!?!)), put some oil on your hands so the dough doesn't stick to them as much.

4. Once the dough is kneaded, grease 2 bread pans and divide the dough in half. Put some more oil on your hands and press the dough into the pan - not too firmly, but you want the dough to reach all the corners. The oil on your hands help coat the bread with oil, too - it will brown nicely. Now, sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top for a garnish.

5. Cover with a damp dish cloth and let rise for ~ 1 hour.

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This is what it will look like after an hour (it should double in size).

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6. Preheat the overn to 350. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve warm.

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Cheesy, yummy lasagna

Comfort food is something we all need once in a while. I needed some comfort food Sunday night. Typical comfort food for me is thick, hot, cheesy Italian food, maybe because my family is italian and it brings me back to my roots. I remember Sunday dinners at my grandma's. We would walk in, and her house would smell like gravy, and there would be bread everywhere, and all my aunts and uncles and cousins would be there. we would all sit at her dining room table under her replication of the Last Supper and eat and eat. All her food was covered with meat, and were my grandmother alive, she would probably not love the fact that I no longer eat meat. Indeed, my uncles tease me for it every time I see them (though they are very accommodating).

So enough blabbing, time to start talking about the food! This really hit the spot for both me and EJ.

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Ingredients:

1 package lasagna noodles
1 tub ricotta cheese (part-skim)
2 packages shredded mozzarella cheese (part-skim)
2 eggs
1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 package fresh spinach
1-2 jars tomato sauce

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Start a large pot of boiling water. Add a couple tablespoons of salt to it.
3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine ricotta, eggs, 1 package mozzarella cheese, and spices. Mix well. I like to use my hands, though this can get cold!
4. Place lasagna noodles in boiling water.
5. When the noodles are done, strain them in a large colander. Rinse them with cold water or else they will be too hot to handle.
6. In a large casserole dish, spread a little tomato sauce along the bottom (1/4 inch thick).
7. Layer lasagna noodles, ricotta, spinach, and more sauce. Repeat until the top of the dish is reached or you run out of ingredients. The top layer should be noodles, tomato sauce and the other package of mozzarella cheese.
8. Cover the dish with tin foil. Bake 25 minutes.
9. Remove in foil, bake another 10 minutes.
10. Serve and enjoy!

**NOTE: unexplained happiness and love for all things may be a side effect.