Fauxagna

It is no secret that Keith and I really like Lasagna. It is easy, fun to make, and there are plenty of leftovers. Now that I have a pasta press, it seems silly to me to purchase dry lasagna noodles (I still have to write up my post on my first lasagna from scratch.) Instead, I decided to make a faux lasagna with layers of pasta.

I love caramelized onions, and putting some into baked pasta dishes gives them a wonderful sweet twist. In the pictures above, I am caramelizing two whole onions because I wanted to save some for another dish I would make later this week. I wish that I had used a little less butter, not because of taste but because of health and there was plenty of liquid.

Keith loves garlic bread, and sometimes I'll make it from scratch. Today, I decided to just make some fresh bread to dip in the leftover tomato sauce.

The Francesco Rinaldi Chunky Garden tomato sauce is my favorite. I have no idea why I love it so much, but it really holds up well with a lot of cheese, so it is perfect for baked pasta dishes.

I cooked the pasta for 8 minutes, not the 10-12 recommended on the package because I knew it would cook more in the oven. I layered sauce, noodles and the cheeses. I used whole milk ricotta cheese (yes, I am bad), shredded mozzarella, and some spices.

The caramelized onions were sprinkled on top under the final layer of mozzarella. I only cooked it at 350 for 10-15 minutes since I just wanted to warm things up and let the cheeses melt.

I think the fauxagna was a complete success. Keith had 3 helpings!

Pasta Medley - Yum!

I had a bit of a dilemma when it came time for dinner. I had a lot of different kinds of pasta, but none of them were enough to make a complete meal. I therefore decided to combine a bunch and make a pasta medley.

The sauce had some stir fried kilbasa sausage, peas and tomato sauce.

I got really excited about this meal, and decided to take advantage of some more leftovers I had laying around. I had some homemade pizza dough in my fridge, but there wasn't enough for a pizza big enough for both me and Keith. (I had considered making an individual pizza for lunch, but had never gotten around to it.) I shaped the dough into stitcks, brushed them with olive oil and then sprinkled them with garlic salt.

I baked these breadsticks at 350 until they were solid (around 10 min). This meal that was just thrown together ended up being quite amazing! I will definitely make these breadsticks again.

Croutons

What do you do with stale bread? Well I decided to take advantage of my French Bread ends that were hard as a rock by turning them into croutons.

I chopped up the end of a stale loaf of French bread, drizzled them with olive oil and then sprinkled on garlic salt and oregano. Apparently I should have brushed the sides with oil first before cutting, since tossing the bread in oil didn't work as well as I had expected (it wasn't very even.)

I put the bread pieces in the oven at 400 degrees (F) until they started to brown. Voila! Simple and fast croutons... what an easy salad solution.

The croutons, just out of the oven.

My salad.

Easy, Simple Cornbread

The problem with making Challah is that there is egg wasted in the wash to make the crust all shiny. There is most of an egg that remains after this wash has been applied. This time, I decided to do something with that egg (and tiny bit of water in with it)... Corn Bread!

The dry ingredients and the egg whites leftover from the challah.

I love corn bread. It has always been one of my favorite treats, and a big weak spot. Instead of trying bread mixes in the box, I decided it would be worth trying some recipes that use plain corn meal. The first recipe I decided to attempt comes from the side of the box.

It took me less than 3 minutes to assemble the ingredients and mix the batter. The only waiting came from the fact that my oven was in use baking the challah. As soon as the challah was done, I sprayed the bread pan, poured in the corn batter and happily awaited my first "from scratch" cornbread.

Raisin Challah

I love having a bread machine. I use it frequently whenever I want French Bread, or pizza dough... but the big bread winner is my Challah recipe. As a child, I grew up on raisin challah... but with yellow raisins!

This bread my grandmother would get for every holiday occasion, and I never found anything close to it anywhere else. So as soon as the bread machine came into our lives, I knew I needed a good Challah recipe. After some trial and error, I found a recipe that I've fallen in love with.

Raisin Challah Recipe. I always use yellow raisins.

Setting up the dough in the bread machine.

The dough is ready to be braided. I do not separate the dough in half as the recipe recommends, but I braid all of the dough into one loaf.

It's funny, but I think that depending on the humidity, the dough will come out more or less sticky each time. Who knows!

Before (above) and after (below) the egg wash.

The bread comes out moist, sweet and tastes just like the bread from my childhood. It is definitely comfort food!

I'm sick of the remaining egg wash going to waste, so I decided to use it in... Corn Bread! Stay tuned for the next ChemEats post to find out how it came out.