Tag Archives: #food

Basic Cheese Lasagna Recipe

Cheese Lasagna

Cheese Lasagna is easy to prepare. Like me you might not have a pasta machine to make nice thin lasagna noodles but it’s easy and fairly quick to make your own ricotta cheese. The TASTE of home made ricotta makes a world of difference to this dish. I recommend making your own ricotta cheese especially if you live in areas that only sell very processed tasting ricotta cheese. So go for it. I make my tomato sauce free style in very large batches that I freeze so your going to have to use your favorite tomato sauce with this recipe. Leftovers freeze well. My photo just doesn’t do this lasagna justice. You can’t taste the fresh, just right, light creamy cheese with great flavor that you won’t find at most restaurants. You can do no wrong when you make a lasagna that taste Forking Great like this one.

Ingredients for about 12 servings

1 gallon whole milk

1 pint heavy cream

3 lemons (just the fresh squeezed juice)

1 teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt

1/2 cup parmesan cheese – shredded

about eight grates fresh nutmeg

big pinch white pepper

1/4 + 1 pinch teaspoon dried oregano (the 1 pinch is used near the end)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt

1 XL egg

1 lb lasagna noodles

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

non stick spray

7 cups tomato sauce (maybe more)

1 cup Italian Blend cheese – shredded

Directions

In a large pot on medium heat add the milk, cream, 1 teaspoon of salt. Stir occasionally and bring to rolling boil this will take about an hour. During this time and latter you might have to slightly lower the heat to prevent a boil over. Once the pot is at a rolling boil very SLOWLY add the lemon juice till the mixture curdles. Let it stay on the heat just a few more minutes and then drain in a mesh colander. The mixture should be thick. Set to the side and wash out the pot and use to boil the lasagna noodles.

Boil the lasagna noodles two minutes less than the box suggest in salted water. When the lasagna noodles are done first drain them and then dump them in a bowl and sprinkle the olive oil on the noodles and shake the bowl around. The olive oil flavors the noodles and it also prevents them from sticking.

Go back to the cheese bowl it will be cooler now and add the parmesan cheese, nutmeg, white pepper, oregano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the egg. Mix Well.

Build the Lasagna.

In your non-stick sprayed pan you start with one cup of sauce and then start lying down the lasagna noodles. You top the noodles with a cup of sauce.

Then you add half your cheese mixture. Top with some torn basil and another cup of sauce.

Noodle it up again putting the noodles in the other direction.

Top the noodles with another cup of sauce.

Add the rest of the ricotta mixture. Top the ricotta mixture with another cup of sauce. Then top the sauce with fresh torn basil leaves and top that with a blend of Italian cheeses. Top this with a cup of sauce and Put the top layer of noodles on.

Cover the pan tightly with non -stick spray (spray goes on the inside against the sauce so it doesn’t stick).

The pan goes in a 350 degree oven for 75 minutes.

After 75 minutes that the pan out of the oven, remove the foil, and let it cool some on the counter.

Wrap it with plastic wrap and let in sit over night in the refrigerator to set.

Cut what you need for dinner and the extra can be frozen for latter use.

For reheating you might want to top the lasagna with a little more sauce. You might or might not want to add more Italian blend cheese.

I serve the lasagna with a little more sauce and serve with shredded hard Italian Cheese.

Cheese Lasagna

This is one Forking GREAT Lasagna!

The Forking Truth

Acorn Squash with Cranberry Sauce and Blue Cheese Recipe

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Acorn Squash with Cranberry Mango Habanero Sauce and Blue Cheese

Acorn Squash with Cranberry Sauce and Blue Cheese

Here’s a slightly updated way to prepare Acorn Squash. My husband normally hates acorn squash and he actually said that it was very good….The goal was to make it interesting and tasty. Only attempt this recipe if you are able to cut threw hard squash as squash is the most difficult vegetable to cut threw in the kitchen. The hospital room sees many kitchen accidents involving squash injury. You need a little strength and a decent knife that’s sharp.

Ingredients for 8 servings

2 acorn squash – washed well – remove seeds – cut in quarters

4 oz butter- unsalted – room temperature

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup date syrup – McClendon’s Select Organic is preferred

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt

non stick spray

4 oz blue cheese – to top with

1 cup cranberry sauce – preferably home made and most preferably Cranberry, Mango, Habanero Sauce from this site www.TheForkingTruth.com (12oz cranberries, 3/4 C sugar, 1.5 C. water, 2 mangos, 1/4 t. cinnamon, 1 habanero, 1 T. lime juice, pinch salt).

8 teaspoons pumpkin seeds – toasted

Directions

Set oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray a baking sheet with non stick spray

In a small bowl combine butter, sugar, syrup and spices.

Put a tablespoon full in the center of each piece of squash and slather it on the edges of squashes.

Place in oven until fork tender. (About 30 minutes)

To serve top each piece of squash with 1/2 oz crumbled blue cheese, 1 Tablespoon cranberry sauce, 1 teaspoon pumpkin seeds.

Acorn Squash with Cranberry Mango Habanero Sauce and Blue Cheese

Enjoy!

The Forking Truth

It can be FEAST or Famine at The 99cent Store in Phoenix AZ

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It’s no secret that in metro Phoenix AZ we often pick up expired foods and less than perfect produce at the supermarket. I doubt in ten years I ever picked up a perfect bag of potatoes from any supermarket since I moved here. I don’t do all my shopping at any one store but I was really floored when I came across all this fresh produce from the 99cent store this particular week. Don’t get the wrong impression I do note it doesn’t roll this way all the time. I came back a few weeks later and had nothing to throw in my cart so it’s Feast or Famine.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I find the produce from my local 99cent Store superior (sometimes) and cheaper than produce from my local Walmart Grocery Store. I note that I don’t know if all Walmart stores are like my local store or if it’s just my luck the one by me is the way it is.

This day I got a grocery cart full of produce for less than $20.00. Here’s my list of what I picked up for 99cents each and a rough guess to what the same amount of produce would cost like from a budget supermarket like Walmart.

At the 99CENT store these were only 99cents each………

8 limes about $2.00

3 lb bag oranges about $3.00

7 pears about $3.00

1 lb jalapeños about $1.00

5 lb Idaho potatoes about $3.00

3 lb red potatoes about $2.00

3 lbs pasilla chile peppers about $5.00

bag scallions about $1.30

5oz peeled garlic about $1.00

10 oz bag shallots about $1.50

1 lb campari tomatoes about $3.00

1 lb sweet rainbow mini bell peppers about $3.00

1 lb radishes about $1.30

bag cilantro with 3 bunches about $2.25

1 smaller watermelon about $3.00

1 XL head cauliflower about $5.00

1 XL package of mixed greens about $5.00

All this produce at a place like Walmart might have cost me around $46.35…It would cost several dollars more from most of the other Supermarkets that I can shop at and it wouldn’t be any fresher (this day). I can’t even guess what AJ’s Fine Foods would sell it for….maybe double of Walmart’s Price.

All this produce from the 99 CENT Store cost me $17.82

Besides produce dry goods and canned foods the 99cent Store sells meats, wine and lots of snack food here dry goods, frozen foods, health and beauty items, house goods, houseware, things for kids and pets and party and seasonal items. I haven’t had the best experience with the $2.99 wine here but your experience may differ….so I can’t recommend wine from the 99cent store. I do have to draw the line with buying meat and fish here……I just can’t do it……Occasionally one can find find East Coast Brands of food here. Like Hellman’s Mayonnaise, Breakstone’s Cottage Cheese and the real gem is Temptee Brand Whipped Cream Cheese. I don’t go too much for flavored yogurts but they do usually have a great selection of name brand flavored yogurts that are much cheaper than from any supermarket.

Now don’t get the wrong impression……..The 99cent store is HIT and MISS….You can’t count on getting what I did every week as I visited a few weeks later and the produce bonanza seemed to have evaporated and vanished into thin air.

About half the residents in Arizona are Mexican so it’s normal to come across Mexican Foods at the dollar store. I found Mexican Sauces, Cheeses and snacks in the refrigerated section. And….

Zombie Habanero Cucumber Flavored Corn Tortilla Snacks.

Roasted Chile Flavored Potato Chips.

Other snacks I came across was a Name Brand Healthy sort of snack food.

This bag of name brand Rice and Adzuki Bean Snack Chips goes for around Three dollars at Sprouts Grocery.

I came across these popped Edamame Chips…Betcha they came from Whole Foods and might have cost $3.99 there….YUP I sure bought these….only made from Rice Flour, Edamame, Safflower oil, Cane Syrup and Sea Salt….Those are quality ingredients…..no chemicals……Take back the $3.99… these might have been among the really expensive at Whole Foods…like $8.99…and don’t expire into many months of next year…???????? Don’t know WTFork they’re here…..? You do find some gems now and then at the 99cent Store.

Sometimes you come across very strange things at the 99cent store. On this visit I came across the strangest Kiwi Fruit I have ever seen in my life.

Aren’t they strange?…. They look very abnormal……..Each fruit weighs one half a pound….Now these I am afraid of……Are they radio-active?…..this fruit is just too strange.

You Never Forking Know WTFork You’ll Find at the 99cent Store. It can be Feast or Famine.

The Forking Truth

A Different and Brilliant Way to do Sweet Potatoes Recipe

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Sweet Potatoes with Cherry peppers, Figs, Green Onions and Balsamic Drizzle

Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Green Onions, Calabrian Chili, Figs with Reduced Balsamic

Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Scallions, Calabrian Chile, Figs with Reduced Balsamic

I came across this recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi for these Roasted Sweet Potatoes called Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Figs. After I read the recipe I thought about how interesting and different it was. I thought it was great because it wasn’t too sweet. It seems almost every recipe written for sweet potatoes just sweetens them more. Most of my life I have eaten sweet potatoes with just butter because I want my dessert to be sweet and not my potatoes. I served these similar potatoes last year for Thanksgiving and most people who tried them enjoyed them so I did these potatoes similar this year but used Calabrian Chiles instead of tame cherry peppers.

It very easy to prepare this dish. I didn’t follow Y.O. & S.T. Recipe exactly because it was very simple so I winged it.

Use however many sweet potatoes you need and cut them into wedges. In my photo is only two sweet potatoes.

Lightly dress them in olive oil and spread them out on a non-stick sprayed baking sheet in a 425 degree F oven for about 20 minutes.

Add fresh ground sea salt and black pepper

On another baking sheet

Add figs cut in bite size pieces. some scallions in bite size pieces and some chiles of your choice. Cut mild chiles in thin rings. Chop hot chiles in small pieces. lightly drizzle with olive oil.

I put these on a baking sheet in a 350 degree F oven for about 15 minutes.

Added a small amount of fresh ground sea salt and black pepper.

Then I combined pans.

I used a better quality reduced balsamic vinegar and drizzled everything.

You can just easily reduce your own vinegar but it’s horrible to remove from a pot. I scrubbed and scrubbed and I thought my pot was ruined. It really was next to impossible to remove the residue of balsamic vinegar. I don’t recommend reducing vinegar unless you are using a non stick pot and even then I’m still not sure. Also the already made reduced vinegars differ greatly in quality. At the moment the one I like best is called “Fini” It’s the only reduced Balsamic that is 90% reduced balsamic without weird ingredients mixed in. I found Fini at World Market Store.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Green Onions, Calabrian Chili, Figs with Reduced Balsamic

A brilliant way to do sweet potatoes!

The Forking Truth

My First Try of Chicago Style Pizza in Metro Phoenix AZ

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I never have been to Chicago and I’m not real familiar with Chicago Style Pizza. Lou Malnatis is a Famous Pizza Chain from Chicago that’s well known for their Signature Deep Dish Chicago Style Pizza. Lou Malnatis has opened their first Restaurant in Phoenix AZ and that’s a big deal so I thought I’d give it a try.

Lou Malnatis

The inside of the restaurant has a fun retro kind of interior with interesting fixtures and bright lights that spell cheese on a wall in the dining room.

We order our individual sized pizzas and are told it will take at least 30 minutes.

After about 40 minutes we receive our pizzas.

I ordered a vegetable pizza named “The Lou.”

The first thing I notice is that this is an extremely small size pizza. It looks child’s size to me.

My pizza with filled with fresh mushrooms, spinach mix that looked sort of grey, vine ripened Lou’s tomatoes (that were good), cheese blend (mozzarella, Romano, Cheddar) and topped with roma tomatoes (sort of unripe) in what they call Butter Garlic Crust.

You don’t pick up a slice and eat this pizza. You have to eat it with a knife and fork. I try a little end of the crust and it’s thin and fried pie like almost like a crostata. ( a crostata is made with olive oil based dough) The bottom of the crust is slightly thicker but still thin and is more pizza dough like. I don’t get the butter taste it almost seems more like dough that’s fried in oil….

I like the taste of the cheese blend and I also like the fresh mushrooms and vine ripened tomato sauce.

My husband tries the Malnati Chicago Classic. It’s a similar pizza but filled with lean Lou’s Sausage, vine ripened tomato sauce and cheese blend. The sausage is very lean and slightly dry. This pizza is very mildly seasoned.

Lou Malnatis is the first of Three BIG Chicago Chains of Pizza restaurants to open in Metro Phoenix AZ. (the other two chains are opening soon within the year) You might want to give them a try if you want to take part in all the hype about Chicago Style Pizza.

For more information please visit www.LouMalnatis.com

The Forking Truth

Duchess Style Stuffed Potatoes Recipe

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Duchess Style Stuffed Potatoes

This kind of potatoes are usually made for a special occasion, holiday or just to impress someone. These are those OMG potatoes………..You have to start out with perfectly baked potatoes. Let them cool. Then slice a quarter- third off the top and carefully scoop them out so you have a shell. With the use of a potato ricer the filling will be fluffy and free of lumps. Egg yolks, butter and heavy cream make these potatoes an indulgence. You can even build it up slightly more by serving these potatoes with either warm parsley or thyme butter and a crack of fresh salt and pepper.

Ingredients for 4 generous servings or 8 diet servings

4 russet style poatoes – medium sized and washed

4 russet style potatoes – small sized and washed

4 Tablespoons canola oil – for cooking all the potatoes

2 teaspoons kosher salt – for cooking the medium potatoes

6 Tablespoons butter – unsalted – room temperature

1/4 cup heavy cream

4 XL egg yolks

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

few grates fresh nutmeg

pinch cayenne

a crack of fresh ground sea salt

a crack or two of fresh ground black pepper – for seasoning potato shell and on top if desired

Directions

Set oven at 350 degrees F

All the potatoes get priced with a fork all over and get a light sprinkle of oil.

The larger or medium sized potatoes get a light sprinkle of kosher salt all over.

All the potatoes go on a baking sheet(s) in the oven for about one hour.

The potatoes should look like this. The skin is thin and slightly winked and is dry to the touch.

Leave the potatoes cool till enough so you can cut them and then peel the small potatoes and put them in a bowl to collect. Then slice the upper quarter off the tops of the four larger potatoes. Scoop remaining potato from the tops and add it to the bowl with all the other dug out potato.

Then carefully hollow out the potatoes with a teaspoon leaving about a quarter inch shell like this and add a crack or two of salt and pepper to season the potato shell.

Now rice all the potato in the bowl.

When done set to the side.

In a small bowl mix together egg yolks, heavy cream, 1 teaspoon salt, white pepper, nutmeg and cayenne.

Use a fork and mix it in to the potatoes.

Spoon the potato mixture to the top of the potatoes like this.

Now with a pastry bag with a #6 tip attached fold the bag halfway down and add one quarter of the potato mixture.

Decorate anyway you like. I just applied pressure and made a circular motion over the potatoes sort of like an imaginary cork screw.

Put them in a 350 degree F oven for 20 minutes and they looked like this.

I didn’t add fresh hot parsley or thyme butter but did add a crack of fresh sea salt and pepper.

Duchess Style Stuffed Potatoes

Forking Crazy Good Potatoes!

The Forking Truth

HO Ho Ho! The Green Giant is Back !

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I was paging threw a food magazine and came across this ad for Green Giant. This brand of canned and frozen foods has disappeared years ago. I wanted to learn just a little more information so I searched Green Giant on the web. I found in the Chicago Tribune they wrote that in general sales of frozen foods are slumping. B&G Company who is the newest owner of Green Giant is planning to let the Green Giant out of retirement to push frozen vegetable products on TV again.

I read on the Green Giant Website that they are promising to bring back vegetables like you’ve never seen them before!

They are introducing frozen riced vegetables, frozen roasted vegetables and several varieties of frozen vegetable tots.

Later today I went to the store. I came across some Green Giant Products just today!

HO Ho HO! Green Giant is Back!

The Forking Truth

Butter Cookie Recipe

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Preserved Lemon Butter Cookies

This is recipe is based on Pastry Chef and Cook Book Author Elinor Klivans Slice and Bake Cookies featuring Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter. Her cookies get chilled into a log shape, get sliced washed with egg white, course sugar and topped with a nut. I think it’s the best butter cookie recipe I ever found and enjoy the recipe most as a butter cookie. I have done many variations over the years.

Ingredients for around 14 cookies or 14 servings

4 oz sweet butter – room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

1 XL egg yolk – beaten

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

pinch cardamon

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch kosher salt – or sea salt

3 Tablespoons turbinado sugar

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions

set oven to 325 degrees F

Get your baking sheet and line it with parchment paper.

In a medium size mixing bowl mix up your butter and sugar well, add yolk and mix. Add vanilla, cardamon, mix well.

Add flour, baking powder, salt and mix well.

Get a disposable pastry bag, snip the end and insert a large star tip that’s very open on the end. Fill with dough and twist end to hold dough in.

Squeeze out dough in swirl shapes and sprinkle on the turbinado sugar if desired for a nice textural crunch.

Bake till they are slightly brown on the edges or about 14 minutes or until they look like this.

Feel free to decorate the cookies anyway you like. Powder them with powdered sugar or drizzle with glaze or white chocolate. Add a cherry or sprinkles.

Preserved Lemon Butter Cookies

Tasty little cookies that are very easy to make.

The Forking Truth

Salad and Go Phoenix AZ – A Gourmet Salad Drive Threw is Worth a Fork

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Salad and Go is a Gourmet Salad Restaurant. Salad and Go is small local chain that seems to be growing in Metro Phoenix. You either drive threw and order or use the Walk Up Window pictured above. No dining room here but they do offer a Dog Friendly Patio and gave my dogs Dog Biscuits! At Salad and Go all the food is natural and organic and made in house. They offer over TEN varieties of fresh and seasonal salads that can also be turned into wraps. They serve healthy breakfast options, smoothies and more. Prices are very low and portions are surprisingly large. All nutrition values are posted on their website. www.SaladandGo.com

I ordered the Apple and Mixed Greens Salad ($5.74) added Chicken ($1.44).

My salad contained Fresh Mixed Greens, Romaine, Golden Raisins, Candied Pecans, Apples, Blue Cheese, Balsamic Vinaigrette and added Chicken.The chicken was well seasoned and seemed like it was baked, chilled and cut into bit size cubes. This salad certainly was DELICIOUS and was so satisfying. This $7.18 salad is bigger and better than many $12.00 salads I had out in other places.

My husband had what they called a Santa Fee Salad with added Steak.

The Santa Fe Salad contained Corn, Mexican Cheese, Sweet Grape Tomatoes and Spicy Beans and a Cilantro Lime Dressing tied it all together.

The dogs were well behaved and got to sample the Chicken and Steak too.

Salad and Go is Budget Priced but Quality Food that’s Healthy and a Great Value.

Salad and Go is Worth a Fork!

Worth a Fork!

For more information on Salad and Go please visit www.SaladandGo.com

Anything is subject to change and your experience may differ.

The Forking Truth

Fat Ox Scottsdale AZ Restaurant – Newly Opened

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Fat Ox is one of the most anticipated new restaurant openings of the year in the Metro Phoenix Area. The Chef has trained in France and is well known for other very good restaurants in the area (The Brasserie, Zinc Bistro and The Mission). Fat Ox serves Modern Italian Foods such as antipastos, salumi, pastas and main meals. The energetic atmosphere is a mix of all sorts and so are the lighting fixtures as I counted nearly a dozen different kinds of fixtures. It’s loud in here and it’s also very dark despite all the interesting fixtures…..in this very spacious restaurant with a very large Patio.

The Forking Truth is that it’s THIS DARK in the dining room! Often I couldn’t see what was on the plates and ate mostly blind. I took most of the other photos with a flash. I didn’t actually know what the food looked like until I viewed my photos…..FT (ForkingTruth).

We start out with complimentary toasted bread cubes and Calabrian Chili Butter. I like the unique spicy but not too spicy taste of the Calabrian Chili and I have a jar of them in my pantry right now.

Our First Course arrives. It’s the Charred Taleggio Cheese with similar bread, Beet Mostardo, Lemon and Walnut and Olive Oil.

I couldn’t see the Pomegranate Seeds but I felt them burst in my mouth. The Sage, Beets, Mustard and Walnut all dressed up the cheese nicely. This was a great plate!

Our second course was pasta and it was a show stopper.

There wasn’t much of it but what I tasted was amazing. Carefully made perfect to the tooth pasta shaped like little wrappers containing a prize….of…carefully seasoned butternut squash. It was a little sweet a little buttery highlighted with just the right amounts of mostarda, amaretti cookie, parmesan cheese, sage and pomegranate. Our server recommended that we order THREE Plates of pasta….Now I know why. Amazing, Delicious and tiny…any table can fit in three of these sized plates.

My main course was the A La Diavlo Rotisserie Jidori Chicken.

The picture looks amazing but remember it really was dark…dark or darker than the photo below because I moved the candle back to where it was suppose to go.

The Forking Truth is that I didn’t see the vegetables on top of the chicken and when I went to use my steak knife it was like playing MURDER IN THE DARK with the chicken. I sawed off a piece and got an unpleasant mouthful of rubbery moist chicken skin in a tangy but delicious sauce. For me it was a difficult task to remove the chicken skin in the dark. Then it was difficult to find the chicken in the dark…and next…I got a mouthful of fennel when I was expecting chicken. This plate was too difficult for me to eat in the dark. I didn’t know I’d need a coal miner’s hat to eat the chicken. How silly of me to be unprepared.

My husband had the Rosewood Skirt Steak Tagliata.

Because it was dark neither of us saw the oil and balsamic around the plate. Leaving the steak to taste mostly natural tasting. A few baby herbs and baby vegetables accented the plate.

The waitress tells us about desserts but she is by my husband and I’m on the bench too far to hear her with all the music noise in the background. We pass on dessert this time.

I note this restaurant is new and may still be finding their way..

For more information please visit www.ILoveFatOx.com

I do note that everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.

The Forking Truth

TheForkingTruth

Forking Thoughts on Food and Restaurants

Tag Archives: #food

Basic Cheese Lasagna Recipe

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Acorn Squash with Cranberry Sauce and Blue Cheese Recipe

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It can be FEAST or Famine at The 99cent Store in Phoenix AZ

Like this:

A Different and Brilliant Way to do Sweet Potatoes Recipe

Like this:

My First Try of Chicago Style Pizza in Metro Phoenix AZ

Like this:

Duchess Style Stuffed Potatoes Recipe

Like this:

HO Ho Ho! The Green Giant is Back !

Like this:

Butter Cookie Recipe

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Salad and Go Phoenix AZ – A Gourmet Salad Drive Threw is Worth a Fork

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Fat Ox Scottsdale AZ Restaurant – Newly Opened

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