Turkey Tetrazzini

So this week must be retro casserole week... I feel like Betty Draper, mooning around the kitchen, cooking these old-school dishes like chicken pot pie and turkey tetrazzini. All I need is a martini and a cigarette... and maybe some big ole curlers.

Anywho: turkey tetrazzini... noodley, mushroomy, crispy-topped. Pretty good! I used ground turkey (sauteed with some shallot and garlic), Gruyere instead of Swiss, and threw some parsley into the mix before I baked it.

Tarragon Chicken Pot Pie with Gruyere Polenta Crust

I got some tarragon from the CSA last week and was looking for a way to use it up. This Rachael Ray (yeah, I know) chicken pot pie recipe looked good, and we had most of the ingredients on hand, save the quick-cooking polenta, which I sent Tim to get on his way home from work.

Unbeknownst to Tim, quick-cooking polenta is not equivalent to pre-cooked polenta, which is the stuff that comes in the tube. Oh well. It worked anyway- I just sliced up the tube of polenta, sprinkled the Gruyere on top and put the whole thing on top of the pot pie insides.

Overall, I give the flavors of this recipe 2 thumbs up. However, I think I would go about making the roux a little differently than Rachael suggests- it was very watery.

Broccoli, Gruyere and Pancetta Quiche

Since she had the day off, Chuck pulled together this quiche, using a recipe from the Washington Post and adding cooked pancetta, Gruyere instead of Swiss, and steamed, chopped broccoli. Delicious!

Gougeres: Fancy Cheesy Poofs

I've made these gourmet cheesy poofs using an Ina Garten recipe several times... gruyere cheese plus pate a choux dough (the same light and puffy dough used for cream puffs, eclairs, etc.). Seems intimidating, but is actually pretty simple. Definitely fun and fancy enough for a cocktail party or dinner party appetizer. We served it on Christmas Eve. Yum. Next time I'll try some different cheeses... blue cheese or cheddar, perhaps?

Mushroom and Gruyere Tart

This mushroom and gruyere tart came together really quickly and was pretty tasty served alongside a salad...

It used the last sheet of puff pastry I had hanging around in the fridge, as well as a couple other odds and ends. Very cheesy... Tim was worried about the mushroominess of it, but he ended up liking it a lot- he ate 2 pieces.

Butternut Squash Lasagna: Partial FAIL

Ug... I was trying this butternut squash lasagna recipe out, hoping that I could possibly serve it to the vegetarians this Thanksgiving, but it didn't quite work out. I made a half recipe, and made individual lasagnas for me and Chuck.

The flavors were really good, but I had some major noodle cooking issues- I think due to a lack of sauce, but I'm not sure. The bottom noodle wasn't fully cooked, and the sauce was sorta burnt onto the bottom of it, and the top noodle wasn't cooked on the edges.

I think my bechamel sauce got too thick maybe? I don't know- there just didn't seem to be enough of it. Also, cooking the diced squash in the frying pan on high heat was kinda odd, too. It burnt the squash and onions. I think next time I would dice it and then roast it.

Mac and Cheese with Cauliflower

After my last, painfully terrible attempt at mac & cheese, I felt that I needed to make amends. Thus, I turned back to Ina, who is generally reliable and delicious. Her baked mac & cheese is particularly awesome. I made it for Tim's 30th birthday and it was a hit.

This time, I shook things up a wee bit. I got some cauliflower in my CSA share, and decided to incorporate it into the mac and cheese, inspired by all those "fool-your-kids-and-force-them-to-unknowingly-eat-vegetables-under-the-guise-of-deliciously-decadent/low-brow-foods" books out there, as well as the last Ina recipe I cooked.

This was awesome: crispy, cheesy, creamy!

I followed Ina's recipe except for the topping (skipped the tomatoes, used panko instead of fresh breadcrumbs), but added a head of cauliflower, cut into mini-florets and boiled in the leftover pasta water for about 4-5 minutes.

Turkey and Swiss Chard Roulade: FAIL

All atwitter (no, not that Twitter) with Tim's impending return from Armenia, I had big plans to greet him with a fancy meal of turkey roulade stuffed with swiss chard, pancetta, gruyere and arborio rice, using a recipe highlighted in the Thanksgiving issue of Food Network Magazine, complete with handy-dandy step-by-step photos. Despite the hand-holding and spoon-feeding provided by the magazine, in my incompetent hands, this recipe went very, very wrong.

I found boneless, skin-on turkey breasts at Whole Foods on the way home from the airport, but not one 3-4 lb breast like the recipe required. Instead I found two 1 3/4 lbs breasts, and figured I would make 2 roulades instead of one, no problem. However, when I got them out of their packages at home, they were strangely shaped, and one of them was actually in 2 pieces.

"Never fear!," I said to myself (actually, it was more like, "what the f%*$?!!!"), "we'll just make 3 mini roulades (roulettes?)" And I proceeded to begin flattening the turkey breasts so they could be wrapped around the tasty filling...

However, these proved to be unflattenable turkey breasts. After approximately 10 minutes of beating them silly, they were still 38-triple Ds, unwrappable, unrollable, un-rouladable.

So, after a few more choice 4-letter words about how much I hate turkey breasts, I made the executive decision (with Chuck's sage advice) to slap the roulette filling on top of the now misshapen turkey breasts, shove them in the oven and call it a day. This is how we ended up with open-faced turkey and swiss chard roulades.

FAIL blog, here I come. Pwnd.

It was supposed to look like this (Food Network's photo):

Ultimately mine looked like this:

Served with purple smashed potatoes and roasted broccoli.

Ina's Cauliflower Gratin

Ina, Ina, Ina. Your name may rhyme with a certain body part that shall not be named on this blog, but it doesn't make your recipes any less tasty.

Your cauliflower gratin was a delicious treat. Creamy, cheesy, crispy on top.

Maybe next time I would reduce the amount of milk you recommend in the recipe, to limit the soupiness. Perhaps 1 1/2 cups rather than 2. Also, I used panko bread crumbs, not fresh ones. Because they're crunchy. Don't hate me, Ina.

Asparagus, Crimini and Gruyere Tart

This dish was a hybrid of a couple recipes I found online, plus a few modifications of my own based on what I had in the fridge, what needed to be used, and general spaciness/laziness after a busy weekend.The Martha Stewart Recipe looked good, but almost too simple. This other recipe included mushrooms, which I wanted to use up, but I liked the idea of Gruyere more than creme fraiche (and didn't want to pre-cook the veggies).

So, I ultimately used packaged puff pastry, rolled it out on a baking sheet, put a super (super!) thin layer of Dijon mustard on it, sprinkled it with shredded gruyere, a thinly sliced green onion, a little bit of minced fresh thyme, parsley and rosemary, S&P, and then laid out raw asparagus and mushrooms in an artful way. Brushed the top with olive oil and more S&P and stuck it in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. The only thing I would do differently next time is grease the baking sheet a wee bit.

Tasty and definitely cool looking!!

Asparagus and Crimini Bread Pudding

At the recommendation of the Washington Post Food Section bloggers at "All We Can Eat," I tried this bread pudding recipe to use up the crimini mushrooms and asparagus from my CSA. The recipe is based on a recipe that Barbara Kingsolver included in her locavore's diary, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." Pretty good!