Butternut Squash Lasagna

The first time I ever made a bechamel sauce was as a part of this Butternut Squash Lasagna recipe.  Turns out, knowing how to make a bechamel sauce is a good skill to have as it's the base for most alfredo sauces, souffles, macaroni and cheese and a part of this great recipe.

Here's the butternut squash, diced and ready to cook for 20 minutes until fork tender:

And after it's cooked and blended (has the consistency of good baby food):

One more thing about the butternut squash layer, the recipe calls for some crushed amaretti cookies.  These are the italian equivalent of those super dry, crunchy, tasteless almond cookies that you sometimes see in Chinese restaurants.  Most grocery stores carry the amaretti cookies if you want to add them, I never do and the recipe is just as good without them. 

The bechamel sauce after it's cooked and thickened:

I know when the sauce is done when it coats the back of a spoon and keeps separate when a line is drawn down the back of the spoon:

Although the recipe calls for the use of a blender when adding the basil to the bechamel sauce, I've found that my immersion blender (aka stick blender) works better:

Here's the slightly cooled bechamel with the basil added:

The secret to this recipe is actually in the fact that it uses no-boil lasagna noodles.  No more having to boil the noodles and keep them wet until you actually need them for the recipe.  Here's the brand I use, just look for "No Boiling Required" on the label:

Here's the first layer of bechamel sauce on the bottom of the pan, it helps keep the noodles from sticking to the bottom of the pan:

First layer of noodles.  The recipe calls for 3 noodles but I sometimes squeeze in 4 in a layer and just overlap them:

Layer of the butternut squash sauce:

I use an offset spatula to spread the squash layer:

The cheese layer:

And the sauce layer:

Repeat the steps above as many times as you can with the bechamel, squash and noodles you have.  Here's a picture of the layered lasagna before it goes into the oven:

The final product after it comes out of the oven:

The hardest part about this recipe is really all the prep work it takes to prepare the different sauces.  Once you can master those, the assembly isn't bad and the end result is well worth all the work.  Enjoy!

Crepes

I think people think I'm kidding when I tell them that my dream is to own a food truck that sells sweet and savory crepes.  Reality is, I'm totally serious.  If I'm going to make good on my dream, I figure that I need to master the art of making crepes before anyone will want to buy them from me (especially from a food truck).  I've tried several recipes over the years and have not yet found "the one."  In the meantime, it's fun to try out different recipes.  Until I can get a crepe maker of my own:

I use a regular pan:

This batch was a fresh mango, nutella, homemade whipped cream crepe:

My search for a good crepe recipe continues.  If any of you have a recommendation, leave it as a comment and I'll give it a try!

Frozen Brownie Sundaes

I'm not ashamed to admit that a majority of the recipes I try come from one or two chefs on the Food Network.  This one is no different, it's Giada De Laurentiis' recipe for Frozen Brownie Sundaes.  I don't normally like recipes that waste food as part of their process (this one has you use only part of a brownie mix) but I was so intrigued by the recipe that I made an exception.  Although the recipe takes awhile to make, it was well worth the wait.

Here is the brownie layer before cooking:

And after cooking:

For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of the ice cream layer.  Since I was worried that the ice cream might melt too much if I didn't watch it, I ended up "softening" the ice cream in the microwave.  15 seconds in the microwave softened the frozen ice cream enough so that it was still frozen but easily spreadable.

After the ice cream layer re-froze overnight, it was time to make the chocolate layer.  Although the recipe tells you to heat the cream in a pan and then add in the chocolate, I've never had much luck with heating the cream to the right temperature without burning it.  So, I just used the double boiler method and it came out fine:

One other point on the chocolate layer - I made the chocolate layer as the recipe directed but found that it made for too thick of a layer on top of the ice cream than I would have preferred.  Next time, I'll cut the chocolate layer recipe in half so that it's more to my liking.

Back into the freezer for an hour or so and it was ready to eat (thankfully, I was losing patience).  I didn't have frozen strawberries on hand but my roommate had some fresh strawberries so I improvised and came up with a pretty good strawberry sauce.  Here's the final product:

This dessert was tasty and, all things considered, not too hard to make.  I probably won't make it all the time but it'll go into my repertoire for when I need to really impress.

Vermont Brownie Company - Part II

Last year I ordered some brownies from the Vermont Brownie Company for my mom for her birthday.  I'd seen the two owners win a brownie throwdown against Bobby Flay and my mom said that the brownies I'd ordered her were delicious so put them on my list of things to try.  A few weeks ago I got an email announcing one of their new flavors - peanut butter.  There are only a few things that I like more than peanut butter with chocolate so I saw this as a sign that I was finally meant to try the brownies myself.  I ordered a box and they arrived 3 days later:

Needless to say, they looked so appetizing that I had to try one right away:

The brownie was excellent although a little on the rich side.  I ended up having to split it with my roommate but we were both satisfied.  The all-natural peanut butter really makes a difference, it blends well with the rich chocolate.