First Friday of Lent

This is our second Lenten meal and again I combined Three Girls Vegan Creamery with Lidia Bastianich. Lasagna by Three Girls Vegan Creamery. Caesar Salad is from Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen. It was nice getting home for work and preparing the salad. But it was really nice having the prepared Lasagna that just needed to be heated up.

Caesar Salad Dressing from Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen-

Ingredients-
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
4 cloves of garlic 
4 anchovy fillets
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 hard-boiled egg yolk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
fresh ground black pepper 
Romaine lettuce, or anything you prefer

Method-
Combine the vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, and anchovies in a blender or work bowl of a food processor. Blend until smooth, adding some of the 1/3 cup olive oil if there is not enough liquid to move the mixture around the blender jar. Add the mustard, hard-boiled egg yolk, salt, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and remaining olive oil if any.  Blend until smooth and creamy. Taste the dressing; if it's a little too tangy, pour in a splash or two of olive oil and blend until it's incorporated. Pour over greens and toss to cover the lettuce.

Nuzzo's Apizza

I went to bed last night and it was September 24th. I woke up and it was mid August. Not a fan of the current weather conditions. Forget trying to get my hair to do anything...

I did some cooking this morning and gosh it was hot. So hot that I decided enough was enough. No more cooking today. Pizza! Pizza delivered to our house! I love staying in on Sundays!

We opted for Nuzzo's Apizza tonight. The owner, Barry Nuzzo, is a third generation pizza maker from the Modern Apizza family. I am sure you have all heard of "New Haven Style" pizza. Well we have it here in Madison too!

Our pizza choices were Sausage and Pepper and Eggplant Rollatine. Not sure which I liked better, no it was the eggplant! The crust was nice and crispy! It was not greasy at all. So that makes it a healthy meal right?

Otechino con Lenticchie, Pork Sausage with Lentils

The other day I was looking at some of the blogs I follow and came upon a photo of a dish that looked really good. The recipe was from ...ti cucino cosi... and yes it was in Italian. There's no need to fear Google Translate is here!

This recipe is very similar to Panecotta minus the escarole. The original recipe uses Cotechino, which is a fresh sausage made with pork, fatback and pork rind and comes from Modena, Italy. I used a pork sausage with Provolone and Red Pepper. The recipe also called for 150 grams of Lentils. So I was able to use my new digital kitchen scale! Thank you Chris!

Photo shows too many lentils!

This is my version of the recipe.

Otechino con Lenticchie (Pork Sausage with Lentils)

Ingredients
150 gr Lentils (1 cup)
2 cups water
1 potato, boiled
80 gr bread, soaked in milk (about 4 slices of Italian bread)
1/2 lb. pork sausage
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Parmesan

Method
Cook the lentils in water until the water is all absorbed and lentils are cooked, allow to cool. (This took about 18 minutes). (The original recipe called for a pinch of a salt in the water when cooking the lentils but every blog that I read about lentils said the salt would make them tough, so I omitted it).
Boil the potatoes. Cook the sausage.
Saute the finely chopped onion in oil.
Place the sliced sausage, onions and potatoes and mash well with a fork. Add the lentils.
Add the slices of bread that have soaked in a little milk and mix everything together.
Put the mixture into a greased (I use Pam cooking spray) Pyrex baking dish and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Serve warm.

Along with this we had a salad and used Paul Newman's Lighten Up Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing.

Happy New Year's Day!