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.

Pepperoni and Onion Sauce with Potato Gnocchi

I have to tell you that the first time I walked into the Three Girls Vegan Creamery I felt like I walked into my Mom's kitchen. My Mom was far from vegan. It was more of a portion thing. I walked in the Three Girls Vegan Creamery hoping to try a couple of menu items and I walked out with a week's worth of food!

The Three Girls Vegan Creamery recently opened a new store with more hours (!!!) and I stopped in this past Sunday to pick up some food for our first week of Lent. Pepperoni and some Lasagna.

Back to tonight's dinner. Ash Wednesday. I got my ashes at an Ashes to Go stop at the Madison train station. Seemed very convenient. For dinner, I amped it up a bit. Lidia Bastianich's Basic Potato Gnocchi with Marcella Hazan's Onion and Butter Tomato Sauce with some of Three Girls Vegan Creamery Pepperoni.

Yeah, it was very good. Not a bad start for Lent.

New Year, New Pizza Pan

For Christmas, I received a T-Fal Air Bake Pizza Pan. It has holes in the bottom. The pizza looked just like a takeout pizza. I did not use my usual crust recipe. I used the recipe from How to Bake Everything by Mark Bittman. I love Mark Bittman but I prefer the Jim Lahey pizza crust recipe.

The toppings were what made this an over the top delicious pie. I used up things leftover from the holidays. Salami, Proscuitto, Bacon, and Vegan Pepperoni from the Three Vegan Girls Creamery.
Wow! What a combination. The picture above is of the first 3 slices I ate. Yes, I went back for seconds!

My Perfect Vacation Day

Yeah, vacation day! And it was cool out. Not what you are usually looking for in a vacation day. But I was able to make bread, pasta, and sauce. All three were part of very delicious dinner.

The bread was the No Knead French Bread. The recipe can be found on the Noshtalgia website. It is an amazing dough to work with.

The pasta was from Tide and Thyme. The only pasta recipe I use. I had more than enough for tonight's dinner and I was able to put some in the freezer.
 

The sauce was, of course, the Marcella Hazan Onion, Butter and Tomato Sauce. This time I diced the onion after it had cooked for almost an hour. I sauteed some Pancetta cubes and cubed zucchini and added that to the sauce. Wow!!!