Fun New Recipes

I have been cooking a lot lately and here is my favorite meal and dessert. I highly recommend them both!!!

Veggie Lasagna
(adapted from this month's Sunset Magazine)

Sorry, no picture of this sucker. I was very hungry!

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 cup each chopped onion, celery, and carrot (I put more like 1 cup each)
1 bag fresh spinach, chopped
1 lb. turkey Italian sausage (optional, I did not use this...hence the title, Veggie)
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used Barefoot Chardonnay. Stater's had 4 small sized bottles for $6, which is great to keep in the cupboard for recipes like this. )
1 can (28oz) crushed tomatoes
1 cup tomato sauce
2 1/2 cups low-fat cottage cheese
1 large egg
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese (I used quattro formaggio from Traders. It's a mix of 4 white cheeses. Soooo good!)
12 oz. lasagna noodles (Barilla has a homemade lasagna noodle that you do not have to pre-cook. I used that because I dislike pre-cooking lasagna noodles.)

1. Saute onion in olive oil for 5 minutes. Add celery and carrots and cook another 5 minutes. If you are adding meat, now is the time to throw in the sausage and cook until done. Add spinach and cook until wilted.

2. Add wine and cook until reduced by half, approx. 3 min. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce, bring to boil, then lower to a gentle simmer, uncovered. Cook approx 30 min, until liquid reduces by a third. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. While that is simmering: In a seperate bowl mix cottage cheese and egg with 1/4 cup of grated cheese with a wire wisk for 2 minutes. You can use the food processor but that just adds to the dirty dishes.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

5. Lightly oil a 9x13 baking dish and put a few tablespoons of the tomato sauce in the bottom of the pan. Then layer like this: noodles, 1/3 of tomato sauce, noodles, 1/2 of cheese mix, noodles, 1/3 of tomato sauce, noodles, other 1/2 of cheese mix, noodles, last 1/3 of tomato sauce, lightly sprinkle with grated cheese.

This was sooooo good! And healthy. For those of you with kids, Lucie loved this. That is not saying a great deal seeing how the kid will eat sushi, but you can't really tell that there is mostly veggies, it was that tasty.

Now on to dessert!

The Perfect Chocolate Cake
(Adapted from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg)


Preface: I used all Trader Joe's brand ingredients, chocolate powder included.
This recipe makes 24 cupcakes. I have no idea how big of a cake it would make. Try 2 8-inch rounds. Let me know how it goes. =)

2 oz semisweet or dark chocolate
1 cup hot brewed coffee
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups plus 2 Tbsp 100% whole wheat white flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup non-fat greek yogurt (or buttermilk or regular plain yogurt)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Prepare your muffin tin with papers or oil. If you’re making a cake, grease pans and line bottoms with rounds of wax paper. Grease the paper too.

2. Finely chop the chocolate and mix with coffee until blended and let cool.

3. In a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

4. In another large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer until thickened slightly and lemon-colored (about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, yogurt, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well.

5. Divide batter between pans. Bake in middle of oven 20 to 25 minutes for cupcakes, or 50 to 70 minutes for larger cakes, until a tester inserted in center comes out clean.

6. Cool cakes completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and remove cupcakes, or invert larger cakes onto racks. If making larger cakes, carefully remove wax paper. Cakes may be made one day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.

Each cupcake is only 160 calories, another 50 or so with the chocolate glaze on top. Not bad!

Frosting

8 oz Baker's semi-sweet chocolate
Finely chop chocolate and place in glass or metal bowl placed on a simmering pot of water. This makes a double broiler and helps to not burn the chocolate. Mix often with a wisk. When this has melted, coat the cooled cupcakes or cake with a layer of the chocolate glaze. Now if you are me, you pull those suckers out of the oven, burn your fingers as you hold one to glaze it with the hot chocolate, and then not so carefully eat the scoulding thing. But man are those 2nd degree burns worth it!

Enjoy!