Daring Bakers Spinach Lasagne

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

This recipe challenged the Daring Bakers to make spinach pasta cut for lasagna, bechamel sauce and a country style ragu. I had a guest chef in the kitchen with me for the first time. My good friend, Karen, came over and we had a great time making it together. Here's a picture of Karen rolling out the pasta. She did a much better job of rolling than I did.

It was my first time making pasta and my arms ached the next day from the ten minutes of kneading and the rolling. I thought the pasta tasted great, and my husband and my friend and her family loved it, but it was too much work for me to enjoy. I was exhausted that night. I think I should have made it over several days.

I made the ragu with chicken sausage and ground sirloin. I had to add another egg to the pasta dough to get it to come together. Other than that, I didn't change much. I had the same problem as many Daring Bakers with the ragu looking a bit curdled, but you didn't really notice it once it was in the lasagne.

Check out the hosts' blogs for the complete recipe. Also, be sure and check out the other Daring Baker's posts. There were so many great variations, including some yummy dessert lasagnes.


A big thank you to two of my new blogging friends, Coleen of Coleen's Recipes and Barbara at Traveling Aprons for passing the Friend Award on to me. Be sure and visit their great blogs!

The award is accompanied with this message: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated."

I am passing this award on to some of my new blogger friends:

Sara at Sara's Kitchen
Elyse at Elyse's Confectionery Creations
Judy at Judy's Kitchen

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

We celebrated my sons 13th birthday yesterday. Matt asked for strawberry shortcake for his birthday cake. Cole agreed and so I asked them if they wanted angel food cake, white cake or pound cake. They said it didn't make any difference to them. No difference! To me it makes a huge difference - angel food cake is too much fluff, white cake gets soggy, but pound cake, ahhh pound cake is perfect for strawberry shortcake.

I have to admit I usually turn to Sara Lee for pound cake. It's so easy and tasty. But for their birthday Sara Lee just didn't seem right, so I went on a search for a great pound cake recipe and I found a highly rated one at Epicurious. I absolutely loved this cake. It is really moist and dense, but it also, as one reviewer said, "has the sugary crispness of angel food cake."

The only problem that I had with this cake was that I overfilled my bundt pan. The recipe calls for a 12 cup bundt pan, which mine is, but it makes a lot of batter. When I was putting it in the pan, I pulled out a small loaf pan to put some of the batter in, but then decided since it was a pound cake it probably wouldn't rise much and put all the batter in the bundt pan.

I should have gone with my first instinct, because it rose above the pan and a bit spilled onto the oven. Luckily I was keeping a close eye on it and scooped it up before it started to burn and I also trimmed off a bit of the top of the cake that had grown over the side of the pan.

Despite my overfilling the pan, the cake came out beautifully and it tasted amazing. I will definitely be making this cake again! In fact, I haven't stopped thinking about it since I ate it last night!


Cream Cheese Pound Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs, room temperature
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups sifted all purpose flour

Butter and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Using electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add sugar and salt; beat 10 minutes, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Beat in flour at low speed until batter is smooth (do not overbeat). Transfer batter to pan.

Place pan in cold oven. Set temperature at 200°F; bake 20 minutes. Increase temperature to 250°F; bake 20 minutes. Increase to 275°F; bake 10 minutes. Increase to 300°F; bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 1 hour longer. (Mine was done after 45 minutes)

Cool cake in pan on rack 15 minutes. Turn cake out onto rack; cool completely. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Wrap; store at room temperature.)

Pi Day - Hash Brown Quiche

Yesterday was Pi Day. Last year was the first day I celebrated Pi Day, but since pie is one of my favorite foods I was happy to celebrate it again this year with a day long celebration. We started out the morning with quiche, dinner was pizza pie and our family favorite strawberry pie for dessert.

One of my sons isn't crazy about pie crust, which I find a little annoying since I make a fabulous pie crust. He loves the fillings, but just leaves the wonderful tasty crust on his plate. But since I didn't really need the extra calories either, I went on an Internet search for a great crustless quiche recipe.

Allrecipes had a highly rated recipe for Hash Brown Quiche that sounded great. I made some changes after reading the comments and looking in my pantry. Everyone was really happy with the end result and I will definitely make this again. Here's my lower fat version:


Hash Brown Quiche
2 large potatoes, shredded
1 T. olive oil

3/4 cup egg beaters
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
6 slices fully cooked bacon
2 green onions
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar Jack cheese
1/2 cup shredded Italian blend of cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350º.

Heat oil in non-stick pan, add potatoes and cook until tender and browned. Press hash browns onto the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie dish.

Whisk together eggs, milk, salt, and pepper. Mix in remaining ingredients. Pour over hash browns.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until filling is puffed and golden brown.

Chocolate Cheesecake Tunnel Cake

Maria at Two Peas and Their Pod posted a yummy looking recipe last month for Chocolate Tunnel Cake. Since I love chocolate cheesecake, I knew I would love this cake, and I did. I ate more than my fair share of this cake, but it was even more moist and tasty the next day, and the day after that.

I changed it up a little bit. I used one of my favorite chocolate cake recipes, Chocolate Pound Cake from the Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor and reduced the cream cheese to 8 oz. Here's my version:

For the cake:
1 Chocolate Fudge cake mix with pudding in the mix
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs

For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/3 c. sugar
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

For the glaze:

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 T. milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For the cake: Place the cake mix, sour cream, water, oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat 2 to 3 minutes more until combined.

Pour 2/3 of the batter in a greased and floured 12 cup bundt pan.

Mix together filling ingredients. Spread filling over the batter and top with remaining batter

Bake for 45-55 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and is starting to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Cool on wire rack for 20 min, invert it onto a rack and cool 20 minutes more.

For the glaze, combine the chocolate chips and milk in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture has thickened slightly, 1 to 2 minutes.

Place the cake on a serving platter and drizzle the warm glaze over it. (I usually just melt the chips with the milk in the microwave, put the glaze in a Ziploc, cut the corner and drizzle it over the cake.)

Store cake covered in the refrigerator.

Awards
Jerri at Simply Sweet Home recently received six awards for her cute blog. I especially love her Menu Plan Monday posts which inspire me to plan my menu for the week. She graciously passed on the awards to 15 "great bloggers", including me! Thanks Jerri I'll display them proudly!

Baked Potato Soup and Thank Yous

I love Marie Calendars potato cheese soup, and I have never found a potato soup recipe that I thought was better until now. Judy at Judy's Kitchen recently posted her recipe for Baked Potato Soup and it's so delicious. I think it tastes better than Marie's soup, and it's much lower in fat!

I cooked meatloaf and baked potatoes on Sunday and cooked extra baked potatoes to make this soup later in the week. It worked out great and made the soup so quick and easy to put together. Here's my version:

Baked Potato Soup

4 large baking potatoes
4 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
4 oz. Neufchatel cheese
2 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 14 oz. cans chicken broth
1 cup frozen corn
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp. dried parsley
1 pint fat-free half and half
6 slices crisp-cooked bacon, crumbled
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Prick potatoes with a fork or knife. Bake in 400F oven for 1 hour or till potatoes are cooked through and soft inside; cool (I refrigeratored them for several days at this point). Remove skins and cut potatoes into chunks; set aside.

In 2 or 3-quart heavy pot, saute the onions in butter over medium heat till transparent. Stir in the Neufchatel cheese, followed by the flour, salt and pepper. Add the chicken broth as you continue stirring to make the mixture smooth. Add potatoes, corn, parsley, and red pepper flakes. Stir, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 10-15 minutes to blend flavors. Add half and half, crumbled bacon, and cheese and just heat through but do not bring to a boil. Yield: 6-8 servings

I have lots of thanks you to pass out.


First, thank you to Judy at Judy's Kitchen for passing on the Sisterhood Award to me! Judy's blog is filled with delicious recipes (like the potato soup recipe above). It's a great site to visit for dinner ideas! I'm really enjoying following her blog!

Thanks to Lynette at Netts Nook who passed on the Blogging with a Purpose Award to me saying mine was one of her ten favorite food blogs! How nice is that! Lynnette recently did a post on my favorite breakfast recipe ever Cranberry Cream Cheese Pull Aparts, so I know we love the same kinds of food.

I'm passing on both of these awards to all my blog followers!

Thanks to Lori at Recipe Girl, who hosted the Ultimate Superbowl Recipe Smackdown contest which I was lucky enough to win, I have a new addition to my computer room. My sad old ripped up desk chair that I have meant to replace for a long time has been replaced with a cushy new Serta chair from Sam's Club. I was so excited when my gift card arrived in the mail. I had such fun strolling around Sam's Club deciding what to buy. Be sure and checkout Lori's great new updated site and the Superbowl roundup, these recipes would be great at any party during the year.

I also need to thank my good blogging buddy HoneyB for her Yo-Plus gift bag giveaway that I was lucky enough to win! I tried the Strawberry flavor and it's now my favorite strawberry yogurt.

And last, but not least, thank you to Emily at Emily's Kitchen for the Blockbuster gift card giveaway. My kids will have such fun picking out video games! Emily just started her blog in December and her posts always make me smile, so be sure and visit. Thanks for the hug too!

Thank you again to everyone. I think I've had a lucky streak lately! Maybe I should have gone to Vegas!