There’s a fabulous little Italian place around the corner from our friends’ house, Patrenella’s Italian Restaurant. A nice wine selection and without a doubt, the very best lasagna in Houston. Seriously. It’s 7 layers of pasta, beef, and cheesy perfection. (I’ve also never eaten a better Tiramisu anywhere else.)

Patrenella’s isn’t on our regular dinner-out rotation but it’s most definitely one of our favorite places when we have some time to hang out and enjoy the atmosphere and a bottle of wine. Or two. We both order the lasagna - if the waitstaff didn’t know just how good this stuff was, we would look sooo boring

On lasagna night at home, I make a big ol’ mess. I bake a full batch in a 9×13 pan even though it would probably serve 8-10 people. I refrigerate the foil-covered leftovers in the pan overnight so it firms up. I then cut the cold lasagna into single portions, wrap each square in two layers of plastic wrap, and freeze on a baking sheet for about an hour or so. Once frozen solid, I’ll put the frozen squares in a large freezer bag. I put two squares in the fridge the night before the next lasagna night - reheating in a small baking dish is super easy and clean up is a breeze. And the best part is that I only have to do “lasagna dishes” once.

Our lasagna, from the bottom up:
Layer 1:
1 cup Marinara, spread to cover bottom of pan
Pasta (my pan is 3 lasagna noodles wide)
Ricotta-egg mixture (24 oz of part-skim ricotta, whisked with 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp salt, and plenty of fresh ground black pepper)

Layer 2:
Pasta
1 lb of ground beef browned with 2 cloves of minced garlic, a large pinch of red pepper flake, and a pinch of salt; drained

Layer 3:
Pasta
2 cups White sauce (recipe below)

Layer 4:
Pasta
Chef’s choice: Sometimes I use another layer of browned ground beef or Italian sausage (1lb) mixed with marinara for an extra meaty lasagna; other times I’ll throw in veggies or just use marinara and cubed fresh mozzarella
1-2 cups Marinara, spread

Layer 5:
Pasta
1-2 cups Marinara, spread
1 1/2 cups grated or cubed fresh mozzarella

Bake it for 30 minutes at 375 and enjoy. And enjoy, and enjoy.

White sauce
The white sauce recipe below is based on the Bechamel Sauce recipe found in Everyday Italian. I add garlic and cheese… which I guess technically no longer makes it a bechamel. We think it’s better this way - the sauce is much more flavorful.

5 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
4 cups whole milk at room temperature
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese

Melt butter over medium heat. When butter has completely melted, add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the flour and whisk until smooth, about 2 minutes. Whisk in salt and pepper. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly. Simmer over medium heat, whisking frequently, until the sauce is thickened and creamy, about 12 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in the cheese, until melted and combined. Set aside and allow to cool completely.

Yields: 4 cups (I freeze the remaining sauce. Thaw and reheat over medium heat, whisking until smooth)

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img src="http://www.101cookbooks.com/mt-static/images/food/mushroom_casserole_recipe.jpg" / pI had one favorite thing to eat when I was a kid. One dish I was loyal to above all else. I would request it when I was recovering from the flu, pneumonia, or strep throat. I would request it weeknights, weekends, and holidays. It was a simple dish, and one of four (maybe five) recipes my mom had in her entire culinary arsenal - we can get to some of the others in a future post. Above all, I favored her rice and mushroom casserole. As I remember it she combined rice, mushrooms (or creamy mushroom soup) and cheese in a casserole dish and baked it until it was creamy, melty, and golden at the edges. Easy enough. I made a healthier, from-scratch remix of this the other night using brown rice, sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and onions -all made creamy with a blend of cottage cheese and a bit of sour cream. /p pimg border="0" width="475" src="http://www.101cookbooks.com/mt-static/images/food/mushroom_casserole_recipe_2.jpg" alt="Mushroom Casserole Recipe" //p pYou can certainly use whatever cooked grains you like. I suspect this would be delicious with barley, wheat berries, quinoa, whole grain rices - or even a href="http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/grandmas-grain-recipe.html"a mix of grains/a. My mom used to hide all sorts of things in this casserole - I don't go the pork chop or chicken breast route any more (precooked!), but I can imagine pan-seared seitan strips being great. I can also imagine anything from chopped leafy greens, toasted nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, all as great as add-ins. /p pimg border="0" width="475" src="http://www.101cookbooks.com/mt-static/images/food/mushroom_casserole_recipe_3.jpg" alt="Mushroom Casserole Recipe" //p pThat being said, I love this simple version. The smell of it baking five minutes after I lifted the foil off the casserole took me right back to those times when I was a kid standing below the oven, high as I could get on my tip-toes, the heat from the oven door making my cheeks rosy, peering through the oven window at my favorite casserole. Mom, maybe it's my turn to make it for you?/p ba href="http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/mushroom-casserole-recipe.html"Continue reading Mushroom Casserole.../a/b pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/jVEKo_7Ccn4KaLFw7l6G8fAtHuA/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/jVEKo_7Ccn4KaLFw7l6G8fAtHuA/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.101cookbooks.com/~f/101Cookbooks?a=fPwxOmrs"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/101Cookbooks?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.101cookbooks.com/~f/101Cookbooks?a=ieYYPEIx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/101Cookbooks?i=ieYYPEIx" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.101cookbooks.com/~f/101Cookbooks?a=PTpzWbC9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/101Cookbooks?i=PTpzWbC9" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/101Cookbooks/~4/uB5AhHY4s5A" height="1" width="1"/

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CHERRY BERRY BREAD MIX IN A JAR 21/2 C. all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp. salt 1 C. oats (quick or old-fashioned, uncooked) 3/4 C. dried...br/ br/ Please visit the site to see the rest. Thank you pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/worldfamousrecipes/org?a=LsCaD8"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/worldfamousrecipes/org?i=LsCaD8" border="0"/img/a/p

About this Recipe

For Christmas this year, forget buying or making a traditional plum pudding, why not make a Christmas Pudding using the unique fruits of Australia. This Christmas Pudding recipe features some of the most flavoursome fruits in the world including riberries, quandong, wild rosella and wild limes together with Australia’s own macadamia nut. I’ve also used Wattleseed to provide a richer flavour.

Ingredients

250g (1 cup) plain flour
250g (1 cup) butter
250g (1 cup) brown sugar
1 tablesppon bicarb soda
250g (1 cup) fresh breadcrumbs
4 fresh large eggs
300g (1 ½ cup) macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
150g (¾ cup) Riberry Confit
150g (¾ cup) Quandong Confit
150g (¾ cup) Wild Rosella Confit
150g (¾ cup) Wild Lime Confit
60ml (2 fl oz.) vodka
30 ml (1 fl oz.) Wattleseed extract
pinch of salt

50cm square of unbleached calico cloth
kitchen twine
100g (½ cup) plain flour

Cooking Instruction

Firstly strain all the native fruit confits. Coarsely chop the rosellas and the limes and slice the quandong into strips. Place them in a bowl with the whole riberries. Add the vodka and Wattleseed extract to the fruit and mix well. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Start by adding the eggs to the creamed butter one at a time mixing well after each. Then stir in the fruit, macadamia nuts, breadcrumbs, sifted flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Mix through well.

Take a small saucepan and bring to the boil, then immerse the unbleached calico cloth in the boiling water for two minutes. Using a pair of tongs and wearing rubber gloves, take the calico from the boiling water and squeeze it to remove the excess water.

Use the hot, wet calico cloth to line a large bowl, this will help you form the pudding and evenly spread out the extra flour in the centre and up the sides of the cloth. Place the pudding mix into the bowl, then bring the edges of the cloth to the centre, whilst doing this try to mould the mixture into a round shape. Pull it tight and tie securely with kitchen twine.

Using a large pot, fill with water and bring to the boil. Place the pudding into the pot and cover. Simmer the pudding for at least 6 hours; you may need to top up the boiling water from time to time with hot water.

Remove the pudding from the boiling water and allow to sit for twenty minutes although overnight is better, before serving. If cooking in advance, store chilled in an air tight container.

Serve Christmas pudding with Lemon Myrtle Custard and Riberry Confit

Benjamin Christie's Australian Food, BBQ Recipes and Australian Recipes feature bush tucker ingredients like lemon myrtle and wattleseed. Check out recipes like shrimp on the barbie, anzac biscuits, lamingtons and banana bread. 

Food Service professionals will be interested in his chef blog as well as articles on menu planning, food photography, cooking kangaroo, menu engineering and food costing.

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