Lasagna with a secret ingredient!

I recently found out a secret about lasagna... you can give it the flavor of sausage, without actually using sausage, along with all it's extra "bloat". :) I fed this to Mike, who generally doesn't like lasagna without sausage, and he had two large helpings and praised it up and down! Let me know what you think.

9 lasagna noodles
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp olive oil
3/4 lb. lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
2 (15 oz.) containers marinara sauce (make sure it is a thick sauce, or the lasagna will be too runny)
1 1/2 c. ricotta cheese
1/2 c. mozzerella cheese, shredded
1/4 c. grated romano cheese (parmesan works)

Cook lasagna noodles for 10 min, set aside.

In a dry skillet over medium heat, cook the fennel seeds, shaking the pan and stirring constantly until lightly browned and fragrant, 2-3 minutes. Grind to a powder with a coffee grinder, or pound between two clean kitchen towels with a mallet until finely crushed.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat, add beef, onion, bell pepper, and zucchini. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pan juices evaporate and the beef browns, about 10 minutes. Stir in the marinara sauce and fennel, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until slightly thickened and the flavors blend, about 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 F. In a 9x13 baking dish, spread 1/4 of sauce. Top with 3 noodles, spread with 1/2 cup of ricotta. Repeat the layering twice, ending with the meat sauce.

Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle with mozzerella and romano. Bake until heated through and the cheeses are lightly browned, about 20 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

This is the healthy version, if you like cheese, sprinkle romano and mozzerella after the ricotta on each layer. Mmmmm.

Lion House Dinner Rolls and Honey Butter

Makes 1 to 1 1/2 Dozen Rolls2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees F)

2/3 cup non-fat dry milk (instant or non-instant)
2 Tablespoons dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup butter, shortening or margarine (butter is best for flavor)
1 egg
5 to 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, or bread flouroil for bowl

In bowl of stand mixer with flat attachment combine water and milk powder; stir until milk dissolves. Add yeast, then sugar, salt, butter, egg, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. Add 2 more cups of flour; mix on low speed until incorporated, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. (Dough will be getting stiffer so switch to kneading attachment at this point). Work in the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is soft, not overly sticky, but workable and not stiff. (You probably won’t use all the flour).

Scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl and pour about a tablespoon of vegetable oil down the sides. Rotate the dough ball so that all sides are covered. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to rise til double in size (about 45 minutes). Flour a surface for rolling out the dough and turn the dough out. Roll and cut as desired and place in a greased pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to rise again til double in size, about 1 hour.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place the rolls in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden. Brush tops with melted butter immediately when removed from the oven. Serve warm with honey butter.

NOTE: The Lion House cookbook suggests rolling the dough into a rectangle that is 8 inches by 12 inches then cutting that once down the middle the long way, then cutting that into two inch wide strips (to make 12 2 inch by 4 inch strips). Then just roll the strips up from their short end and place into the pan seam side down. It will look like you rolled individual cinnamon rolls and placed them in the pan on their sides.

LION HOUSE HONEY BUTTER

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup honeyWhip softened butter.

Add vanilla and honey gradually. Beat for 20 minutes. Makes 1 cup.

Dark Double Delight Chocolatey Chip Cookies

I'm sorry all, due to personal reasons, I've had to remove the recipe. I've been updating the recipe quite a bit and working out the portions of ingredients and have come up with a better cookie. Unfortunately, my wife wants to sell it at her boutiques. So, to help promote her sales of cookies and confectioneries (we are selling caramel popcorn balls and candies, all home made), I've decided to help promote it by allowing her private use of my recipe. I'm sorry all, but if you'd like to try our final cookie, email me and I'll tell you where she will be selling it in Utah or Washington (depending on the time)

Thanks,

The Glazed Ham the Ate New Hampshire

Yes, I know its a dumb title, but its all I can come up with in my tired, sickened state. Anyway, we had glazed ham last night. I love ham, it was great, or at least the outside of the ham was. I both love and hate glaze. You take the wonderful glaze, slather the outside of a ham with it, and the outside of the ham tastes great. The problem is that it doesn't flavor the inside. So if you have a slightly cheaper piece of meat, that is semi flavorless (don't you love living cheaply), it doesn't have much flavor. So the next time I get ham, I might cut it into thicker pieces and glaze each piece. Treating it sort of as a smothered steak. Mmmm.....steak. Well, here's my recipe I used. I hope you enjoy it.

1/8 (2T) cup whole cloves
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup honey
1/3 cup butter

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
Score ham, and stud with the whole cloves. Place ham in foil lined pan.
In the top half of a double boiler, heat the brown sugar, honey and butter. Keep glaze warm while baking ham.
Brush glaze over ham, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Baste ham every 10 to 15 minutes with the honey glaze. During the last 4 to 5 minutes of baking, turn on broiler to caramelize the glaze. Remove from oven, and let sit a few minutes before serving.

Valentines Day, part 2. Raspberry Truffles

So....um....women like chocolate....right? But you know, good chocolate costs a whole heck of a lot of money. But if you get them a 10 lb bar of good chocolate, they don't seem as excited as say getting 10 lbs of truffles or 10 lbs of chocolate cake mix. Its a good thing I told Sara I was going to use that huge bar of chocolate to make raspberry truffles with it. But the thing is, Chocolatiering, or the making of chocolate, is HARD. To make truffles, first you make ganosh. This isn't the 6 armed god of the Hindu people, this is the creamy, buttery, chocolaty goodness often found in the middle of truffles. Then you coat little balls of the ganosh with tempered chocolate. That part is hard. When tempering chocolate, you have to heat it us to a certain temperature, cool it down to a certain temperature, heat is back up to a certain temperature, cool it down to a certain temperature, and so on and so forth, until it become smooth, runny, and shiny. The better you do this, the shinier and harder it will be when the chocolate hardens. The problem is that I didn't temper too well, so my chocolate truffles came out a bit grainy, and not so shiny. But thats why I have 10 lbs of chocolate, so I can learn. Anyway, this recipe was good, but you could hardly taste the raspberries. I think next time, I'm going to use a good quality raspberry syrup, or non-alcoholic liquer. They seem to be stronger in flavor. Like most recipes, you have to have alot of trial and error.

1 1/3 c Chocolate morsels
2 T Heavy cream
1 T Butter
2 T Seedless raspberry jam
In a heavy saucepan, combine morsels, heavy cream and butter. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Stir in raspberry jam. Cover with plastic wrap; freeze 20 minutes. Drop mixture by teaspoons onto foil lined cookie sheet. Freeze 15 minutes. Roll into balls; freeze until firm.

Valentines Day!!! Part 1, Red Velvet Cake.

Merry Valentines day.  Well, day after. Since this is the first post, I'll explain everything.  This was suggested by Erin, my sis-in-law.  Me and my brother, Michael, love to cook.  We try everything, and comment on it.  But we don't have very many resources to share food, or comments about how we failed or succeeded in our creations.  Therefore, this was created, not just for us, but for those who love food and want to know what we think about what we create and what we love.  I hope you all can learn and enjoy what we share.  If not, it gives us a chance to at least talk about food.

Anyway, This first post is for my creations for my wife Sara on Valentine's day.  I made her 2 things, Red Velvet Cake and raspberry truffles.  I'll comment first on the red velvet cake.

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 Tablesoons cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 ounces red food coloring
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 8 inch round pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together sugar, oil, cocoa, and eggs. Add food coloring and vinegar to buttermilk. Add baking soda to flour. Add flour mixture and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the sugar mixture. Mix well. Stir 1 teaspoon vanilla into batter. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until done. Remove from oven, and cool on wire racks.
4. Mix together cream cheese, butter or margarine, confectioners' sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in nuts. Frost cooled cake.

This was hard to make, not just putting it together, but I have always had a hard time with cakes.  I usually over mix it, which makes it stiff and more brownie like.  Luckily, this is not what happened when I made this cake.  The only problem was the frosting.  It way overpowered the flavor of the cake.  Maybe its just me, since I'm more of a brownie person, but the cake was hard to taste. Besides that, it was fine. 

Just to tell you, yes this does say 2 ounces of Red Food coloring.  That is 2-one ounce bottles.   Yes it stains, yes turns your mouth red.  It goes into you red and comes out of you red.  Just to warn you.  But it looks visually appealing, and tastes great.  I'd definitely recommend it.

By the way, If you want to get on the good side of your wife.  MAKE THIS CAKE.  Sara loves this with a passion.  Its the most difficult cake I've made, but its worth it.