In my quest to find perfect one-pan dinners, I stumbled across this recipe at Daily Candy. I haven’t tried many of Tyler’s recipes, but this one seemed simple enough to tackle. Essentially, you brown some ground beef in an oven-proof pan. Then add in some veggies that have been chopped in a food processor (canned tomatoes, carrots, onion, garlic). Stir in some chicken stock, fresh spinach and ricotta cheese. Cover in a layer of broken lasagna noodles. Top that with some mozzeralla, and pop it in a 400 degree heated oven for about 15 minutes. It’s important to let the pan sit about ten minutes before you dig in. Mine, as you can see, was not the prettiest thing. It had a bit too much liquid in it, and I think if I make again I might drain the tomatoes slightly or reduce the amount of chicken broth added. Despite its unattractive looks, the lasagna was quite tasty. And with only one layer of noodles and cheese, it’s lighter than you’d expect. I will definitely make it again — and work on its appearance.

More one-pan dishes:
One-pan pasta with garlic

Melissa Clark’s Roast Chicken with Chickpeas

Click through for my take on Tyler Florence’s One-Pan Lasagna, or click here for his original recipe.

One-Pan Lasagna
Serves 4 (or two with a night’s leftovers)
Ingredients
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes
4 baby carrots, scrubbed
1 sm. yellow onion, cut into wedges
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 c. organic chicken stock (I would use a little less)
½ c. part-skim ricotta cheese
3 oz. fresh baby spinach leaves
4 lasagna noodles, broken into 1½-inch pieces
4 oz. fresh mozzarella, cubed

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. In a large ovenproof skillet, heat oil until hot. Add beef and cook, until browned, 5-7 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, combine tomatoes, carrots, onion, and garlic in a food processor and chop until coarsely ground but not pureed.
4. When meat brown, pour off accumulated fat. Add tomato mixture, stock, ricotta, and spinach; stir to combine.
5. Layer noodles on top and press down with spoon until they are submerged slightly.
6. Sprinkle mozzarella evenly on top.
6. Bake lasagna uncovered until cheese is melted and bubbling, 10-15 minutes.
7. Remove pan from oven and let stand uncovered for 10 minutes.

We must take our collective hats off to Jennifer, the amazing self-taught baker behind Not Your Momma’s Cookie blog. She posted these seriously awesome Game of Thrones cake pops the other day, and we are in totally in awe of them. Their sweet irony may not numb the sting we are still feeling from poor Ned Stark’s grizzly death at the end of season one, but we are impressed. She provides a detailed how-to that includes his manly goatee and the blood dripping down the stake. Seems like an ambitious undertaking but, perhaps the finale will be worth it?

Are you a Game of Thrones fan too? Got any viewing party ideas?

Pizza is one of those things I never make at home. When you live in New York or New Jersey, the best pizza in the country is just a walk, ride or phone call away. But this article by Melissa Clark in the Times the other week had me looking at pizza dough in a new light. Instead of baking a traditional pie, she piled on cheese, veggies and such, folded it over and produced something I haven’t eaten since my college days: a calzone! Though Melissa had a few suggestions of what you could stuff the mega-sized dough pocket with, the one that spoke to me instantly was made with broccoli rabe (possibly my favorite vegetable) and olives.

I followed Melissa’s recipe, which is pretty straight forward. First, cook the broccoli rabe like always — sauteed in a pan with garlic and touch of oil. After that is finished, roll out the pizza dough — I used frozen, that defrosted during the day when I was at work — with a bit a flour until it forms a 12 inch round. Next, cover half of the dough with the following yummy ingredients: Ricotta cheese, some fresh garlic, cooked broccoli rabe, fresh mozzerella, red chili pepper flakes, and sliced Calamata olives. Fold over the dough and pinch the edges to close. Brush a little olive oil on it and bake at 500 degrees for about 15 minutes. The crust will be firm and golden brown. Let it cool a few minutes before you cut. When I sliced mine, a bit of excess water from the broccoli rabe ran out. Next time I’ll be sure to pat it dry with a little paper towel before putting on the dough. The taste? Crazy delicious. That was easy! Click here to see full recipe.

Do you make homemade pizzas at home? Now that I’ve tackled the calzone, I think I’m ready for a pie. This could be life changing!

More recipes featuring broccoli rabe:

One pan sausage with broccoli rabe rice

Pasta with broccoli rabe

In recent weeks I’ve made brownies with black beans and peanut butter pie with squash inside. This past weekend I added another guilt-free goodie to my repertoire: peanut butter banana chocolate chip cookies. What makes them so healthy? No sugar! Not one little pinch. There’s also no flour and no eggs. In fact, I’m not even sure you can technically call these buttons of yumminess cookies — they are more like congealed clumps of well-matched ingredients. I found the recipe on Babble’s Family Kitchen blog. Here’s my version:

Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Clumps

3 large, ripe bananas
1/2 cup peanut butter (or some other kind of nut butter that floats your boat)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups traditional oatmeal (use gluten-free if you want)
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350. Get your cookie trays ready. I used a non stick spray on mine, but lining them with parchment paper would be even better.
2. Mix wet ingredients in a bowl: bananas, peanut butter, oil, and vanilla.
3. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl: oats, coconut, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
4. Mix wet and dry ingredients together and stir in chocolate chips.
5. The mixture should be well combined and have a goopy, sticky texture. Using a tablespoon, scoop out large clumps of the batter and place on the cookie tray. They won’t spread while baking, so don’t worry about how much space is between them.
6. Bake 12 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown. Allow to cool slightly before removing from tray.
7. Eat as many as you like, knowing that they are full of good things!

I keep seeing these gorgeous purple baby artichokes at my local fruit and veggie market. I am enamored by them, but I have no idea how to cook or serve. I’ve done some searching, and most of what I have found is how to use them as decoration. They make lovely tabletop pieces, as seen here in this Food Network story about Thanksgiving ideas or this suggestion from CasaSugar on alternative wedding bouquets.

Surely they must be more than a pretty face? Any suggestions on how to cook? Do you just steam them like regular ‘chokes and take tiny bites? Sounds unsatisfying… Help!

When it comes to trying to make foods a little bit healthier, I am game to sneak in some vegetables where they normally don’t dwell: Brownies with black beans, chocolate cake with beets, macaroni and cheese with cauliflower. So when I spotted this Jessica Seinfeld recipe for chocolate peanut butter pie, I had to to give it a go. Peanut butter and chocolate is one of my biggest weaknesses, and the fact that this dessert contained some pureed squash wasn’t about to slow me down.

It’s a refrigerator pie, no baking, just some some mixing and cooling. First, you make the crust out of graham crackers crumbs and a little margarine. (Or you could skip this and buy a ready-made.) Jessica suggests you use low fat graham crackers, but I had the regular ones handy.

Next, make the pudding base on the stove. Mix two cups of low-fat milk (again, Jessica is watching your weight and suggests skim, but I used one percent), 1/4 cup of corn starch, 1/3 cup of sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, an egg and one egg white. Stir constantly over medium heat until it thickens. Then, stir in 1/2 cup of yellow squash puree (I used frozen, thawed).

Once you have the base, divide it in half. In one, mix 1/2 cup of peanut and add in three tablespoons of sugar. In the other half, stir in one table of unsweetened cocoa.

Then, pour the chocolate mixture into the crust. Pour the peanut butter mixture into the center of the chocolate pool. The recipe says to chill to for two hours, but I’d do it longer than that.

The completed pie is not gonna win any ribbons: Mine never gelled and basically became a blob on the plate once served. But oh, what a yummy blob! It’s hard to stop eating, it’s so good.

Click here to see the full recipe for Jessica Seinfeld’s peanut butter pie.

Here are some other sneaky vegetable recipes.

Macaroni & Cheese with Cauliflower

I have a small repetoire of pasta dishes I create again and again. Most of those I love because they come close to recreating a pile of perfection I consumed in Italy on a trip long ago.

Well, I am trilled to share with you my new go-to pasta sauce: It’s called Roman Style Spaghetti, but it is basically an Amatriciana — tomato sauce with onion and pancetta (bacon). It’s so insanely simple, and it really does taste as good as the stuff I have had in Piazza Navona. My only tip would be to buy the best ingredients you can: imported tomatoes, real pancetta, and a good white wine. Here’s my take on this iVillage recipe.

Roman Style Spaghetti or Spaghetti all’Amatriciana

What you need:
1/4 cup of olive oil
a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes
yellow onion, finely chopped
half a pound of pancetta, cut into small bits
1/2 a cup (or slightly more if needed) of a dry white wine
1/2 cup + of romano cheese
a generous toss of red pepper flakes
a pound of spaghetti
salt

How to make:
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan until it is really hot. Toss in chopped onion and cook until translucent, about three or four minutes. Add pancetta and cook until slightly browned, about five minutes. Add white wine and allow it to bubble until the wine boils down, stirring frequently, for about ten minutes. While that is happening, boil water with salt for spaghetti, which you should cook al dente. After the onion-pancetta-wine sauce has thickened a bit, add the can of tomatoes. Flavor with red pepper flakes an salt and let it cook for at least fifteen minutes. If it cooks a little longer than that, it only gets better.

Once the pasta is cooked, return it to the pot and mix in with sauce until well coated. Don’t drown the pasta in the sauce — save what’s extra for the table. Add in the romano cheese. Serve with extra sauce, cheese and red pepper. If you have leftovers, you’re very lucky. It tastes better the next day.

A few of my other favorite pasta recipes:

It’s been a while since we cooked up a bubbling dish of cheesey yumminess. The last time I healthed it up a bit by using whole wheat noodles and cauliflower. I’ve always wanted to try this Jamie Oliver recipe — his “killer” — but the tomatoes have held me back. In my world, there’s tomato sauce or there’s macaroni and cheese, and never the twain shall meet. I finally brushed aside my restrictions and gave this a try. The results, I must say, were pretty killer!

What makes this dish so good is the extra dashes of flavor added to the base. You start with a lot of garlic — ten cloves. Also you’ll need some fresh herbs — Jamie calls for bay leaves and thyme. I didn’t have either so used some oregano and rosemary. A few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and a sprinkle of nutmeg complete the appeal.

I also made this recipe in a cast iron skillet and it worked out quite nicely.

Click here to get Jamie Oliver’s Killer Macaroni and Cheese recipe.

If that doesn’t float your boat, try these from our archives:

Mac & Cheese with Cauliflower

Rachael Ray’s Spicy Macaroni and Cheese

Who hasn’t experienced that unfortunate party conundrum when one is forced to choose between a cocktail and a plate of hors d’oeuvres? My solution is to often to shove any offered food into my mouth so fast, that companions are left wondering why I am just smiling and nodding in silence. These finger food plates from perpetualkid.com attempts to solve the dilemma. The small plates slip onto your finger like a ring, creating a perfectly tiny perch for that little canape to rest while you speak your mind. At $10 for ten of them, I think they are worth buying just to as a conversation starter. (Warning, the fat fingered may be out of luck, they are one size fits all.) Click here for more info.

I had seen the Momofuku cookie mixes at Williams-Sonoma last weekend and the Blueberry-Cream one caught my eye. But I wasn’t about to spend $16 on a cookie mix. Nevertheless, the idea of blueberry-cream cookies stayed with me. I started to fantasize about adding white chocolate, too. So a few days later I decided to make them from scratch.

I wanted to make the dough slightly healthier than normal chocolate chip cookie dough, so I Googled until I came up with this recipe for yogurt-based cookie dough.

I thought the tang of the yogurt would offset the sweetness of the white chocolate. Normally you would pair cranberries with white chocolate because they are naturally tangy, whereas I was using dried blueberries are quite sweet, which are quite sweet.

I altered the recipe a bit: Instead of using 3/4 cup all-purpose flour and 1 cup white whole wheat flour, I used 1 1/2 cups while whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup wheat germ. I used full fat Greek yogurt (it’s what I had on hand) and I omitted the semi-sweet chocolate chips, since I planned to add white chocolate chips.

The overall result was good! Yogurt makes the consistency more cake-like, but it really does add make a nice trifecta with the blueberries and white chocolate. Next time I’ll probably use more all-purpose flour instead of all whole-wheat. The taste of the whole-wheat flour comes through a bit too much.

Thanks Jenn. These are great, but we might just have to splurge one day on those Milk Bar cookies — just to do a taste test!