Rarebit

So I had a pile of the fondue left from game night​, so the first thing that came to mind was to do a Rarebit, since it's been a while since I've had one.  So I did.  toaste, ground chuck and then some pickled goathorn peppers on mine (not for Shannon).  Simple enough, and an easy prep.

Italian Sausage and Pumpkin Lasagna (based on Northern Italian Pumpkin Lasagna in Pumpkin, a Super food for All Year Round)

I sacrificed another pumpkin​ to food.  So I have made these before and I've thought hey, maybe it'd be a bit better witha bit more flavor in there.  That could just be the person who originally developed the recipe,   So I thought that the Graziano sausage would make a great addition, instead of something a bit more milde (like chicken or turkey sausage).  then in getting cheese out to grate (fresh mozzarella from the Cheese Shop) I realized I had quite a bit of La Quercia Red Rossa prosciutto left, so I figure, hey, why not.

The fat clearly rendered ​to soak into the various layers, that combined with the truly excellent aged Parmesan, made for quite the savory taste.  In thinking further, it may make more sense to render off the fat from the sausage, and then cook the pumpkin and onion in that.  Though that may not render off enough fat.  It really is quite a bit of pumpkin.

Anyways, good recipe, great taste.​  Worth the effort for a fine dinner, but you may want to start early (including prepping the pumpkin the process took about 3 hours).

I only which I would've waited a bit longer before I cut it and took it out of the pan, so it could've solidified a bit more to get a better picture, but it was getting pretty late, and we were both pretty hungry.​

Lamb Chops with Roasted Potatoes​ (Lamb from Crooked Gap)

So there were two things that turned out really well here.  First, I timed it just right, the potatoes and lamb chops were done at the same time.  Second, the lamb chops were mid-rare.  I must confess that I do, from time to time, overcook meat, which is sinful, considering the quality of the product that I get.  But when I cut into it, it was the happy gentle pink on all 4 chops.  Even though two of them were thicker then the other two.  I admit I did just a little help from a thermometer, but even with that, sometimes you get distracted and over cook it. ​

The potatoes are from Grade A Gardens, and I dressed them up with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.​  They turned out great to, soft, but with enough tension left to have a bit of bite left to them.  I was really happy with this meal.

Green Onion Sausage Pizza

Played with the pizza sauce a bit (tried to incorporate some hot red peppers from Cleverly Farms​).  This did not work, the sauce was on the liquid side and ran over on to the pan, messing with the crispness of large portions of the crust.  It still tasted good, but I was just a bit peeved  at myself for not seeing that the sauce was too runny.  I think I didn't add enough tomato paste, but even so.

Spicy Carrot Sandwiches (p26 Food & Wine March 2012) with Classic Hummus (p29 Cook's Country February / March 2012)

These are so good.  I'm gonna make 'em again.​

Slow Chili

​I started the bean soak on Thursday Evening and finished Saturday afternoon.  I'm starting to play with my own spice mixture, and that was pretty fun.  I kind of went of previous versions and figured out how much I had in there, then added that much.  I took better notes, but stil forgot to add a couple of things (tomato paste (thickening agent and savoriness), anchovy paste (savoriness)), So it wasn't where I wanted to be, but getting close.

What brought this about was that I don't want to add more salt then is necessary.  Most chili powders contain salt, so you can't add more without adding salt, plus if you wanted to mass out the quantity and multiply it for a really large batch, you couldn't buy the parts in individual quantities, because you wouldn't know the ratio.​

So in playing, I really wanted to bring out some of the bright and fruitiness from the dried jalapeño ​pepper, but not to much burn (I still have to feed this to my wife).  I ended up with a combination of 9 spices.  I think I'm going to bump of the dried jalapeño a bit, because even though I could detect it, it wasn't as forward as I wanted.

Lots of leftovers, but anytime you start to measure ingredients by the pound, that's to be expected.​