Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Summer squash Italian

AFTER THE OPERATION JULY 2016

Elizabeth is on a bit of restricted diet.  No vitamin K.

So, I sliced yellow summer squash using the mandolin and lined a sprayed  oven pan bottom with the slices. 
I covered that using a tomato sauce I made the other day with no garlic, in fact no spices.

I thought I had mozzarella but it was too old.  I covered the sauce in the romano I grated yesterday and slices of the Seriously sharp cheddar that is our cheese of choice.  I actually thought the romano cheddar blend was a better taste.

I violated my carb free diet by topping the thing with bread crumbs.  I avoided the commercial variety and toasted and cubed some left over bagels, then I rolled that in melter butter.

I baked the basic dish on 350 for forty five minutes.  I did not want to up the heat and burn any squash.  I topped it with the bread crumbs, and then put it in the broiler for a few minutes to brown the top and the cheese a bit.
When I ate mine, I added garlic salt and oregano at the table. 

Elizabeth wanted some hamburger in it, so I made some and served it separately and that worked.  I could have it without hamburger and she could add the meat.  I tried both.  The hamburger did taste good.

In spite of mixing in a can of tomato paste in the sauce yesterday, it was still pretty thin so it was nice to have the bread cubes to absorb some of that.  I only crumbed half, but in the end that was the popular half. 
Elizabeth liked it.  Success!

I liked it too much.  Three helpings.

At cleanup I was glad to use the oblong Corningware cooking pan.  Unlike those glass oven dishes,  nothing much stuck to this one.

SEPTEMBER 9 2016

Although Elizabeth is recovered and can have spice, I kept this one mild.  I did use parsley.
I took two cans of tomato sauce to one can of paste and reduced all of it in the slow cooker on "sauce" setting, but the bottom burned so not to do that again.  I'll add in some sliced Roma tomatoes.  I used eggplant sliced thin on the mandolin and in two layers.

This time:
sprayed canola oil.
one layer of eggplant
ricotta and small chunks of cheddar and left over Spanish cheese
another layer of eggplant
a layer of parmesian.  I did not have the fancy romano.  Can't remember the name.
reduced tomato sauce on top.  I reduced in the pressure cooker, but had some burning on the bottom, so not to do that again.
no bread crumbs this time.
eggplant was Charlie Town's.

MARCH 2017 IN FLORIDA

I baked the eggplant by itself for a bit to soften it up.  I thought I had remembered doing that another time, but I could not find any notes.
I started with fresh tomatoes and peppers and onion and cooked them down until they resembled a sauce thick enough.  That took a few hours.  I added oregano, basil, paprika, garlic powder, turmeric and black pepper.

It tasted fine, but underspiced.  I added a bit of Tapa Tio hot sauce to mine, and that made it great.  What was missing was the odd bits of dried up odd cheeses I usually use.  This was all ricotta with a little parmesian, and even that was not very fancy.
Still it satisfied Elizabeth's craving for this dish.  It was good to bake the eggplant a bit first to soften it.

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