In the span of one week, it has gone from almost unbearably hot and humid here in Minneapolis to shockingly breezy and brisk. Sleeping with windows open, ceiling fan whirring, covers thrown off has become windows closed, comforter tucked to chin. Ice coffee has become hot coffee; breakfast has gone from avocado mashed on toast with salt to hot cereal with maple syrup. Cotton dresses, made for lounging, have become fuzzy blazers, made for TA’ing. Thoughts of the beach have become thoughts of apple picking, and thoughts of cross country skiing beyond that. Change is afoot.

But maybe it is not quite so autumnal where you are, or maybe you at least have a little summer corn still making its way to the market. Because I can think of no better way to bid summer a fond farewell than with this corn pesto, a dish that simply tastes like summer.

I’ve been thinking about this pesto since I got my August Bon Appétit in the mail a month or more ago. Corn pesto! What an idea. It somehow has all the creaminess of carbonara with considerably less of the unhealthiness. Other than prepping the corn, there’s almost no serious laboring here, and you should be expert at taking corn off the cob at this point in the summer anyway. And other than the pine nuts, nothing here is costly; and, at that, you only need about $3 of pine nuts, if you can buy them from a bulk aisle and scoop just the amount you need.

While I do strongly encourage that you use pine nuts here to keep the corn flavor front and center (rather than the walnuts I’ve taken to using in basil pesto), the bacon is probably optional. A shocking thing to hear me say, I know. Bacon, optional? But really, here I think it might be overkill, at least as the garnish on top. Cooking the corn in bacon fat probably does add some flavah, but if you are vegetarian you shouldn’t miss out just because of that. Or vegan, for that matter, as I think this could still be quite delish without the Parmesan.

The point is, eat this. Eat this now, before it’s too late, and summer is again just a memory.

Fettuccine with Corn Pesto

About 4 main course servings (I found that this made way more pesto than needed for this amount of pasta; you could either make more pasta or tuck the excess pesto away in the fridge or freezer)

From Bon Appétit

Ingredients

- 4 bacon slices, cut lengthwise in half, then crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces

- 4 cups fresh corn kernels (cut from about 6 large ears)

- 1 large garlic clove, minced

- 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

- 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

- 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese plus additional for serving

- 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

- 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

- 8 ounces tagliatelle or fettuccine

- 3/4 cup coarsely torn fresh basil leaves, divided

1. Cook bacon in large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp and brown, stirring often. Using slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels to drain. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon drippings from skillet.
2. Add corn, garlic, 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper to drippings in skillet. Sauté over medium-high heat until corn is just tender but not brown, about 4 minutes. Transfer 1 1/2 cups corn kernels to small bowl and reserve. Scrape remaining corn mixture into processor.
3. Add 1/2 cup Parmesan and pine nuts. With machine running, add olive oil through feed tube and blend until pesto is almost smooth. Set pesto aside.
4. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain, reserving 1 1/2 cups pasta cooking liquid.
5. Return pasta to pot. Add corn pesto, reserved corn kernels, and 1/2 cup basil leaves. Toss pasta mixture over medium heat until warmed through, adding reserved pasta cooking liquid by 1/4 cupfuls to thin to desired consistency, 2 to 3 minutes. Season pasta to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Transfer pasta to large shallow bowl. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup basil leaves and reserved bacon. Serve pasta, passing additional grated Parmesan alongside.

I also love beets. They’re an odd, brightly colored, and healthy vegetable, and I will eat them just about any which way. So the odds were very good that I was going to love this dish, which is an appetizer involving beets. Yes, please.

The cooking time here is long, but nearly all of it is totally hands off. The main step in cooking is “throw everything in a food processor,” and you don’t exactly need to be Jean-Georges to pull this one off. So take the plunge and start making some appetizers at home if you don’t already. This spread is the perfect place to start: The experimenting has already been done for you, and I can promise good results.

Despite how much I love appetizers, I seldom make them. Food Junta is targeted toward busy people, because Claire and I are busy people. I love cooking a meal at home, but not so much that I want to spend 100% of my free time doing it. As a result, I tend toward one course meals supplemented with a vegetable or a salad or maybe both. “Whipping up some quick crostini” isn’t really a thought that crosses my mind at 6 pm on a Tuesday when I already have the rest of a meal to cook.

But I’m trying to do more appetizing in the kitchen, and there are some aspects of appetizers that are making this easier: They generally require fewer ingredients, fewer steps, and less (or even no) cooking. They frequently can be prepared completely or almost completely ahead of time. Finally – and somewhat counter-intuitively – I’ve actually found they make cooking dinner for other people to be a lot easier. But wait, you say, how can cooking more food make cooking easier?

Here’s how: No matter how carefully I plan, I always take longer getting a meal on the table for guests than I anticipate because I fail to factor in the time it takes me to welcome people, get them settled, fix them a drink, etc. This leaves me feeling rushed and anxious to get food out to my hungry guests. Not that my dinner guests have ever been impatient, but I think anyone who has ever hosted a dinner party knows exactly the feeling I mean. But, throw an appetizer or two in front of these people, and you can buy yourself all the time you need. By giving them something to nosh on, you can assuage your guilt about leaving them hanging and also – as is desperately needed with some guests – keep them out of the kitchen and out of your way.

“Here’s some beet spread, folks. Go wild, and I’ll see you in 20 minutes.”

Roasted Beet Spread
Adapted from the Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook

3 medium beets (1 cup roasted)
1 medium red pepper (1/2 cup roasted)
1 medium red onion (1/2 cup roasted)
Salt and pepper

1. Roast the peppers over the flame of a gas burner, on a hot grill, or under the broiler, until the skin is black and charred. (The more you char, the easier the skin will be to remove.) Remove from the heat and place in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit until cool enough to handle, about 15 to 20 minutes. With clean paper towels, wipe off the skin. Remove the stems and seeds and discard. If necessary, briefly rinse under cold water to remove any remaining charred skin. Slice or chop.

2. Rinse beets to remove loose dirt. Roast them whole and unpeeled in a 400 degree oven for about 90 minutes, or until you can pierce them through the middle easily with a butter knife. I wrap mine in aluminum foil and place them in a baking sheet, as beets tend to let off a fair amount of liquid and beet juice is a beetch to clean up. Let them cool, cut the tops off, and then the skins should be easy to remove with your fingers. Finally give them a rough chop, just small enough to go into the food processor.

3. After you start the beets in the oven, slice the onion, toss with a tablespoon of olive oil, place on a baking sheet or dish, and put in the oven with the beets. Cook until very soft. Cooking time will vary a lot depending on the oven, but mine took about an hour.

4. Combine beets, red pepper, and red onion in food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste. Process. If mixture is too think, add some olive oil. Taste and adjust seasoning. Chill. (The dip is good warm, but I think its better cold.)

5. Serve with warm pita.

Hunh?

Don’t ask questions. Just drink it. It’s delicious and that’s all you need to know, except how to make it. That’ll come after the jump.

(A quick aside: For those of you carefully examining every picture on this blog, you may notice that you’ve never seen these coutertops before. That’s because they are from the huge (for NYC) and beautiful kitchen in my new apartment in Long Island City. I wish I had taken a picture of the horrible postage stamp that was my kitchen for the last four years so I could really show you the contrast, but I didn’t. So just take my word for it, the new kitchen is a huge improvement. I am a very happy camper.)

This tasty beverage has three ingredients: Vanilla frozen yogurt, orange juice, and wheat germ. Yes, wheat germ:

The smoothie is good without it, but I’ve done the taste test, and it’s better with. It adds a certain kind of substance to the beverage that really works. I first saw this holy trinity on a diner menu, but I never would have tried it without a friend’s recommendation. I am now a complete convert. Wheat germ is great. Who knew?

You do now, so you’re out of excuses. Get to the grocery store. It’s smoothie season in America. Don’t get left behind.

Why is summer so great? Days spent lounging by the lake, long bike rides, fish tacos, homemade strawberry jam. All true. And you know what else? Everything just tastes so good! And it is now, I think, in these dog days of summer when everything starts tasting best. Juiciest, freshest, ripest. And so it is now, when recipes come unbidden, floating into my head.

This recipe, my most recent frolic, is really something. I think that about everything I post here, of course, but this one really knocked my socks off. When I first thought it up, I had a feeling it would be pretty great. Upon first bite, I realized I had been wrong; it was spectacular. Broiled peaches, with slightly blackened skin brought a jolt of flavor that goes straight down to your toes; complemented by creamy mozzarella, the crisp bite of red onion, and earthy, sophisticated basil. Don’t think of this as a replacement for the traditional tomato caprese; think of it as another dish entirely, with its own set of satisfactions.

I broiled the peaches because they had been sitting around just a little too long, and were no longer looking perfectly appetizing raw. Remembering talk about grilled peaches, I them in the broiler for a few minutes per side and, voila, salvaged. Not only salvaged, but perhaps enhanced. They became unbelievably sweet, unbelievably juicy, unbelievably the essence of peach.

They may actually have become a little too sweet, or, more specifically, too sweet to eat an entire bowl of, as was my original plan, back when I thought I’d be using raw peaches. Instead, I ended up toasting some slices of baguette and eating the whole thing as if it were an hors d’oeuvre. That might be the best way to go, but it is a messy way, indeed, so think plates, or at least big, absorbent napkins. Or maybe think, something that I will gobble up all on my own, in the privacy of my own home, where no one can see the mess I make.

Peach “Caprese” Salad

Makes 1 small bowl-full (for 1 for lunch, or maybe 5 baguette slices worth of topping)

Ingredients (proportions here are rough, and up to your whims)

- 2 peaches, cut into chunks/slices

- 1/2 ball of mozzarella, cut into cubes

- 1/2 red onion, sliced thin

- 1/8 cup basil leaves, roughly chopped

- red wine vinegar

- Balsamic vinegar

- salt and pepper, to taste

1. Preheat broiler. Cover broiler pan with foil; place peach chunks on foil. Broil for about 5 minutes (until skin starting to brown/char); flip over; broil for about another 5 minutes. Remove from broiler. Let cool (5-10 minutes).

2. When cool enough to handle, combine with other ingredients. Splash red wine vinegar over everything, with a dash of Balsamic (this may be sacrilege, but it was just what I wanted — a little tart, a little sweet — and it was great). Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with toasted baguette slices.

Prompted by a more ambitious friend, I finally dragged out my ice cream maker, which has been languishing in neglect for about two years now. It was schlepped from Berkeley to Brooklyn and back again, and then out here, with no use until now. Let this be a lesson: keep your appliances within easy reach, and you will use them more.

What was the occasion for the ice cream maker’s re-entry into cooking society? A terribly intriguing fennel ice cream that has been blowing up the blogosphere (Orangette was the immediate inspiration, but, of course, it all eventually goes back to Smitten Kitchen). I’d actually had fennel ice cream before (studded with candied fennel, to boot!) at my home away from home, Ici, so the absolute exquisiteness of the flavor wasn’t altogether a shock. The fact that it was so (relatively) easy to make at home, however, was.

Homemade ice cream is an intimidating animal, involving custard and churning and, in this case, crushing fennel seeds. But it turns out to be not terribly hard at all, if a little time-consuming (though I have a feeling that after this first round, things will go quicker in the future). After all, the ice cream maker is doing most of the work, you are just reaping the benefits.

The benefits here are many. The first and most obvious being that you get to pick your flavor, which can be anything your heart desires and your head can come up with. My former roommate always fantasized about a black pepper – peach ice cream. Someday. The second and less obvious, but perhaps even greater, benefit is one of those murky foodie words that gets tossed around a fair amount but rarely pinned down: mouthfeel. Literally, how the food feels in your mouth. There are few foods that I have encountered that could sum up this idea better than homemade ice cream. It simply feels thicker, richer, creamier, meltier, not just than Ben and Jerry’s, but also more than even my beloved Ici and other schmancy ice cream stores like it.

As with all things, you simply can’t beat making your own and eating it fresh, even, as it turns out, with something that is meant to be frozen. Though I would be surprised if this managed to survive uneaten for very long in your freezer.

Fennel Ice Cream

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, from Gourmet, brought to my attention by Orangette

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients

- 1 2/3 cups heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons fennel seeds, crushed (we used the back of a mallet thing in a bowl – I am confident you can rig something up even if you don’t have a mortar and pestle)
- 1 cup whole milk
- 3/4 cup sugar, divided
- 4 large egg yolks

1. Bring cream and fennel seeds just to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan, then cover and let steep about 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, bring milk, 1/2 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt to a simmer in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring.

3. Whisk together yolks and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a large bowl, then add milk mixture in a slow stream, whisking. Return mixture to medium saucepan and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until mixture coats back of spoon and registers 175°F on an instant-read thermometer (do not let boil). If you, like me, don’t have an instant-read thermometer, you can simply do the finger test: streak your finger through the custard on the back of the spoon. If the line you clear stays clear (if the custard doesn’t ooze back to cover it up), then you’re good to go.

4. Immediately strain custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, then quick-chill by setting bowl in the freezer and stirring occasionally until cool, about 15 minutes. (Deb and Gourmet say to strain in a metal bowl that you set in an ice bath, rather than the freezer; not having a metal bowl or more than a cocktail’s worth of ice, I came up with this, which worked fine.)

5. Strain fennel cream through fine-mesh sieve into custard, pressing on solids. Continue to chill in ice bath until custard is very cold, then freeze in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, about 1 hour.

Note: Custard with fennel cream can be chilled, covered, in refrigerator up to 24 hours.

Cravings are such strange things. It hits ninety degrees here in Minneapolis, with about a billion percent humidity, and all I can think about is my desperate desire to eat chicken tikka masala. And, since I am a grad student at loose ends for the summer, I decided to make it myself. And then, I had to wait for it to cool down. And then, when I finally made it, it was glorious.

I know, I know. Chicken tikka masala isn’t even real Indian food. It’s more like British food. Tell the cravings that. But whether you want to consider it Indian or British, this homemade version is much more delicious than any I’ve had at any Indian restaurant — complex rather than cloying, spicy and savory rather than purely sweet, and a rich umber color rather than a borderline neon orange.There isn’t anything much more satisfying than standing over a simmering pot of tomatoes, cream, and spices with a cool breeze coming through the kitchen window. Except maybe when you see the massive quantity of chicken tikka masala you’ve produced, as opposed to the dainty bronze bowl of an entree you get at an actual Indian restaurant. The quantity of food this recipe will make is anything but dainty, let me tell you.

This whole thing took a little less than an hour, including making the rice and spinach and mixing the raita (I already had cucumber pulp, from the cucumber-lime-gin pinch of a few weeks back). More authentic-seeming (or at least more complicated-seeming) recipes than the Pioneer Woman’s (via her friend Pastor Ryan) seem to be had on the internet, but this one didn’t require marinating the chicken overnight. And Pastor Ryan’s version was so delicious, I may never venture into other chicken tikkas.

Also, the chicken was amazing entirely on its own, with the spice and yogurt coating. A preparation that may work its way into my normal routine.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Adapted from the Pioneer Woman

Serves at least 6

Ingredients

-       4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

-       ½ c. plain yogurt

-       2 Tbsp. butter

-       1 ½ c. heavy cream

-       1 – 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

-       1 large onion, chopped

-       4 cloves garlic, pushed through a garlic press or minced

-       fresh ginger (a 2 inch chunk should do), grated or minced

-       cumin

-       ground coriander

-       3 Tbsp. Garam Masala

-       1 Tbsp. sugar

-       Optional heat: 1-2 serrano chiles, sliced horizontally (with or without seeds), cayenne pepper

-       Optional: fresh cilantro, chopped

1. Preheat broiler. Line broiling pan with foil. Season chicken (both sides) with salt, cumin, and coriander. Coat seasoned chicken breasts with plain yogurt (both sides again). Cook chicken in broiler, about 5-7 minutes on each side.
2. Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in a large saucepan. Add onions. When onions are slightly browned, add garlic and ginger, and about 1 Tbsp. of salt. Add Garam Masala. Add chile peppers (or some chile) here, if you want.
3. Add whole can of tomatoes (with juice). Stir immediately to help pull up any bits that are sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add sugar. Let simmer for a few minutes.
4. Add cream. Taste test for spiciness. If you want spicier, add another chile or some cayenne (but be careful!).
5. Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch pieces. Stir them into the sauce.
6. Stir in some cilantro, if you want, reserving some to go on top.
7. Serve on top of rice, with more cilantro sprinkled on top. (And raita alongside, as well as some wilted spinach.)

Basmati Rice with Turmeric and Peas

Adapted from the Pioneer Woman

Serves at least 6

Ingredients

-       2 c. Basmati rice

-       4 Tbsp. butter

-       1 tsp. salt

-       1 Tbsp. ground turmeric (for color)

-       1 bag frozen peas

1. Combine all ingredients except peas with 2 cups of water in a pot. Cook as you would cook rice (I bring it to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer, cover, and don’t touch it til it looks done).
2. When rice is done, stir in the peas (the heat from the rice will cook ‘em right quick).

You don’t need a rainy day or a cold winter’s night as an excuse for cooking something hot and hearty, just a pot and a need for satisfaction. So the next time you feel an itch for a comforting meal, no matter what the thermometer says, you can’t go wrong with chicken and dumplings.

This recipe comes from Martha Stewart’s latest colorful and compendious tome, Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast, which I was flattered to receive a review copy of a a couple of months ago. I’ve enjoyed giving it a test drive, and I promise to share my thoughts on the book as a whole sometime in the next few weeks.  In the meantime, I can give this recipe my unqualified endorsement.

No major changes to the original recipe this time, but I did make a few small substitutions. Although I passionately love dill pickles, I’m not a big fan of dill in other contexts. So I skipped it entirely here and used more thyme in its place. I also used baby carrots, which I had on hand, don’t require peeling or washing, and are a nice size for stew. Finally I had boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the fridge, so I used those instead of thighs. Thighs are moister than breasts (wow that sounds dirty), but since you are braising the meat in liquid, that’s not a big concern. If you or your eating companion(s) are vegetarian, I think you could use vegetable broth and skip the meat and still wind up with a tasty dish. You could also try adding an additional vegetable, such as potatoes or corn.

The first night I prepared this dish, we ate all of the dumplings, but still had plenty of soup left; so later in the week, I reheated the remainder on the stove, added some more liquid (broth or water are both fine), and made a fresh batch of dumplings. I was pretty loosey-goosey with the measurements for the dumpling ingredients both times, but both batches turned out great, so you can rest assured that the ratio there is pretty forgiving.

So weather be damned. Go wild. No matter how hot it is, you can always make some dumplings for your dumplin’.

Chicken and Dumplings

3 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 onion, cut into 1 inch pieces
5 carrots, sliced into 1.5 inch thick pieces
1 Tbs. coarsely chopped fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp. dried)
1 C All-purpose flour
1 can (14.5 oz.) low-sodium chicken broth
salt and pepper
1.5 lbs. boneless, skinless, chicken thighs, cut into two inch pieces
2 Tbs. coarsely chopped dill (or 3/4 tsp. dried)
1.75 tsp. baking powder
1/2 C milk, plus more if needed
1 package (10 oz.) frozen peas, unthawed

1. In a dutch oven or heavy 5 qt. pot with a lid, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion, carrots and thyme. Cover; cook, stirring occasionally, until onion softens, about 5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup flour; cook, stirring, about 30 seconds. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil, stirring constantly; season with salt and pepper. Nestle chicken in pot; reduce heat to medium-low. Cover; cook, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, make dumplings: Whisk remaining 3/4 flour with the dill, baking powder, and 1/2 tsp. salt. With a fork, gradually stir in 1/2 cup milk to form a moist and soft batter. (It should be just a little thicker than pancake batter and easily drop from the tip of a spoon; add up to 2 Tbs. more milk if batter is too thick.)

3. Stir peas into pot. Return to a simmer, and drop batter in heaping tablespoonfuls, leaving space between (dumplings will swell as they cook). Cover, and simmer until chicken is tender and dumplings are firm, 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Just in time for Memorial Day, an original knock-yo-socks off punch. This combo has been percolating in my brain for some time now — I think I had my first cucumber drink at Little Branch in December 2006. Since then, I’ve seen cucumber showing up in more and more drinks, but still not nearly enough for my liking. For me, cucumber juice is the perfect mixer (at least when it comes to gin, but aren’t you drinking your bourbon on the rocks anyway?). It cuts the alcohol, as a mixer is supposed to do, but in a complementary, rather than cloying, way. It’s a hint of crispness that really nicely sets off the slight herbiness of the gin. And it turns your drink a magnificent green!

If I were just making cocktails for a few friends, I would peel and slice a cucumber, muddle it with a little fresh lime juice and some sugar (and maybe some basil?!) and then stir the whole thing up with gin (resembling something like a Gordon’s Cup). Next time (and there will be a next time — I have cucumber juice leftover). This time, I was making drinks for a crowd, which meant punch, which meant I quickly realized that a bowlful of gin with a little cucumber juice was not such a good idea. Enter limeade, my next favorite mixer (a good one for vodka, too). Cheap, dilute, sweet, tangy. Great.

The ingredients here are of the make-your-life-easier variety: MinuteMaid limeade, presqueezed lime juice. With one notable exception: the cucumber juice itself. But until supermarkets catch up to mixologists, we at-home mixologists are just going to have to listen to some This American Life, and peel and food process and strain our own cucumbers. Try to do it the night before to avoid undue stress, and it’s not so bad.

From my cocktail glass (mason jar) to yours….(now might be a good time to mention that the party liked this drink so much they named it “the Claire.” aw, shucks.)

Cucumber-Lime-Gin Punch (“the Claire”)

Ingredients

- gin (I used Booth’s)

- limeade (I used MinuteMaid Light)

- lime juice (I used the presqueezed kind that comes in the lime-shaped bottle, but you can squeeze your own if you’re a purist/masochist)

- sugar

- cucumbers*

Proportions for one bowl of punch are roughly:

.75L gin + 1 carton MinuteMaid limeade + 1 bottle lime juice + 1/2 cup to 1 cup sugar (to taste) + juice from 5 cucumbers. Add ice to punch bowl and to glasses (this baby is strong).

* To make cucumber juice:

1. Peel cucumbers.

2. Slice cucumbers.

3. Put as many slices of cucumber as you can fit in your food processor (I fit about 2 cucumbers’ worth). Process until the pulp is whizzing around freely (about 2 minutes).

4. Pour pureed cucumber into a strainer set over a large bowl. Stir to force liquid through. Ta-da.

N.B. You can save the cucumber pulp and mix it with yogurt for a very saucy kind of raita.

I don’t have a deep fryer, and frying at home is an activity that I generally try to avoid for reasons of both health and safety. But I’ve been meaning to try one of these “oven-fried” recipes that I see all over the place for a while now. So last week I dipped some chicken breast strips in egg and bread crumbs and tossed them in the oven. I was expecting the result to be pretty underwhelming, but instead I was blown away. The fingers were crispy, juicy, and delicious, and this recipe has achieved “staple” status in my kitchen after just one try. It’s that good.

Sometimes I can tell a dish is going to be great while I’m cooking it. This was definitely not one of those.

I was afraid that the chicken would be dry and tasteless and that the crust would be soggy and bland. When the fingers were in the oven, the crust didn’t seem to be browning as much as it should, and I didn’t have high hopes for the final result. But in the end the chicken was amazing. I won’t say that it tasted just like fried fingers – that would be madness – but I might venture that they were just as good. They didn’t taste like fryer oil, but they were just as crispy on the outside and just as juicy on the inside.

The recipe is a cinch:

1. Take boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Trim off any particularly fatty or gristly-looking bits. Cover in saran wrap and pound the meat out with a meat tenderizer. If you don’t have a meat tenderizer – I don’t – improvise. Believe it or not, a regular hammer will do just fine. Cut chicken into strips of roughly equal thickness.

2. In a small bowl, lightly beat two eggs.

3. In a large bowl, season a crust of your choosing. I used panko with oregano and some seasoning salt, but I’d urge you to experiment. (As stated above, this is my first experiment with this recipe, so I make no guarantees about other kinds of bread crumbs. It may be that panko is the right choice here.)

4. Dip chicken strips in the egg mix and then in the bread crumbs, and then place them on a foil-covered baking sheet.

5. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through.

6. Eat, recalling childhood memories if desired.

Ina Garten (the eponymous Contessa) described pastitsio as a Greek version of lasagna. I guess I think of the stratified layers of lasagna as a definitive characteristic, so I’d say it’s more of a Greek baked ziti. Or even a Greek Hamburger Helper.

Pasta shells are baked in a spice-laden lamb and beef ragu covered with a layer of bechamel and parmigian.  The result is a savory, creamy, piquant casserole that would be just as delicious no matter what it’s a Greek version of.

For once, I actually followed the recipe as written. Shocking right? The only deviation was the fresh thyme, which I did not have and so didn’t include. Ina doesn’t specify, so I used nonfat greek yogurt because there was so much fat everywhere else in this dish.  It still came out great.

This was the most successful bechamel I’ve ever made. The trick, I believe is making sure the milk/cream is hot before adding it to the flour and butter. Then just whisk vigorously and make sure the heat doesn’t get too high. Definitely give the bechamel time to cool before adding the eggs or else you’ll wind up with scrambled egg bechamel.

Pastitsio
from Ina Garten

Ingredients

*3/4 pound small shells

For the Tomato Meat Sauce:

* 3 tablespoons good olive oil
* 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion (1 large)
* 1 pound lean ground beef
* 1 pound lean ground lamb

* 1/2 cup dry red wine
* 1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 large cloves)
* 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
* Pinch of cayenne pepper
* 1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes in puree
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the Bechamel:

* 1 1/2 cups whole milk
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

* 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan or Kasseri cheese
* 2 extra-large eggs, beaten
* 2/3 cup Greek-style yogurt, such as Fage Total

Directions

For the sauce, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large pot. Add the onion and saute for 5 minutes. Add the beef and lamb, and saute over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until it’s no longer pink, crumbling it with the back of wooden spoon. Drain off any excess liquid, add the wine, and cook for 2 more minutes. Add the garlic, cinnamon, oregano, thyme, and cayenne, and continue cooking over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 40 to 45 minutes. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the bechamel, heat the milk and cream together in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until simmering. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly for 2 minutes. Pour the warm milk and cream mixture into the butter and flour mixture, whisking constantly. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes, until smooth and thick. Add the nutmeg, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Stir in 3/4 cup of Parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup of the tomato and meat sauce, and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Stir in the eggs and yogurt and set aside.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water until al dente. Don’t over-cook because the pasta will later be baked. Drain and set aside.

Add the pasta to the meat and tomato sauce, and pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Spread the bechamel evenly to cover the pasta and sprinkle with the remaining 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 1 hour, until golden brown and bubbly. Set aside for 10 minutes and serve hot.