Blue Cayenne

Last night, a group of old friends and I got together at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts to see the Carole King musical Beautiful.

It was a snap-your-fingers kind of show, one that made you laugh out loud and sing along. The audience was large, appreciative and, for the most part, of-a-certain age.

And there we sat, six good friends enjoying each other’s company. Most of us taught high school together for decades–seeing each other daily and unified in our commitment to give our students the best we had on any given day.

These days, we’re sure to make time to enjoy each other’s company. We get together for the theatre. We take in an occasional movie. We share events in each other’s lives over lunch.  As good friends do, we also support each other when life throws us those inevitable curves and the going gets tough.

This morning, when I think of my friends Carol, Carole, Murnez, Michelle and Debbie, the final lines in one of Carole King’s classic songs come to mind:

“Ain’t it good to know, ain’t it good to know, ain’t it good to know/You’ve got a friend/You’ve got a friend”

Ain’t it, indeed?

Here’s the food part of this post. In the spirit of the 70s when King’s solo career began to soar, what could be more appropriate than a casserole dish? Remember all those casserole pot-lucks?

Here is a recipe for a pretty wonderful cheese enchilada casserole. I hope you will share it with your friends.

This recipe was adapted from a Ree Drummond recipe. A link to the original recipe appears at the end of this post.

Ingredients: Cheese Enchiladas

1 C. sour cream (at room temperature)
1/4 t. ground cumin
1/8 t. cayenne pepper
2-3 green onions (sliced)
3 C. grated sharp cheddar cheese
10 corn tortillas
Enchilada Sauce (see recipe in the Blue Cayenne index at the right or by clicking on this link

As American as enchilada sauce…

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

Spoon a few tablespoons of the enchilada sauce into a baking pan.

In a medium bowl, combine sour cream, cumin, cayenne pepper, green onions and 2 cups of grated cheese. Set aside.

Heat corn tortillas (on a grill or in the microwave). Dip each tortilla in the enchilada sauce. Lay the tortilla on a plate and fill the tortilla with a strip of the cheese filling. Roll the tortilla and put it seam side down in a large casserole dish. Repeat until you’ve used up all your tortillas and all your filling.

Cover the enchiladas with remaining cup of grated cheese and bake in the 375 degree F. oven until the enchiladas are hot and bubbling, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let enchiladas sit for a few minutes.

Garnish with chopped avocado, sliced black olives, sour cream, chopped onions and/or additional grated cheese.

Here is a link to the original Ree Drummond recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/cheese-enchiladas.html

I have a brunch coming up next week and I’ve been experimenting with breakfast stratas (Is that the correct plural for strata? My spell checker is being a little edgy about the “s”.)

There are, I’m finding, a lot of mediocre strata recipes out there, particularly if you plan to skip sausage as an ingredient. I tried one that had high praise from many many many reviewers and it was just plain mushy–even with day-old bread. Awful. So, then, I tried another recipe. Meh.

Then…there is was. Spinach and cheese strata based upon a old Gourmet Magazine recipe. (The loss of Gourmet Magazine was a category 5 catastrophe for cooks in my opinion.)

What is so good about this recipe? The mix of gruyere and parmigiano-reggiano is a perfect blend, (Costco has a good gruyere at a reasonable price that I used for this recipe.) The egg custard flavored with a bit of Dijon has a good texture and just the right amount of bite. The spinach and onion give the dish just the right mellow savory taste.

Perfection!

Cook’s Note:  I’ve made this several more times since posting this recipe and find that the amount of custard you need to use is quite variable depending upon the denseness of bread you use. In my last strata, I held out a good cup and a quarter of the egg custard mix. I would recommend that you pour the custard slowly over the bread/cheese/spinach base but stop short of using the whole amount. To my taste, you don’t want to have the mixture awash in liquid.

Ingredients: Spinach and Cheese Strata
1 ten ounce bag chopped frozen spinach (thawed and water squeezed out)
3 T. unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion (chopped)
6 ounces coarsely grated Gruyere
8 C.  (1/2 pound) Italian sandwich bread (cut into 1-inch cubes) I used Trader Joe’s Tuscan Pane bread and dried it out in the oven at 200 degrees for a half an hour before using it. This might not be a necessary step if you are using day-old bread.
2 ounces finely-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
9 large eggs
2 3/4 C. half-and-half (or milk)
2 T. Dijon mustard
1  t. salt
1/2  t. black pepper
1/4 t. freshly- grated nutmeg

Directions:
Thaw spinach and squeeze as much of the liquid out of the spinach as you can. Set aside.

Melt butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add chopped onion and sauté for about 5 minutes until onion is soft and translucent. Stir onion frequently to keep it from burning. Add 1/2 t. salt, 1/4 t. pepper and nutmeg.  Add the chopped spinach, stir and remove mixture from heat.

In a 3-quart buttered baking dish, spread one third of the bread cubes evenly over the dish. Spread one third of the spinach/onion mixture over the bread cubes and then sprinkle one third of each of the cheeses over the top of the spinach. Repeat this layering twice, ending with grated cheese.

Whisk eggs in a large bowl. Add half-and-half (or milk), mustard, and remaining salt and black pepper. Whisk the mixture until it is well-combined. Pour this egg custard mixture over the strata, distributing the custard as evenly as possible.

Cover strata with saran wrap and press down on the mixture to be sure the egg custard is evenly distributed and covers the bread. Refrigerate overnight. Remove from refrigerator 1/2 hour before baking.

In a preheated 350 degree F. oven, bake the strata (uncovered) until it is puffed, set and a light golden brown all over the top. This will take 45 to 55 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let the strata stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Here is the link to the original recipe from Gourmet Magazine:

http://www.epicurious.com/search/spinach%20and%20cheese%20strata?search=spinach+and+cheese+strata

Sorry not to have posted for a couple of weeks. My beloved dog, Juliet, has been sick and I’ve been worried sick about her. When I’m “worried sick,” I eat Rosarita refried beans right out of the can. It is my comfort/junk food.

She is feeling better. Me, too, and I’m beginning to feel like cooking again.

Here is a photo of my beautiful brown-eyed girl catching a well-deserved nap.

On the subject of cooking, here is a link to an interesting post about choosing knives. If you don’t know a tang from a Santoku, you might want to read on.

Years ago, I bought my first serious set of knives, Wusthofs, at the now defunct Fedco store (Anyone else wistfully remember that store?). I think my actual first set of knives probably came straight out of Pic’n’ Save.

I just checked the knife block in my kitchen and most of those original Wusthofs are still in use. Maybe it is time to upgrade. After all, those sublimely-balanced Santoku knives advertised by the big cooking stores are as beautiful as a piece of kitchen art. On the other hand, my Wusthofs are like old friends–comfortable and reliable, if not quite as sharp as they used to be. (I hope my old friends will forgive me. The knife joke was just too good to pass up.)

If you do decide to upgrade your knife collection, most cooking stores now carry a dazzling array of expensive and beautiful knives–knives far too costly to risk making an uninformed choice. That G-Fusion Santoku knife pictured in the Tribune article, for example, retails for $319 and Williams Sonoma is advertising a ten-piece Michel Bras knife set with blades coated in titanium for $3080. (If I remember correctly, my family’s 1963 VW cost about $1900 new off the lot.)

Who would ever have imagined paying that much for knives?

How to buy a knife from Chicago Tribune