Cleaning Out the Fridge

I obviously don’t write about every single thing I make, (because that would be ridiculous) but unfortunately I don’t always write about the dishes I photograph and plan to write about either. Consequently, there are some dishes have been languishing in the depths of my hard drive for months now, (or more accurately, the shallows, I need a bigger hard drive) and have most likely given up hope of ever making their internet debut. Well fear not tasty dishes, it’s your time to shine!

Million Layer Lasagna: This dish is extremely popular every time I make it, (yes, I’ve made it multiple times and still not managed to write about it). What it is not, however, is a 30 minute meal. This is an all day affair that begins with making fresh pasta and rolling it out whisper thin, (for those of you with pasta machines; all the way down to number 1) and continues with making multiple fillings. This particular lasagna has a roasted red pepper filling, a pesto filling, a cheese filling and a wild mushroom filling. Each one was made into a puree so that it wouldn’t tear any of the delicate pasta layers that were laid on top. I have also made it using a typical beef, veggie and cottage cheese filling, but I made the pasta slightly thicker in that case.

Retro Layered Salad: I’d wanted to make a big layered salad ever since I got my multi-purpose cake dome/punch bowl just so that I could show off my new purchase. This salad was the perfect choice for that. It’s also wonderfully retro and I love it. The recipe comes from the Canadian Living Cookbook from about 20 years ago and I think the best part is the peas. The salad also contains lettuce, tomato, green pepper, red pepper, hard boiled eggs, red onion, mayo, sour cream and cheddar cheese. It sounds like a hodge podge of a salad, but it’s really quite good.

Wild Mushroom Soup: Every so often I venture down the road to visit our mushroom growing friend and return with boxes of various mushrooms from shiitakes to oyster mushrooms to beech and maitakes. After one of these visits, every dish I make contains mushrooms. Sometimes I simply fry them up as a side dish with butter, occasionally I make wild mushroom pierogies and quite often I’ll make this wild cream of mushroom soup. The flavour is rich and earthy and delightful.

Vegetable Quesadillas: This recipe came from a summer issue of Fine Cooking magazine and was served for lunch out on the back deck on a bright and sunny day. Aside from the corn, the veggies and herbs were straight from the garden. It was served with salsa and sour cream on the side.

Stuffed Squash: These squash were absolutely adorable and a perfect vessel for stuffing with virtually anything. Unfortunately, the flavour of the actual squash was not my favourite. I found it to be somewhat bitter. Presentation wise, it scores high, but doesn’t live up to its looks in terms of flavour.

Tea Flower: I found these tea blossoms in Chinatown in Toronto. They’re beautiful, but the problem with them is that you really need a glass teapot in order to show them off. I don’t have a glass teapot so I used a glass coffee press, it wasn’t the same.

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Lasagna + Mushrooms + Quesadillas + Squash + Tea