For all the bridle recommendations—recipes
Thanks everyone for the bridle recommendations. Tack buying is on hold temporarily, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it if it happens.
I did promise recipes, though, and here they are.
Killer White-Sauce Lasagna
Ingredients:
- A box of lasagna noodles.
- A couple chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces.
- Mushrooms.
- Onions.
- Peppers—green, red, orange, yellow, whatever you like.
- Two jars of white sauce.
- 15 oz. ricotta cheese.
- 4 cups mozzarella.
- 1/2 cup parmesan.
- 2 eggs
- Parsley
Chop up the mushrooms, onions, and peppers. Set the peppers aside; you won’t precook them. Cook the onions and set them aside in the same dish as the peppers. Use the same pan to cook the mushrooms, then add them to the same dish as the peppers/onions. Cook the chicken in the same pan—it’ll pick up flavoring from the onions and mushrooms, but I also tend to spice liberally with cajun seasoning. If you are uber talented, you could cook the mushrooms, onions, and chicken together. I am not that talented. Add the chicken to the veggie bowl and set aside.
In another bowl, mix the ricotta, parmesan, 2 cups mozzarella, and eggs.
Put about a half jar of the white sauce in the bottom of your pan and add a layer of noodles. Now add 1/3 the cheese mix, 1/3 the chicken and veggie mix, 1/3 jar of sauce, and some mozzarella. Repeat the noodles + stuff layering two more times. Be reasonable about how much chicken/veggie mix you add to each layer—this is chunkier than normal lasagna and will make the whole thing thicker. Add your last layer of noodles, pour the remaining sauce (should be half a jar), and toss on the remaining mozzarella.
Sprinkle with parsley, because parsley is green and makes this “healthy.”
Cover in foil and bake at 375 for about an hour, then remove foil and bake until the cheese browns.
This is clog-your-arteries cheesy, but very, very good.
Funny Cake
This makes four cakes. You will have no problem giving the extra ones away.
First the chocolate sauce:
- 4 squares unsweetened chocolate.
- 2 cups water
- 2 2/3 cups sugar
- 1 cup butter. Real, actual butter. Oil-based spreads/margarines taste awful.
- 4 tsp vanilla (or other flavoring of choice. Personally, I use rum)
Place chocolate and water in a saucepan and melt the chocolate. I’ve never used a double boiler, although I hear they make life easier. Don’t burn the chocolate! Add the sugar and bring it to a boil. Bring it up slowly and stir constantly. Again, don’t burn it. Once it boils, remove from the heat and add the butter and vanilla. Stir until the butter is melted. Set aside to cool.
Now the cakes:
- Four pie tins lined with dough. I use frozen, but feel free to make your own dough if you’re so inclined.
- 5 cups flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup shortening
- Chopped nuts. Walnuts are good. Pecans are excellent.
- 2 cups milk
- 4 tsp vanilla
- 4 eggs
Sift dry ingredients together and then mix in shortening, milk, and vanilla. The batter will be pretty thick at this point, but you want to get the shortening distributed. Then add the eggs and mix again long enough to get a general cake-like consistency. Pour the batter into the four tins.
Add sauce to the four pies. Do NOT use all the sauce; it’ll boil over. Add enough to cover the batter. Sprinkle nuts on top.
Bake 50-55 min at 350. Every so often check and add more sauce. Again—don’t add too much at once, or it boils over. You may not use all the sauce; whatever is left makes a great ice-cream topping. The cakes are done when a toothpick comes out clean.