It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll [...]]]> It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll check out food from some hot Texas chefs and look for clues about the big picture.

Felipe Riccio’s “Rainbow Runner-Mayhaw Ceviche” appetizer at Reef in Houston, is a marvel. It combines two unique ingredients in a sensational dish that neatly sums up the restaurant’s philosophy.

While restaurants in Dallas and San Antonio concentrate on finding local sources for produce and meats, chef Bryan Caswell at Reef in Houston has led the way in expanding the definition of locavore to include local waters. Reef was one of the first restaurants to identify Galveston Bay oysters by specific reef names. Caswell and fishmonger P.J Stoops have helped launch the “Texas trash fish movement” in Houston and Austin.

“Trash fish” refers to underutilized species like sea bream, tripletail, and rainbow runner. These bycatch fish are harvested accidentaly while fisherman are targetting something else; creating demand for them is one key to building a sustainable fishery.

Rainbow runner is a member of the jack family. To make Reef’s rainbow runner ceviche, the flesh of the fish is salt cured and the bones are used to make a fish jus that is reduced with Maderia. The fish is marinated in mayhaw vinegar, which “cooks” the ceviche. The fish is served with blood orange supremes, pickled Gulf sea beans (a kind of seaweed), and pickled mayhaws.

Mayhaws were once gathered wild and turned into the mayhaw jelly sold at East Texas farmstands. The “haw” is the fruit of the hawthorne tree, and May is the season when its ripe, hence “mayhaw.” The traditional East Texas fruit has become rare in the wild and is now grown on a handful of farms including Jackson’s Fruit Farm in the Big Thicket where Reef gets its mayhaws.

Pickled mayhaws, pickled sea beans and candied kumquats are among the jars and jars of things you’ll find in Reef’s refrigerator–the kitchen turns out a steady stream of pickles, vinegars, syrups and preserves made from local produce on a weekly basis.

Riccio has been at Reef for two years now, he became sous chef one year ago. He received his training at HCC’s Culinary Arts program. In his last job, he worked with French chef Frederic Perrier at Aura Restaurant. The French have long been an inspiration when it comes to trash fish–bouillabasse was first concocted by fishermen’s wives as a way to use the varieties of fish that no one wanted to buy.

Felipe Riccio, Bryan Caswell, Adam Saxenian

It ain’t easy. But it can be done. And the results are pretty spectacular.

As you may recall, my first attempt at making fermented pepper sauce began with a trip to the produce terminal on Airline in Houston (also known as the Farmer’s Marketing Association) to find some ripe red peppers from Mexico. [...]]]> It ain’t easy. But it can be done. And the results are pretty spectacular.

As you may recall, my first attempt at making fermented pepper sauce began with a trip to the produce terminal on Airline in Houston (also known as the Farmer’s Marketing Association) to find some ripe red peppers from Mexico. I bought ten pounds of ripe jalapeños, washed them, chopped them, pureed them and put them in a 7.5 liter fermenting crock with about 150 grams of pickling salt sprinkled on each layer. I left the open crock out in the sun for a couple of hours to make sure some wild spores got into the mix.

The crock comes with weights, which are designed to keep the vegetables submerged in the brine. I put this in place, closed up the crock and added water to the channel in the lid to create the fermentation lock. A couple of days later, I peeked inside. The weights had sunk into the wet pepper mash. Alton Brown suggests an interesting method for fermenting kosher pickles. He fills a ziplock baggie with brine and uses the bag to keep the pickles submerged. I tried this method with the pepper mash, but the baggie sank into the mush and the liquids sloshed all around it.

If you don’t keep the vegetable matter under the saltwater, it will mold. With some fermented products, like sauerkraut, it takes a while for the salt to draw out enough water–you really have to push the weights down to keep the cabbage submerged. With my pepper mash, I had the opposite problem. The ripe jalapeños gave off too much water.

The solution was to take all of the wet pepper mash out of the crock and strain it until it was thick enough to hold up a baggie full of water. I strained a total of six cups of pepper brine off of the mash and returned the remaining eight cups of mash to the crock with a water-filled baggie on top. I reserved the six cups of brine in the refrigerator. (Except for the splash or two I put into my tomato juice.) There were lots of bubbles and burbs from the fermenting crock for a few days, then it quieted down. After a week, I opened the crock. The little bits of pepper mash that stuck to the crock above the baggie were covered with white mold. But I could see through the clear baggie that the mash underneath was in perfect condition and bright red.

I divided the fermented pepper mash and reserved brine into two equal batches–four cups of mash and three cups of brine each. For the first batch, I combined the four cups of mash with four cups of vinegar. I used a blend of half Steen’s cane vinegar and half distilled white vinegar.

Next, I strained the mash and vinegar mixture. Then I combined the strained liquid with three cups of the pepper brine to produce my first batch of fermented Louisiana hot sauce. When I compared the end result to Crystal Hot Sauce, I realized that although my sauce tasted great, it wasn’t as thick with pepper pulp as Crystal. I decided this was because the strainer I was using was too fine–I had quite a bit of pepper mash left over.

So I combined the second batch of mash with a half Spanish sherry vinegar, half distilled white vinegar mixture and put it in the crock to age overnight. Then I went to the store and bought a bigger, coarser strainer. The bigger mesh worked a lot better. Nearly all the mash in the second batch went through the strainer. There were a few chunks in the sauce, so I may need to run it through the blender to get it perfectly smooth–but the flavor is remarkable. I added more sherry vinegar, a little at a time, until the sauce tasted just right. My homemade fermented pepper sauce is still much lower in vinegar than commercial brands. I am sure this is because the commercial brands require higher acidity to make them shelf stable. But I am storing my pepper sauce in the refrigerator, so this isn’t a concern.

The flavor of this homemade hot sauce is sublime. The cane and sherry vinegars are much tastier than the white vinegar in the commercial stuff, the peppers are sweeter and hotter, and the salt is just right. It tastes fantastic in a pulled pork sandwich, tomato juice, scrambled eggs, and much more. To quote Edna, the old lady in the Frank’s RedHot commercials, “I put this (bleep) on everything!”

It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll [...]]]> It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll check out food from some hot Texas chefs and look for clues about the big picture.

Chef Matt McAllister

I watched as the salads were assembled by McCallister and his volunteer assistants. You sure can’t call this tweezer food–the chef encouraged his helpers not to waste time arranging things, but rather to put the ingredients randomly around the plate. Carrots, kohlrabi and beets were the roots, the leaves included dinosaur kale, chard and lettuce, dill and other herbs were the stems. The soil was an amazing blend of brown powders including sumac (a Middle Eastern ingredient sometimes used in zaatar), cocoa powder, nuts and spices. Olive oil powder was sprinkled here and there among the vegetables–it turned slippery when you reconstituted it in your mouth.

Windy Hill goat breast with rack, tongue, mousse and farro puree, yogurt, mint, poppy and carrot jam was the meat course. The goat chops were big, juicy and rare. Windy Hill in Austin raises the big meaty Boer-cross goats called “redheads.” The condiments were all very charming, but the most amazing thing on the plate was the “mousse,” a creamy goat liver paste that might be the boldest liver preparation I have ever tasted. McCallister confessed in his remarks after lunch that he had never made goat liver mousse before. I just wished I had a glass of Malbec, or a Russian Imperial Stout to savor with it. The iced tea wasn’t doing it justice.

Dessert was a careening joyride of flavors you would have never thought of combining–caramel popcorn ice cream with Texas cheddar, a reduced sweet soy sauce called kepap manis, and sesame granola. McCallister, who has renounced molecular meddling, now embraces a Dallas version of a rustic seasonal cuisine that seeks to include local and regional influences. It’s a welcome sharpening of focus for a dining scene dysfunctional enough to inspire a departing restaurant critic to write an goodbye titled: “How Dallas became a Dining Nowhereville.”

Matt McCallister helped open Campo Modern Country Bistro in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. “The modern bistro features a seasonal menu inspired by a trip to the City of Buenos Aires and Mendoza region…reflecting French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese influences,” states the restaurant’s website. The biggest gripe McCallister got from customers at Campo was about the size of his portions. In an interview with the Dallas Observer, McCallister responded that Dallas diners need to eat less. McCallister doesn’t work at Campo anymore, and the Dallas Morning News restaurant critic observed that the food has declined in quality since he left.

Matt McAllister’s cooking career began in 2006 with a job at Stephan Pyles in Dallas. After rising quickly through the ranks there, the ink-sporting, self-taught kitchen wiz became executive chef at the molecular-gastronomy lab at Pyles’s Fuego. Before opening Campo, he staged at the one of the foremost molecular restaurants in the country, Alinea in Chicago.

McCallister is slated to open his own restaurant, FT-33 in the fall with chef Brady Williams as his second in command. In the meantime watch for surprise appearances and guest chef gigs. You’ll find news about him on the facebook pages for Chef Matt McCallister and Matthew McCallister.

Thanks to my daughter Julia Walsh for the photos.

My first foray into making Lousiana pepper sauce started with a search for red chiles. Tabasco chiles were introduced to Louisiana in the 1800s and became the favorite chile for bottled pepper sauces. The recipe included the elaborate step of fermenting the ripe red peppers in oak barrels. Pepper pickers carried a stick [...]]]>
My first foray into making Lousiana pepper sauce started with a search for red chiles. Tabasco chiles were introduced to Louisiana in the 1800s and became the favorite chile for bottled pepper sauces. The recipe included the elaborate step of fermenting the ripe red peppers in oak barrels. Pepper pickers carried a stick painted with the shade of red that the peppers needed to reach. The ripeness was important because you need a decent level of sugar to get the fermentation process going.

The chile plants in my garden don’t produce green peppers until the early summer. There aren’t any red peppers until July or so. But luckily for my purposes, chiles grow all year round in southern Mexico. So I took a trip to the Farmer’s Marketing Association on Airline where Mexican produce is trucked in daily. I didn’t find any red Tabasco peppers, but there were red poblanos, red serranos and lots of red jalapeños. I know red japaleños have lots of sugar and I love the flavor, so I decided to use them to make my first fermented pepper sauce. I tasted a couple to check the sugar level–they were sweet and very hot. I bought ten pounds.

After washing the chiles in a couple of changes of water, I cut off the stems, chopped the chiles and ground them up in the food processor. Then I put a layer of the mash in the bottom of a 7.5 liter Gärtopf fermenting crock with a sprinkling of pickling salt. I figured six ounces of pickling salt for the 8 and a half pounds of mash I ended up with ought to be about right.

The mash filled the crock about two thirds full. We’ll call it five liters. I let the crock full of mash sit outside uncovered for a couple of hours to allow some wild yeasts to get the fermentation going. Some people add whey from yogurt or hooch from a sourdough culture to kickstart fermentation, but we have plenty of wild things floating around in the steamy jungle air of Southeast Texas, so I just let nature take its course.

The crock comes with two flat stone weights that you are supposed to put inside the crock to keep the sauerkraut or pickles you are fermenting under the brine so they don’t mold. I tried to balance the weights on top of the pepper mash, but it didn’t work so well. The weights just kept sinking in the very liquid mash.

The crock also comes with a lid that sits in a channel that you keep filled with water to create a fermentation lock–the gas bubbles can escape, but oxygen can’t get in. Lifting the lid to see how the mash is doing completely defeats the purpose of the crock’s design, but I can’t help myself. Last time I looked, there were lots of bubbles, but the weights had capsized into the mash. One was sticking up out of the drink like the Titanic after it split in half. I think I better revert to the Alton Brown technique of placing a ziplock bag full of water inside the crock to keep the mash submerged.

Any advice from veteran fermented pepper sauce makers would be welcome!

It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll [...]]]> It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll check out food from some hot Texas chefs and look for clues about the big picture.

Arctic Char with Bananas and Apple Slice

The title on the menu at the new restaurant in the Elian Hotel in the Hill Country outside of San Antonio reads: “Sustenio, Modern Southwestern Cuisine by Stephan Pyles.” The test tube full of melon puree had a capsule inside that exploded in my mouth as I drank it–it was melon juice. The flavor reminded me it would soon be time for Pecos cantaloupes. The crispy-skinned arctic char with creamy rutabaga puree, freeze-dried banana chunks and a glazed apple slice with a perfect star in the middle was wonderful. Though it brought to mind the question that restaurant critics and chefs in Texas used to grapple with: “What makes this dish ‘Southwestern?’”

Stephan Pyles was one of the founding fathers of the Southwestern cuisine movement. Traditionalists can still order such Stephan Pyles trademarks as tamale tart custard and cowboy ribeye at Sustenio. The surprise is that the kitchen serves ten kinds of Peruvian-style ceviche, imports oysters and fish from Canada, and dabbles in molecular gastronomy.

Gilbert & Pyles

Of course, Stephan Pyles is busy building a new restaurant in Dallas, so he’s not working at Sustenio full time. Sustenio’s Executive Chef David Gilbert is the mad scientist in the kitchen here. Raised in Dallas, the 34 year-old Gilbert graduated from the culinary arts program at Johnson and Wales University and externed at Michelin-starred Restaurant Vermeer in Amsterdam with Edwin Katz.

After working at some top restaurants across the U.S., Gilbert came home to Dallas to work at Luqa, where he became known for molecular effects like table side activation of rosemary aromas, having patrons suck mousses out of tubes, and encapsulating crème brulée caramel over the custard. In recognition of his cutting edge culinary techniques, Gilbert was the proud recipient of the 2007 Rising Star Chef award from Starchefs.com.

It’s worth visiting Sustenio just to get a tour of the new technology employed in the modernistic kitchen. You can follow Stephan @ChefPyles and Gilbert @beyondthekit on twitter.

That Velveeta is a part of the American Regional Cuisine called Tex-Mex is anathema to many of my friends in the food world. I have long defended Velveeta as the best ingredient for queso and enchiladas, and those on the other side have argued that “authentic Mexican food” in Texas doesn’t include processed cheese. [...]]]> That Velveeta is a part of the American Regional Cuisine called Tex-Mex is anathema to many of my friends in the food world. I have long defended Velveeta as the best ingredient for queso and enchiladas, and those on the other side have argued that “authentic Mexican food” in Texas doesn’t include processed cheese.

After reading the post titled The Velveeta Underground, a friend of mine named Richard Flores offered an explanation for the popularity of Velveeta among Tejanos that I hadn’t heard before.

We all wondered how this year’s Foodways Texas Symposium would top last year’s amazing event in Galveston. But there is no doubt that the 2nd Annual edition was bigger, better and even more delicious than the first.

The Foodways Texas Symposium theme this year, “Texas Preserved,” was intentionally ambiguous. Our speakers talked [...]]]> We all wondered how this year’s Foodways Texas Symposium would top last year’s amazing event in Galveston. But there is no doubt that the 2nd Annual edition was bigger, better and even more delicious than the first.

The Foodways Texas Symposium theme this year, “Texas Preserved,” was intentionally ambiguous. Our speakers talked about preserving Texas food history through new oral history initiatives and documentary films, preserving heritage breeds through a new approach to agriculture, and, well, preserving fruit and vegetables in Mason jars.

Preserved meats served up at the Artisan Market didn’t last long…

–we also heard about brewing and distilling as a way of preserving grains by making them into alcoholic beverages.

We learned about the effects of this year’s devastating drought on the cattle herds, the oyster reefs and the cotton and wine grape growers.

We all considered the reality that our priorities for water allocation in Texas currently favor suburban landscape watering at the expense of agricultural irrigation and getting sufficient freshwater to the wetlands where our seafood is produced. The discussions were riveting, the company was delightful and the food was amazing!

Our meals were served outdoors by outstanding barbecue pitmasters and famous chefs. Salads were made from greens and vegetables and flowers picked the minute before they were served.And delicacies like goat chops, ribs and goat liver mousse were whipped up in the middle of the farm to a soundtrack of clucking chickens and lots of laughs. We also heard some stirring words about preserving Texas food culture, especially some of disappearing ethnic traditions like old-fashioned soul food.

We ate well, we learned a lot and we made a lot of new friends.

I wish you could have been there!

Thanks to my daughters Katie & Julia Walsh for the photos!

For a much more complete account of the 2012 Foodways Texas Symposium, and much better photos, check out this post by Kelly at the MeaningofPie.com

Oyster and wine pairing events are pretty popular, I’ve done three of them in the last couple of weeks. But in Texas, we are also fond of drinking good beers with our oysters. That’s the theme of the party on March 27, Oysters, Brews and Blues at Armadillo Palace will feature a variety of [...]]]> Oyster and wine pairing events are pretty popular, I’ve done three of them in the last couple of weeks. But in Texas, we are also fond of drinking good beers with our oysters. That’s the theme of the party on March 27, Oysters, Brews and Blues at Armadillo Palace will feature a variety of oysters from specific Texas reefs with great local beers.

Expect oysters from famous Galveston reefs like Pepper Grove and Redfish Reef and some new brews from local Texas microbreweries like No Label Brewing Company and Southern Star Brewing Company. (There will be Texas wines on hand too.)

The event is a benefit for Foodways Texas and a book signing event for my new book, Texas Eats. The book features a map of the most famous oyster reefs in Galveston Bay. Buy your tickets at FoodwaysTexas.com now–we expect a sell-out!

On Monday, I was in New Orleans leading an oyster and wine tasting that featured oysters from Redfish Reef and Slim Jim Reef in Galveston Bay; Pointe aux Pins rack-grown oysters from Mobile Bay, Alabama; and oysters from Christmas Bay in lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. We tasted the oysters with Girard Sauvignon Blanc [...]]]> On Monday, I was in New Orleans leading an oyster and wine tasting that featured oysters from Redfish Reef and Slim Jim Reef in Galveston Bay; Pointe aux Pins rack-grown oysters from Mobile Bay, Alabama; and oysters from Christmas Bay in lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. We tasted the oysters with Girard Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, Crossings New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and two Pinot Grigios from Barone Fini. The crowd liked the big oysters from Slim Jim Reef the best.

On Tuesday we repeated the tasting at Oceanaire Seafood in Houston with the same wines, but slightly different oysters. This time we had creamy Resignation Reef oysters and spectacular Pepper Grove oysters. The oysters were from Jeri’s Seafood in Smith Point and they are available from seafood wholesaler Louisiana Foods in Houston.

It was the first time Gulf oysters have been included in this wine and oyster pairing format. This traveling oyster and wine tasting show is organized by the Deutsche wine group which represents the three vineyards. The tour usually tastes West Coast oysters with their wines, but the organizers asked me to step in and help when they discovered that it was illegal to ship West Coast species like Kumamotos and gigas to Texas. I was more than happy to drink their wine and wax poetic about Texas oysters.

Sacred Heart Past President, Dominic B. Cuccerre

Skinner [...]]]>

Sacred Heart Past President, Dominic B. Cuccerre

Skinner Pasta started selling spaghetti in Texas in 1912. For most of the last hundred years, it was the only brand widely available in Texas grocery stores. To celebrate their anniversary, Skinner has hired me to help publicize the “100 Years of Mealtime Memories” Essay Contest. The writer of the winning essay gets a Grand Prize of $10,000. Four “First Prize” winners will receive $1,000 each. You’ll find the contest rules here.

$10,000 is a nice chunk of change. But there’s another reason you might want enter Skinner’s “100 Years of Mealtime Memories” essay contest. After the winners are announced, Skinner will share the essays that describe Lone Star food memories with Foodways Texas. Collecting stories about Texas food history is what that organization is all about.

Foodways Texas won’t make the essays public, but the oral history group will sift through the entries looking for information about Texas food traditions that might be worth exploring further. So even if you don’t win, your essay about your grandpa’s spaghetti sauce might end up changing food history. It’s a pretty cool contest. Skinner Pasta is giving away fourteen grand in prize money for family food stories and helping Foodways Texas at the same time. I’ll be giving a portion of the money Skinner pays me to Foodways Texas to help fund the oral history projects.

It was the Italian-Texas chapter in my new book and some of the stories about Italian food in Texas that brought my name to Skinner’s attention. I collected a lot of those stories at the spaghetti lunch over the years. The late Dominic Cuccerre told me about how the Houston produce industry started out with Sicilian-Americans growing vegetables in gardens in the Fifth Ward of Houston and bringing them on horsedrawn carts to Market Square downtown. Dominic’s family had a grocery store too. I could have listened to that man all day.

Here’s one of my own mealtime memories and a couple of family recipes that start with Skinner pasta. Too bad I’m not eligible for the ten grand, right?

Nana’s Lasagna
Years ago, I heard an Italian pasta authority give a talk. He said Americans didn’t know anything about lasagna. It was supposed to have 12 layers, etc.,etc. I tried a bunch of gourmet lasagna creations. But the first time my kids tasted my mom’s lasagna, they demanded that I learn to make it the way “Nana” did.”

My Mom layered three curly-edged Skinner noodles into the bottom of a glass baking dish with her homemade red sauce, spooned in smashed meatballs and ricotta and then repeated the layers with noodles on top. I thought it was crazy to make meatballs and then smash them up–why not just use ground meat. But I don’t ask questions anymore, I just follow Nana’s recipe. It’s wonderful when family recipes get handed down through the generations. I’m sure my kids will want to learn Nana’s recipe someday.

Here it is. Be forewarned it takes all day.

Nana’s Red Sauce

First you make an old-fashioned red sauce or “red gravy” as we say in Texas. Mom got this one from an Italian lady down the street when I was a kid–that was 50 years ago.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound ground sirloin
1 pound Italian sausage, casings removed
4 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup grated carrot
3 tablespoons minced garlic
1 cup white wine
2 28oz cans crushed tomatoes
1 46oz can tomato juice or V-8
2 6oz cans tomato paste
2 15oz cans tomato sauce
1 cup chopped parsley
Half cup coarsely chopped celery leaves
1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves
2 tablespoons dried basil leaves
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Brown the beef and sausage in batches, transferring the browned meat to a bowl with a slotted spoon. When the meat is all browned, reduce the heat to medium and add the onion, celery and carrots. Use the vegetables to deglaze the pan scraping up the browned meat the stuck to the bottom. Cook for three minutes until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the garlic and stir to mix well. Cook another two minutes until the onions are translucent. Add the white wine and turn the heat to high stirring constantly for three or four minutes or until the white wine is reduced by half. Add the tomato juice, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste, mix well and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the remaining ingredients, stirring to combine.
Simmer for two hours stirring every fifteen minutes.

Nana’s Meatballs

I always thought you were supposed to bake the meatballs or at least brown them on the stovetop first, but that’s not the way Nana does it.

One and half pound ground meat
half a cup bread crumbs
cup and a half finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
quarter cup loosely packed chopped parsley
2 tablespoons dried ground oregano
2 eggs
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons parmesan
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
Nana’s Red Sauce

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix well, blending all ingredients into a uniform texture. In your cupped hand, form 34 to 36 small (one ounce) meatballs. Drop meatballs gently into Nana’s Red Sauce. Simmer, stirring gently every fifteen minutes to avoid breaking up the meatballs. Cook for 45 minutes to one hour or until meatballs are well done.

Nana’s Lasagna

Finally, after all that work. You get to make the lasagna. If you buy get the one pound package of lasagna noodles, you will have enough noodles to make 2 big 9 x 13 baking dishes. That’s the way Nana does it. She cooks one right away and puts the other one in the freezer for unexpected guests–like me and my kids.

8 oz box Skinners Lasagne noodles
18 Nana’s meatballs
6 cups Nana’s Red Sauce
15 oz container ricotta cheese
Three quarter cup frozen chopped spinach
One bunch green onions
Salt and pepper to taste
One tablespoon chopped serrano peppers (optional)
One cup plus three tablespoons grated parmesan
One pound mozzarella cut into 18 slices (or one pound grated mozzarella)

Boil and rinse noodles in cold water. You should have nine noodles. Crush the meatballs in a bowl with the sauce that adheres to them. Pour 2 cups of red sauce in the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish. Arrange three noodles across the bottom of the dish. Spoon half of the meatballs onto the noodles.
Spoon the ricotta into a mixing bowl. Squeeze the spinach to remove as much water as possible. Chop the green onions finely using a little of the green part. Add the spinach to the green onions on the chopping board and chop together mixing well. Add the spinach and green onion mixture to the ricotta. Add one cup parmesan and stir well to combine. Season with salt and pepper and chopped serranos if desired. Spoon half of the ricotta mixture in with the crushed meatballs dotting it evenly around the baking dish. Top the filling with 9 mozzarella slices or grated cheese. Add more sauce and another layer of noodles and repeat ending with a layer of noodles. Top the noodles with some sauce and three tablespoons of parmesan. Bake in a 350°F oven for half an hour to 45 minutes or until the cheese melts and the lasagna is bubbling. Allow to sit for a least a half an hour before cutting into squares and serving. Serves 12.