Ricotta Macaroni and Cheese with Asparagus and Leeks

First I cooked up a large leek in some olive oil and after about 3-4 minutes I added in the asparagus. These only took a few minutes to cook, and it's best to under-cook them a bit so they don't get too mushy when the whole casserole gets baked.

I made a béchamel sauce with 2 tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of flour and 2 cups of milk. I chopped up a large clove of garlic and threw that in. Once the mixture thickened, I added in about 2 ounces of cheddar that I had in the fridge, along with a bit of feta that I had left over from the eggplant caponata toast that I made a few nights ago. I stirred in about 3/4 of a container of ricotta, grated in some nutmeg and added in a large pinch each of cayenne pepper, mustard powder (both of these are always good in mac and cheese) and dried tarragon.

When the pasta was cooked (I used orecchiette) I stirred everything together in a nice glass baking dish. I sprinkled on some chopped up parsley and chives and topped that off with panko breadcrumbs and a few drizzles of olive oil. The whole thing baked in the oven at about 375 degrees until the top was golden! I served it with another little sprinkling of fresh chives. This was delicious!

P.S. I picked up some chives at the farmer's market yesterday and I've been using them in everything! This morning I made the best scrambled eggs ever with a fresh red chili, shallots and tons of chives! YUM

Zucchini, Leek, Tomato, Ricotta and Basil Calzones

I've made these calzones about a million times but tonight I was finally ready to deviate from the regular calzone routine. I sautéed thinly sliced garlic and leeks in some olive oil with a sprinkling of chili flakes. Then, I added in thinly sliced zucchini and let them cook on pretty high heat until they were juuust cooked (add salt and pepper to taste). Roll out your pizza dough and pile on some of the zucchini/leek/garlic mixture. Next, Layer on a few slices of tomato, some torn up basil leaves and dollop on as much ricotta as you'd like. Bake at 450-500 degrees until golden! Finally, I drizzled on a little bit of balsamic vinegar! This was a good meal to accompany the new episode of top chef masters!

Cannelloni Stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta

I like to make cannelloni with fresh pasta sheets from the supermarket because its so much easier than trying to spoon the filling into dried pasta tubes (I don't have a piping bag), but since I have my lovely pasta rolling machine, I figured it would be a lot cheaper to just make it myself! I filled the pasta with a classic mixture of spinach, ricotta, nutmeg, pepper, salt and an egg. I covered the little rolls of stuffed pasta with tomato sauce and baked the whole thing in the oven for about an hour (much easier to bake it for longer than it is to par-boil all the pasta). I had a ton of dough left over so I ended up cutting it into pappardelle and freezing it... turned out that I could have just refrigerated it because Lucas and I ate it with pesto two days later!