Grown-up Lasagna

The thing that I love about lasagna is that there are no hard rules on its composition. I'm sure in some family/household traditions there are hard and fast rules, but what I'm referring to is the fact that you won't find a repertoire of common methods on how to make lasagna. The possibilities are endless.


Tonight's lasagna is comprised of a form of a Bolognese sauce (another recipe with countless variations), spinach, cottage cheese (in lieu of ricotta), and of course cheese to top it with. Why on this blog vs. my other one? Because I used the pressure cooker for the sauce.


You see, a good Bolognese sauce, needs at least 45 minutes of simmering for the flavours to meld. Although this is a comforting process, when you want to get on with the rest of the meal it can be daunting. So a speedy approach brings a new form of comfort.

For the sauce, I sautéed a smoky alder bacon in the pressure cooker. This is the grown-up part. The smoky bacon imparts a flavour that is quite distinct from traditional meat sauces. It's obvious and subtle at the same time. After just cooking the bacon (not crisp though) I finished the sauce in the pressure cooker via the instructions below.  

Note, I used an unneccesary amount of mushrooms, only becaue I had to use them up.  The end result was still yummy so I wouldn't deter from using a large amount.

Pre-Pressure Cooking Picture:

10 Minutes Later - a finished sauce!

I assembled the lasagna in usual fashion (again, have a gander at the instructions) and baked for 35 minutes.


This was delicious. A grown-up meal as the smokiness lent a stronger flavour.  

It was kitty-licking good (note we generally don't allow our cat to eat any human food, let alone lick our plates, but this was so funny, we took time out to take a picture).

Grown-up Lasagna
Bolognese Sauce in the Pressure Cooker


6 strips alder smoked bacon, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
8 large mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 large carrot grated
1.5 lbs ground beef
2 cans tomato paste
1 tbsp bouillon powder
1 cup water


Cottage Cheese Filling - mix all together:
2 cups cottage cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup grated parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste


4 cups spinach, steamed and seasoned
Lasagna noodles prepared according to package directions.
Grated cheese (mozzarella, marble, jack or mixture).


Bolognese Sauce:
Heat the pressure cooker over med-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until cooked but not browned. Add the onion and mushroom and cook until softened. Add the grated carrot and mix through. Add the ground beef and stir to mix. Cook until there is no more pink in the beef, stirring occasionally. Add the tomato paste and bouillon powder and stir to mixed. Add the water. The water is important to ensure enough liquid in the pressuer cooker for cooking under pressure.


Secure the pressure cooker and keep on medium-high heat until it reaches pressure. Once at pressure reduce the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the pressure reduce on its own.


Assemble the Lasagna, adding layers as follows:
Line the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of the bolognese sauce.
Lasagna noodles.
Bolognese sauce.
Lasagna noodles.
Cottage cheese filling.
Spinach.
Lasagna noodles.
Meat Sauce.
Cheese to top.
Sage leaves to garnish.


Bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes until bubbling and browned.

Smoked Chicken Wings

The Canadian Foot League (CFL) recently had the big game - the Grey Cup with the Saskatchewan Roughriders (Go Riders) vs. Montreal Allouettes. Although I'm not a football fan, I'm a bandwagon fan, so this was the perfect opportunity to put together some football party fare.

The star of the show: chicken wings.

But not any chicken wings. Smoked chicken wings.

Now there are many schools of thought on the chicken wing. From super hot, tears in your eyes, blowing your nose, taste not the issue wings to sticky and sweet wings with a multitude of options in between. Of course, if you want to go into sauces (blue cheese dip?) and accompaniments (carrot and celery sticks) just adds to the list and dimension of chicken wings.

For the "Game" my husband requested hot wings - specifically, Louisiana hot sauce wings. So the challenge was on (beyond the Grey Cup).

I have made wings on the smoker before, but not of the hot wing variety. I figured I'd apply some of the same principles from previous. I also didn't want the super hot for the sake of hot wings, but hot with some taste wings. Here's how it went down.

I figured I would want the wings to smoke awhile without any sauce - as any chile based or tomato sauce will char and make a bitter flavour. So I brought in a trusty sweet spice rub for the initial job.

Once the wings were close to being cooked, I added sauce. To get flavour and not just heat, I determined to combine the Louisiana hot sauce (1 part) with some French dressing (2 parts). The dressing would add flavour, but temper the full-on heat.

The end result was terrific. Fall off the bone wings, with good flavour, but good heat. Mmmm. Would I change anything? Next time I would try doing the sauce as a baste instead of a pan sauce, to ensure extra crispiness of the wings (but that’s just personal preference).

Smoked Corn Casserole

This was an experiment. But I'm happy to say that it was a rather successful one. I've made hashbrown/potato casseroles before, but I wanted something different. I also wanted something with a bit of spice to complement other Southwestern dishes I had on the go.

Corn. Jalapenos. Leftovers. All the fixin's for a brilliant corn casserole - but done on the smoker.

What I did was throw a bunch of stuff together. Literally. This became a bit of a "using up the leftovers" dish (or eating down the fridge as it were), but with enough thought to ensure tastiness . I also wanted flavours that would take smoke well.

I started with some frozen corn. Then I chucked in some chopped ham - not the icky processed stuff, but some ham that I had actually previously smoked (but that's another blogpost). From there a last chipotle chile in adobo sauce that I had leftover, 1/2 jalapeno pepper that I had leftover, some green onions (just on hand, not leftover), and a tex mex blend of cheese (semi-leftover) . I mixed all these great ingredients together, then finished with a blend of cream and eggs.

I topped with additional cheese and put on the smoker. This was a bit tricky as the heat was first at 275F for another dish for 1 hour. But when that was done the corn didn't' look quite ready, so I cranked the heat to 400F and let it finish for 1 hour. Perfect.

This was yummy. I find that some veggie dishes really take smoke well, and corn is definitely one of them.

My new leftover go to dish.

16 Spice Smoked Chicken

I've gotta be up front, right from the start. This was actually 15 spice smoked chicken, not 16. It's not that I have anything against 16. In fact, I would have been more than happy to have truly been 16 spice, but the sad fact is that I was unable to locate one of the spices, hence 15.

It begins with Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill cookbook. Actually, that's not right. It begins with a dinner at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in August.

You see, I've not watched a lot of Bobby Flay's Food Network shows, and up until that point I had only flipped through his cookbooks - from a design perspective they didn't do much for me, so I never bought one, despite my ever increasing collection of cookbooks with celebrity chefs.

But after eating at Mesa Grill New York in August and delighting in the incredible spice blends (subtle, spicy, interesting) I had another look at the book. Again, the look didn't entice me, but actually seeing the recipes I had tried drew me in. IN the end, a quick visit to Amazon.com and I was the proud owner of the Mesa Grill Cookbook.

I've made several dishes from this book, but this was the first on the smoker. You see, I was looking for a recipe that would lend itself to the smoker, but have that southwest, spicy feel (I should admit here that I may be addicted to spicy, Mexican food, and the southwest varietal is supporting this habit).

Another interesting fact is that in preparation for this blog, I had a looksee on the web to see if any site had posted this spice blend recipe. Indeed they did, including Bobby Flay's own website, but with a noticeable difference. Instead of the 3tbsp of cinnamon called for in the actutal cookbook (which I had no intention of using as it seemed extreme to me) it called just for one. I'm assuming a correction - likely much needed.

One more tidbit, the spice I didn't' have on hand was chile de arbol. After doing a quick check on the spiciness of the chile de arbol (15000-30000 scoville units) I determined that this one was more about the heat than the flavour, so I substituted additional cayenne in place.

I basically prepared the chicken in usual smoker fashion, but substituted the 16 (actually 15) spice blend as my rub. So quick rundown:

• Spatchcock chicken, rinse and pat dry

• Rub with spice blend

• Meanwhile prepare smoker - put in a light smoke varietal (apple, maple, alder) - heat to high

• Wait 15 minutes

• When chicken is ready to go on reduce temp to 275F

• Put the bird on

• Sprtiz every hour with apple juice until ready (depends on size)

• Mmmmm

The end result was a wonderfully smoked chicken (as usual), with an entriguing taste. The spice rub reminded me of 5 spice rub, but a bit more complex (likely the additional 10 spices contributed to this).

I served topped with a roasted red pepper sauce, and a rendition of Sophie's Salad, both from the Bobby Flay Mesa Grill cookbook and a yummy smoked corn casserole (but that's another blogpost).

Gourmet Magazine Closes

It's not about smoking. It's not about pressure cooking. But it is significant in the world of food.

Gourmet magazine, published since 1940, is closing. A sad day indeed.

Smoked Mixed Nuts

Ever since we got out smoker, I've been wanted to try smoked nuts, but just never got around to it. But faced with a fast approaching cocktail hour with friends - I figured it would be the perfect time to try.

A bit of background.

We have a few friends coming over for cocktail hour. Knowing the players, I thought it would be fun to try to do a traditional type one where instead of the usual beer and wine we opt for some classics like bourbon manhatten's (one of our friend's favourites) and cosmopolitans or the like. Of course beer and wine would also be availalbe.

So with these classic drinks I thought some proper accompanients would be in good order. Although the drinks have that 60s flair, I wasn't quite in the mood for appies with toothpicks in them. I figured cocktail nuts with a twist would be good.

I've made nut appetizers before, but not on the smoker. I'm not crazy about nut recipes that use melted butter as they get a bit greasy and for nibblies and that's not convenient. So I went with a trusted eggwhite recipe.

The trick here is two fold (no egg white pun intended).

One: Proper egg white beating,

Two: Yummy spices. The latter is the funnest part as you can be super creative or just use what you have available. Today's line up included sugar, chopped fresh rosemary, chile

powder, cumin and garlic powder.

I won't go into details as it's easy pleasy and the recipe is below.

What I will tell you is that these were delicious. Not super smoky, but more of a hint of smoke. And did I mention easy?
Smoked Mixded Nuts

2 egg whites
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tsp chile powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp garlic powder
4 cups mixed nuts such as walnuts, pecans, almonds

Preheat your smoker to 300F.

Beat the egg whites until frothy in a large bowl (as you'll be adding the nuts to this bowl later). You're not aiming for stiff peaks here, but you don't want any clear eggy goo either. Then you mix up your spices in a separate bowl and fold them in with the egg whites.

Add your nuts and mix well. Note, I used slivered almonds instead of whole and this worked very well. When you mix you will find that the egg whites are almost stringy - that's ok.

Pour into a disposable aluminum pan and spread around evenly. Place on the smoker and cook 15-20 minutes. Mix about. Reduce heat to 250F and cook another 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat and cool before serving (although you can cheat and taste while warm as they are good then too).

Smoked Beef Finger Ribs

I am finally back at home for a stretch where I can resume some cookery of the smoker and/or pressure cooker variety! On the menu, smoked beef finger ribs

At this juncture I would like to give you some details on what Beef Finger Ribs are in terms of cut, but I can't as I just don't know. I tried to look online, but didn't find any further details, and many items discussed "boneless beef finger ribs" which these aren't - they have bone. I would like to say that the obvious is that they are a product from the cow that comes from the ribs, but then using that logic one may also think that they are a cow fingers product as well. What I can confirm based on visual (vs. the logic scenario) is they are definitely a rib product. But not the usual large ribs, so likely from a different area or a different trim.

I approached the ribs in usual smoker fashion. Dry rub marinade; sprtizing, basting with sauce. Here's the rundown.

I first used a plain basic (lazy) dry rub of salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. (In hindsight, I should have used something more zesty and less salty such as my ancho dry rub or spicy dry rub which I make in supply so I always have it on hand). I let the dry rub absorb for about 1/2 hour.

I used a grapvine wood pellet and let the ribs cook at 225F for about 4 hours. I would normally suggest sprtizing with apple juice every 1/2 hour for the last 3 hours, but we ended up going for a motorcycle ride and I was able to only sprtiz for a couple of hours.

Finally, I made a yummy Chipotle Raspberry bbq baste/mop type sauce which I mopped the ribs with 3 times during the last 45 minutes of cooking. I also served a bit on the side for extra dipping (if you do this, be sure you aren't using any that's had the potential of cross-contamination).

The result. Pretty delicious. Served with some corn on the cob and beets with fresh dill all from the farmers market. Does it get any better?

Chipotle Raspberry Mop Sauce

14 oz can tomatoes with sauce
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
4 cloves garlic minced
2 cups frozen raspberries
3/4 cup ketchup
3 tbsp molasses
1/4 cup raspberry vinegar
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp onion powder
2 tsp celery seed
2 tsp black pepper

Process the tomatoes and chipotle peppers together until smooth and pour into a large saucepan. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil stirring often. Reduce heat, and let simmer for 30-60 minutes.