Janet Leigh's Recipes

 Janet Leigh with her then-husband Tony Curtis

Cheese Soufflé

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon flour

Small bit of salt

A pinch of cayenne pepper

Scant half a cup of milk

1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Liederkranz cheese (or Epoisses) 

½ teaspoon mustard

1 egg yolk

1 stiffly beaten egg white

Melt the butter in a pan.  Stir in the flour, salt and cayenne pepper.  Pour on the milk and stir over a fire until the mixture thickens but does not boil.

Remove and stir in the cheese.  Add mustard, egg yolk and beaten egg white.  Spread on slice of toast (I use whole wheat for greater nutrition and no weight-gaining content) with Leiderkrantz cheese.  Place in the bottom of a small single serving casserole. 

Gently pour the egg mixture over the toast and bake for about 20 minutes in a 375 degree oven [190 degrees C] and don’t PEEK.  If there is anything a soufflé can’t stand, it is a sudden gust of air on the light mixture.

Pork Chops 

 4 double-thick pork chops, or 8 small ones

2 large onions, sliced

Garlic

1/4 TSP. Thyme

Salt and pepper

2 TBSP. bacon fat or cooking oil

1 1/2 C. long-grain rice

1/2 C. tomato juice 

 

Rub the pork chops with garlic, and brown in a frying pan in the fat. Remove to a baking dish or casserole and cover with the sliced onions. Add the tomato juice and the seasoning to the fat residue in the frying pan and let simmer a few minutes. Wash the rice thoroughly in cold water, rubbing between your fingers until the water is clear. Put the raw rice on top of the chops and onions in the casserole. Add the boiling tomato juice. Bake covered in a medium oven for 45 minutes or until the rice is cooked. If you want to make this dish more substantial, a layer of raw sliced zucchini may be placed on top of the onions before the rice is added. Oregano can be used instead of the thyme, or in addition to it, and 1/4 cup sherry used to replace 1/4 cup of the tomato juice.

 

Thanksgiving Roasted Veggies

Ingredients
3 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed (I bought already cut squash at my grocery store, about 3 boxes)
4 parsnips, peeled and chopped about the size of the baby carrots
A medium package of baby carrots
6 turnips, peeled and cubed
A few sprigs of sage
A few sprigs of rosemary
about a cup of extra virgin olive oil
nutmeg (optional)
salt and pepper

Method
Chop up sage and rosemary and put in Cuisinart with a cup of EVOO, S&P (about a pinch or 2) and pulse until well combined. Put into a mason jar to set aside for the entire night.
The next day....
Preheat oven to 450°
(You can also prep the butternut squash, parsnips and turnips the day before as the herb oil) Chop into cubes of the veggies and with a little bit of the rosemary/sage (herb) oil with salt and pepper in a mixing bowl to coat the veggies- all together or separate- evenly. You can sprinkle a little bit of nutmeg with the butternut squash. Lay evenly on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil (I used 4 baking sheets- it's a lot of veggies).
Roast for 30-35 minutes.
In the same mixing bowl, use the remaining herb oil (add more EVOO if necessary) and add in the roasted veggies. Stir well and put in serving dish. Serve.

Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:

-About 12 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped 

-half to entire stick of butter  

-cinnamon (eyeball, about a tablespoon or two)

-nutmeg (eyeball, about a tablespoon or two)

-ground ginger (eyeball but less than cinnamon and nutmeg)

-2 and a 1/2 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk

-salt and pepper  

-about a cup of candied pecans, grind to crumbs

-jumbo marshmallows  

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°

Boil the sweet potatoes until tender and drain

While sweet potatoes are in the colander, using the same pot- preferably a Dutch oven- melt the butter and add the spices and add the sweet potatoes. Add in the vanilla almond milk and start mashing away (if your pot is overflowing, use the mixer but be careful, it'll be hot). 

Pour the mixture in a casserole dish (or remain in the pot). On top, add the candied pecans and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Add the jumbo marshmallows and using the boiler and a watchful eye, for a minute or two until lightly browned on top

Serve

To serve a smaller crowd, cut the measurements in half 

Yellow Pepper-Peas Stuffed Mushrooms

I honestly eyeballed everything, I didn't measure other than sizing up the mushrooms and guessed the measurements. It was also a throw-together using whatever I found in the pantry, refrigerator and freezer. 

button mushrooms with stems removed (save them!), seasoned with EVOO and S&P. Saute filling of yellow pepper, mushroom stems, peas & garlic putting them in food processor. Join in bowl with croutons crushed as bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Bake in 400° oven for about 20 minutes till golden brown on top.

A Southern Meal

Country fried chicken with country sauce with collard greens and chicken-broth infused rice.

This was my first time of making and trying collard greens. First I heat up some bacon and saved the bacon fat to use (along with EVOO) to saute garlic, red onion and collard greens over medium heat. I then put in about a cup of chicken broth and cover to let it braise for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed. I added the reserved crumbled up bacon. I realized that I now like collard greens. 

Crouton-Crusted Chicken with Red Pepper Gravy

Served with green beans, and brown rice/quinoa

Very easy: turn croutons into crumbs for the "breading station" (with eggs and flour) to coat the chicken before pan-frying it and finishing in the 350 degrees oven for about 10 minutes on a roasting rack pan.
To make the gravy: using the pan drippings while the chicken is in the oven (take out any breading that may have fallen off of the chicken), saute the red pepper and a cup of chicken stock to slightly reduce. Puree the gravy.

Grilled Lamb Chops with Cous-Cous & Broccoli

I marinated the lamb chops in pomergrante-cherry juice with orange peel (seasoning), dried mint, S&P, and cumin before I put them on the grill. At the end, slauthered with butter
With the cous-cous,  I used those flavor enhancers from Swanson's Broth/Stock (chicken) and cumin and lightly toasted the cous cous with butter before putting in water to cook.
With the broccoli, EVOO, butter, garlic powder and cumin (to tie together with the cous cous and lamb)

Recent Dinner

Grilled (thin cut) ribeye steak topped with butter

roasted brussel sprouts

orzo pasta with green beans and red pepper

Linda McCartney Tribute Dinner

 On April 17, 2012, I made a vegetarian dinner in honor of Linda Eastman McCartney (I did the same last year, it's sort of becoming sort of a tradition). She always encouraged people to become a vegetarian to save the animals as she's an animal lover. I admit I'm not a vegetarian (as you can tell from this blog) but I do love my veggies and I do make a vegetarian dinner a couple of times per week.

Linda McCartney's Lentil and Cheese Loaf and Cheese Souffle with my tomato-cucumber-garlic salad

Warm Brussel Sprouts 'Salad'

Ingredients-

-1 bag/pint (about 1 lb) of brussel sprouts, sliced

-pancetta, diced (found in package form; if not at least 4 slices)

-EVOO

-small handful of dried cranberries

-garlic, sliced into chips

-balasmic vinegar (eyeball)

Method-

saute pancetta in EVOO till brown, take out on paper-towel covered plate. Saute sliced garlic clove in pancetta/EVOO till brown, take out on paper-towel with pancetta. Saute sliced brussel sprouts, season S&P, stirring till browning careful not to burn. Put in reserved pancetta & garlic and a small handful of dried cranberries. Stir few minutes and add about two shots of balasmic vinegar for a few more minutes and then serve. Add a little more of EVOO if looking little dry as brussel sprouts will absorb while cooking.

For Vegetarians-

just leave out the pancetta; you can also swap or use 1 onion sliced and saute after browning the garlic into chips

Spaghetti Squash on Portabello "Plate"

1- spaghetti squash- follow instructions to make (oven or microwave; my instructions came stickered on)
5-6 portabello caps, stems and gills scrapped out
asiago cheese (eyeball, and reserve some for topping)
EVOO
S&P (salt & pepper)

While the spaghetti squash is roasting in the oven (325° for 1 hour), work on the mushroom caps. With a spoon, carefully take out the gills and stem. When you're done, it would look kinda like a bowl. Season with S&P, EVOO, (I included garlic powder and italian seasonings, optional) and place them on a cookie sheet. When the squash is in the oven for 35 minutes, you can place in the mushrooms to bake for remaining 25 minutes.

When oven time is almost up, grate asiago cheese. After the squash and mushrooms are out and the squash is easier to handle when cool down enough, using a fork, scrap the spaghetti into amedium size bowl. Once the squash is done, season with S&P, EVOO, and asiago cheese, stir till mix well. Then pile the spaghetti squash mixture on top of the mushrooms (still on their cookie sheet) and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Switch the oven from Bake to Broil and for 5 minutes at the maximum, place the squash/mushrooms in till slightly golden brown on top. When out, sprinkle more cheese if desire and help yourself!

If you don't like squash spaghetti or can't find it, then regular/whole wheat spaghetti will do, just as long as it's long and make it look like a bird's nest. You can use asiago, parm, romano, or pecorino cheese

Dressed Mushrooms

I recently threw a birthday party and served a veggie platter. I had an empty section on the platter so I put some of my mushrooms I had used to make Linda McCartney's phyllo wrapped mushrooms to fill in the empty space. While Linda simply used extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper, I added my own touches. The mushrooms itself was a success, my Aunt loved them!
You can use these marinated mushrooms for anything: by itself as appetizer, snack- dip them in ranch or blue cheese dressing, sliced them, cook them with pasta, risotto, or by itself as a side dish.

I don't measure, I did by eyeballing it.

-white button and cremini mushrooms
-extra virgin olive oil
-salt & pepper
-garlic powder
-italian seasonings