[2] You can get a jar of pesto at any supermarket (photo © DeLallo).

We love lasagna, and try most recipes we come across to see if they’re better than Mom’s.

Here’s a vegetarian version with polenta and pesto (you of course can add sausage or other meat). Gluten-free polenta replaces the traditional wheat noodle lasagna.

The recipe was created by Loretta Lamont for Sauces ’n Love, one of our favorite lines of Italian sauces, Loretta used Sauces ‘n Love marinara and pesto sauces.

We made our own variation, sprinkling oregano over the ricotta layer and adding crumbled sausage over the second pesto layer.

Prep time is 30 minutes, cook time is 20 minutes.
 
 
RECIPE: POLENTA & PESTO LASAGNA

Ingredients For 2 Servings

1. PREHEAT the oven to 375°F. Spray a 11” × 7” baking dish with Pam.

2. MIX the ricotta with the egg, garlic powder, pepper and 1/2 cup mozzarella.

3. PLACE a little sauce on the bottom of the baking dish, topped with a single layer of polenta. Spread a layer of pesto on top of the polenta.

4. SPREAD the ricotta over the pesto; sprinkle on the optional oregano or the sausage. Arrange the sliced mozzarella on top of the pesto. Add a layer of sauce on top of the mozzarella followed by another layer of polenta.

5. TOP with the shredded Italian cheese and sauce Bake for 40 minutes. Top with the remaining cheese and pine nuts and broil until the cheese and nuts are browned. Let rest for 20 minutes before serving.

 
WHAT IS POLENTA?

Polenta is the Italian word for cornmeal as well as a cooked dish made from it. In the first two centuries of America, our diets contained much cornmeal—in bread, breakfast cereal (cornmeal mush is cooked polenta) and other recipes.

In the 19th century, cornmeal was largely replaced by refined wheat flour. Polenta is also refined: It is degerminated cornmeal, with the germ and endosperm removed.

Here’s a delicious polenta stack appetizer recipe, and more ways to use polenta.
  

There’s American fried rice (with sliced hot dogs, popular in Thailand), curry fried rice, Filipino garlic fried rice, Indonesian fried rice (nasi goreng), kimchi fried rice and much, much more. Take a look.

Then, perusing some online photos from PF Chang’s, we found this photo of quinoa fried rice, topped with a fried egg. So today’s tip is:

When you have leftover cooked grains of any kind, turn them into “fried rice.”

Of course, you don’t need leftovers. You can cook the grains from scratch for the recipe. In addition to those you commonly cook, this is an opportunity to try something new from this list:

Have “fried rice” topped with an egg for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Photo courtesy PF Changs.

RECIPE: QUINOA FRIED RICE

If you want to serve a cooked egg on top of the quinoa, you can opt to leave out the raw eggs that get scrambled into the grain at the end. We prefer using both.

You also can add leftover corn, beans, or what-have-you. If the item is soft (cooked zucchini, e.g.), add it at the end to warm it, without cooking it further.

And of course, dice any leftover meat or seafood and add it at the end, also to warm.

Ingredients For 3 Servings

 
*If cooking from scratch for this recipe, cool the grain to room temperature, or preferably overnight in the fridge.

Preparation

1. MIX the sauce: Combine the teriyaki sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil in a small bowl. Set aside.

2. FRY or poach the eggs and keep warm.

2. HEAT ½ tablespoon of the olive oil in a large sauté or frying pan over a high heat. Add onion and carrots and cook for two minutes.

4. ADD 2/3 of the scallions, the garlic and the ginger to the pan. Cook for another two minutes. Add the rest of the olive oil and the quinoa. Stir-fry about two minutes.

5. ADD the sauce and stir-fry until incorporated, about two minutes. Make a well in the center of the quinoa; add the raw eggs and stir to scramble.

6. ADD the peas and stir until they are warmed through. Top with the optional fried/poached egg, garnish with the remaining scallions and serve.

According to culinary historian Karen Hess, Jefferson was “our most illustrious epicure, in fact, our only epicurean President.”

He loved his veggies, stating that they “constitute my principal diet.” His favorites: tennis-ball lettuce, Brown Dutch lettuce, prickly-seeded spinach and for fruit, Marseilles figs. He sought out new produce varieties from the foreign consuls in Washington, and is credited with introducing broccoli to mainstream America.

He is credited with popularizing fried eggplant, French fries, johnny-cakes, gumbo, mashed potatoes, peanuts, sesame seed oil and sweet potato pudding, among other dishes, blending colonial cuisine with African (slave), Colonial, Creole, European and Native American traditions.[Source]

At the time Jefferson left to serve as minister to France, in 1784, the mainstays of American colonial cooking were primarily meats—baked, boiled, roasted or stewed—breads, heavily sweetened desserts and [generally] overcooked vegetables. [Source]

The sophistication of French cuisine and his travel to another culinary stronghold, Italy, broadened his perspective. He returned to America with recipes, foodstuffs (French wine, olive oil and vanilla beans) and cooking gear, including a pasta machine.

Long before the invention of the crank ice cream machine, strong-armed kitchen staff would whisk the mix in a vat set in a bowl of ice. Photo courtesy Nielsen Massey.

Ultimately taking charge of the kitchen at Jefferson’s Paris home, the gifted young man cooked for some of the most distinguished and discriminating people in France. As a freed man, he continued to work as a chef.

Upon his return from France in 1789, Jefferson brought 200 vanilla beans and an ice cream recipe. [Source: IceCream.com]

There were no ice cream machines—the hand-cranked version had yet to be invented, in 1843—so strong-armed kitchen staff would hand-whisk the mixture in a bowl placed in a vat of ice.

The result had a mousse-like consistency rather than the freezer-hardened ice cream we know today. But chilled and creamy, and flavored with exotic vanilla beans, it was a delight of high society (only the wealthy could afford the vanilla, the labor and the ice).

Jefferson’s original, hand-written recipe is housed in the Library of Congress. Nielsen-Massey, vendor of premium vanilla beans from around the world, adapted the original recipe so you can make it at home.

It calls for 1¼ cups of sugar, a saucepan and an ice cream maker, instead of a half-pound of sugar, an open cooking fire and a very strong person or two to churn it by hand.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. WHISK together the egg yolks and sugar until creamy and lightened in color. Set aside.

2. PLACE the cream in a saucepan. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise with the tip of a small knife. Scrape both sides of the bean with the knife’s dull side and add the seeds and bean to the cream. Place the saucepan over medium heat until the mixture is nearly boiling.

3. REMOVE the cream mixture from the heat, and very slowly add ½ cup of the hot cream to the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the now-warmed egg yolk mixture into the hot cream, whisking to combine.

4. RETURN the saucepan to the stove, stirring constantly over medium heat until the mixture is thick and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and strain through a fine mesh sieve. Allow mixture to chill in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.

5. CHURN the ice cream in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

 
*You can use Tahitian or Mexican vanilla beans in place of the conventional Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans to highlight different vanilla flavors. You can also susbstitute vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract: 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste is equivalent to 1 vanilla bean.

The jury is out on wedding cakes. They’re a long-standing tradition, but how many people actually look forward to eating that slice of cake?

Many people we know would prefer a cheese plate for dessert. And surprise: In the U.K., cheese wheels layered like a wedding cake are gaining traction. Why not bring the tradition to the U.S.?

You can have a cheese wedding cake as a replacement for a classic wedding cake or in addition to it.

Here are instructions to build your own, from Andy Swinscoe of The Courtyard Dairy in North Yorkshire, England. Andy was the World Cheese Awards 2013 Cheesemonger of The Year.

Here’s a gallery of gorgeous cheese wedding cakes on his website.

By the time it gets to market, the leaves
(which are mildly toxic) are typically cut off
rhubarb, and only the stalks are sold.
Rhubarb looks like pink celery, but it isn’t
related. Photo courtesy OurOhio.com.

Spring is rhubarb season. It parallels asparagus season, available fresh for just three months a year—April through June.

So make rhubarb while you can. Naturally tangy, this versatile vegetable can be used in savory sauces or cooked as a vegetable. When combined with sugar it pops into delicious desserts, which is why sweet rhubarb has become more popular than savory preparations.

Rhubarb first grew wild in northwest China, and was cultivated as far back as 5,000 years ago, for medicinal purposes. Before it was first sweetened by British cooks in the Victorian era, it was added to soups, sauces and stews—Moroccan tagines and Middle Eastern stews, for example.

The thinner and darker pink the fresh rhubarb stalks are, the sweeter they will be. When shopping for rhubarb, look for stalks that are crisp, bright pink, thin, and unblemished.

Check your farmers markets and specialty food stores for rhubarb products, fresh-baked (pies, tarts) or prepared (chutneys, jams).

At the grocer’s, Dry Soda makes a rhubarb flavor; rhubarb syrup to mix into drinks, on pancakes, etc. (you can also find strawberry rhubarb syrup).

Be sure to cook only the stems; the leaves are mildly toxic.

Savory Uses For Rhubarb

 
Sweet Uses For Rhubarb

You can use soft and sweet stewed rhubarb by itself, with an optional topping of crème fraîche, sour cream or Greek yogurt. We also like it:

 
We loved our Nana’s stewed rhubarb so much, we visited twice weekly during rhubarb season just to get our fill.

This easy recipe requires only three ingredients—rhubarb, sugar, water and lemon juice—with optional flavorings (you can substitute a teaspoon of vanilla for the tablespoon of lemon juice).

For a purée, like applesauce, run the cooked rhubarb through a food mill or food processor.

Ingredients

1. TRIM, wash and dice the rhubarb. Combine in a saucepan with the water, sugar, lemon juice and optional sliced berries.

2. BRING the water to a boil and then simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is slightly thickened and the rhubarb is is in threads (stringy), about 15 minutes.  

3. COOL and chill or serve warm.
 
ABOUT RHUBARB

Technically, rhubarb is a vegetable, a member of the sorrel family (the difference between fruits and vegetables). Native to Asia, rhubarb has long been used in Chinese medicine.

Fruits carry their seeds inside; vegetable seeds scatter in the wind. You see seeds in an apple, avocado, cucumber and tomato, but not in broccoli, carrots or lettuce. Lacking sweetness doesn’t make it a vegetable.

Rhubarb, Rheum rhabarbarum, is a vegetable in the family Polygonaceae. The leaf stalks (petioles) are crisp like celery with a strong, tart taste. Rhubarb looks like rosy-pink celery, but is no relation (celery is a member of the Apiaceae family).
 
Fruit Vs. Vegetable

While rhubarb is botanically considered a vegetable, a New York court decided in 1947 that since it was used in the United States as a fruit, it counted as a fruit for the purposes of regulations and duties. A side effect was a reduction on imported rhubarb tariffs, as tariffs were higher for vegetables than fruits. [Source: Wikipedia]

And that’s only one example. Science notwithstanding, on May 10, 1893, tomatoes, a red fruit/berry of the Nightshade family, were declared a vegetable by the United States Supreme Court.

At the time, there were import tariffs on vegetables but not fruits, yet tomatoes were still being subjected to the tax. In 1887, an importing company had sued the tax collector of the Port of New York to recover back duties collected on their tomatoes, which they claimed had been wrongfully classified as vegetables.

The Court decided that the tariff act should be based “in common language of people,” not botanists, so tomatoes should be taxed like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets etc.

More proof that justice is blind.