This Just In — Dumpling Lasagna!

The hubs and I were so enamored by a post for Dumpling Lasagna we found on Facebook that we pulled out the wonton skins we’d stashed in the freezer at some point to get started—and I pushed back the recipe I originally had intended to post this week to share the fab recipe for Dumpling Lasagna with you! 

I think this tasty lasagna is a perfect thing to make with the young ones. Not only is it simply made and pleasing to most palates, it’s also on the table in a snap. My comments below in italics.

Thanks to Chris Lee for the inspo! 

Dumpling Lasagna

Adapted from Chris Lee/Facebook

Ingredients
1 lb extra lean ground chicken
Chopped green onion
2 teaspoons grated ginger (one scant teaspoon fresh ginger is good, or to taste!)
One tablespoon garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
One tablespoon sesame oil
One tablespoon oyster sauce
One teaspoon brown splenda (we had light brown sugar on hand)
One teaspoon salt (I don't think it's needed)
2 teaspoons white pepper (very strong, we used one teaspoon)

1/4 cup chicken broth
10 to 11 sheets wonton wrapper (a strange number; we used twelve sheets, overlapped)

Sesame oil soy sauce:
2 tablespoons soy sauce, half teaspoon of sesame oil, pinch of chili flakes

Instructions
1. Into a bowl combine the following ingredients. Chicken, green onion, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, brown splenda, salt, white pepper, mix!
2. In a baking dish layer the ingredients like lasagna. Start with a layer of meat mixture wonton skins and so on.
3. Pour 1/4 cup of chicken broth on top of the finished layers.
4. Steam the baking dish for 20 to 25 minutes until the entire dish is cooked.
5. Top with soy sauce mixture green onions sesame seeds and enjoy.

BOOK/A TABLE - A Toast to French Toast

In honor of Bastille Day, I’d like to propose a toast—to the French Toast Loaf! And let’s raise a glass to Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables as well, the epic tome that captured France in the early years of the nineteenth century so vividly. It also happens to be a great read.

Hugo’s hero Jean Valjean was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread, of course, but I can’t help but feel the gendarmes of the day would have turned a blind eye if he’d stolen this fantastic French Toast Loaf instead! I mean, who could blame him?

This is a perfectly portable dish after all (you can also try stuffing your mixture into muffin tins), to be delivered to a friend’s brunch table or simply enjoyed for breakfast at home with a liberal slathering of butter, alongside a cup of steaming coffee and fresh juice. Grab on the way to work or consider as a dessert, topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

A spritz of Cointreau or brandy might be a nice finishing touch to the syrup added to the top of your loaf and certainly feel free to add in some chopped pecans or walnuts. Crispy bacon crumbles...? 

As Hugo wrote: “Happiness unadorned is like unbuttered bread: one may eat it but one does not dine.” 

So cheers then, to a whole lot of adorned happiness!

Behold the innards of our marbelized loaf...at a quick glance, one might mistake it for a sumptuously good terrine or a gooey mille-feuille pastry!

French Toast Loaf
(Serves four comfortably for a lovely breakfast accompaniment)
Ingredients
4 x 6 1/2-inch foil loaf pan 
4 challah rolls, torn apart by hand
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (or maple syrup)
1/2 TB ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp lemon zest from fresh lemon
A few fresh grinds of black pepper
Pinch or two salt

Method
Pre-heat 400-degree oven. Lightly coat pan with butter or a few sprays of Pam. Whisk together wet ingredients in a serviceable bowl and add in spices. This is where the few drops of liqueur could be added in as well before mixing in some chopped nuts. Add challah pieces and coat thoroughly (it is very important to soak all the pieces) mashing it all together with your fingers and tightly molding it together before slipping the mixture into your pan. Spray with Pam. Put into oven for five minutes before reducing heat to 350-degrees for another 25 minutes. Remove from oven and pour maple syrup on top and let rest for five minutes before serving.  

Did you ever see the musical version of Les Misérables? Several times? Let me know in the comments!

Parmesan Bowls

Quick and easy are watchwords when it comes to summer cooking and of course, fun is as essential in summertime as sunscreen. My little cousin (now a married lady and a mom) nearly lost her mind when I introduced her to the Parmesan bowl concept years ago, filling the cheesy vessel with salad and chives out of her parents’ summer garden.

Part serving dish, part Parmesan crisp, these delightful bowls always deliver a fair share of oohs and ahs. So grab some parm and get started!

Parmesan Cheese Bowls
Grab two microwave safe nesting bowls.

Line a large flat plate with parchment paper; make a circle template by putting the smaller of the bowls upside-down on the parchment and tracing a circle around the opening.

Remove the bowl, add the cheese. Spread a thin layer of grated Parmesan cheese onto the parchment, a bit larger than the traced outline.

Microwave the cheese (on the parchment) on high for about 1 minute or until melted and golden.

While still hot, quickly drape the parchment, cheese-side up, over the smaller upside-down bowl; immediately top with the other larger bowl. Let sit and cool for 3 minutes.

Let set and separate: Remove top bowl and gently invert the Parmesan bowl. Carefully remove the parchment. Allow to fully harden, about 15 minutes. 

Fill with greens (or whatever else you like) and do enjoy!