Savory Greek Yogurt Salad

Sometimes I wonder when I’m gonna get my actual act together and cook dinner on a weeknight like a real live adult. I start off the week with the best of intentions. There’s always meat in the freezer that could be thawed. There’s typically no shortage of vegetables in the crisper due to my weekly market run. I don’t have single girl syndrome to fall back on, I’m pretty sure my boyfriend of many years wouldn’t complain if my cooking-for-two was together enough to extend past Saturday and Sunday nights.

But then I get home at 7pm and I’m all like, “yea this single fried egg with hot sauce is a perfectly acceptable meal.” This brings me to the savory greek yogurt salad that has become a staple in my weeknight meal rotation. I’m not going to pretend that other grownups would consider this a full fledged main entree, but for me on a Tuesday night, it does the trick. 

It’s tangy and savory and has protein, there’s salty feta and an herby cucumber tomato salad and lately I’ve taken to adding lots of toasty sesame seeds and for the tiniest sweet touch, some golden raisins. I feel like it’s a lot more well rounded than my standard egg for dinner. I will admit it’s a very summery salad --- cool, crisp and full of summer fare. I’ve had this salad in my back pocket for awhile now, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and for all the tomatoes to disappear all at once! But since the market had no shortage this past weekend, I have no problem telling to you make this immediately, before it’s too late!

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Savory Greek Yogurt Salad

Ingredients:

½ cup chopped tomatoes

½ cup chopped cucumber

1 teaspoon dill, finely minced

1 teaspoon parsley, finely minced

1 teaspoon mint, finely minced

1 teaspoon shallot, finely minced

juice of ½ lemon

tablespoon or so of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

scant ¼ cup crumbled feta

1 cup greek yogurt

Optional, not pictured:

sprinkling of sesame seeds (or sunflower or pepitas...or all)

golden raisins

Directions:

In a bowl, combine tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, shallot, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Put yogurt into serving bowl, spoon salad over top, dress with a touch more olive oil and fresh ground pepper, feta, and any other optional toppings if desired.

Serves 1

What I Really Eat: Saucy Zucchini & Tomatoes

"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

A less inspired person might look in their fridge and on their counter and see but a single languishing green squash and some dying baby heirloom tomatoes. But me? I saw dinner.

Summer, at times, forces me to become a partaker of the clean out the fridge meal. And typically I emerge a champion on the other side, with a quick dinner and extras for the freezer to boot.

What started as a cross-my-fingers-hope-this-tastes-good endeavor became one of my favorite summer dinners to date. And my boyfriend deemed it one of the meals that defines my cooking style --- homey, comforting, saucy and made of out nothing. He stirred it into some freshly scrambled eggs as he said this. I opted to plop it into some brown rice, and because “treat yo’ self” --- melted a bit of shredded mozzarella on top.

Over the next couple days, most found its way to the freezer for when I’m sad in January and I want a taste of summer. But just so I could show you what I did, I swirled some into brown rice pasta and then had a very good Saturday lunch.

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What I Really Eat: Saucy Zucchini & Tomatoes

Ingredients:

olive oil

2 cups zucchini, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups tomatoes, diced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 cup chicken stock

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

salt & pepper to taste

a touch of butter

¼ cup parmesan, shredded or grated

Directions:

Splash a bit of olive oil into the bottom of a medium sized pan over medium heat. Add diced zucchini to the pan and stir to coat in olive oil. Let the squash cook for about five minutes on its own, then make a well in the middle of the pan and add the garlic. Stir in garlic and let it become fragrant, about 30 seconds, then add the tomatoes. Stir to combine. Add the tomato paste to the pan and stir to coat all the vegetables. Keep stirring the tomato paste into the vegetables and let it begin to brown on the bottom of the pan for a minute or so. Then add the chicken stock and deglaze the pan, using your cooking utensil to scrape up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the red pepper flakes and season with salt and pepper. Let this mixture simmer until reduced by half and zucchini is nice and soft. Before turning off the heat, stir in a touch of butter and the parmesan cheese to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.

Stir into all the things.

Makes about 2 cups of saucy vegetables.

What I Really Eat: Quick Chicken Francese

"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

Realistically I’ll realize about an hour before we should eat dinner that I’ve never taken the pack of chicken out of the freezer that I wanted to use. It’s then a mad dash to thaw chicken totally improperly so I can start cooking with it. At some point I acknowledge that whatever grand semi-plans I had for dinner need to be completely abandoned because I’ve wasted an hour of valuable time waiting for the chicken to not be a solid block of ice.

So we wait a little bit longer for the chicken to thaw. I don’t know if you know this, but like the watched pot never boils, the chicken never thaws. Then we slice each breast in half (it still being a little icy actually makes this easier.) Pound it thin with a meat mallet. Even though they’re still stupid cold, they’ll be so thin they will fry up quickly after a dredging of starch and egg. Deglaze the pan with chicken broth and lemon juice, reduce it to thicken and make it silky with butter. Pour over chicken. Shower with parsley. Done.

This is all practically 15 minutes after slicing the first breast open.

The takeaway: defrost your chicken in time for dinner. Or like me: ditch the original plan and make a dinner that only takes 20 minutes.

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Quick Chicken Francese

Ingredients:

1 pound chicken cutlets, pounded thin

2 tablespoons tapioca starch or corn starch (can sub 1/4 cup flour to dredge instead, if desired)

1 egg

olive oil for sauteing

1 cup chicken broth

1 lemon, halved -- juice one half and thinly slice the other

1 tablespoon of butter

salt and pepper

2 tablespoons of chopped parsley

Directions:

Salt and pepper the cutlets. Dredge each in the tapioca starch and put aside on a plate. Beat the egg in a medium sized bowl.

Coat the bottom of a large saute pan with olive oil over medium heat. Once starting to smoke dredge the tapioca starched cutlets in the egg wash and place in the pan to brown. Let chicken cook on one side until golden brown. Flip and cook second side until browned and cooked through. Saute chicken in batches if needed. Set chicken aside.

Deglaze the pan with the chicken broth scraping up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the juice of half the lemon. Let this reduce down by half, about 5 minutes. In little pieces melt in the tablespoon of butter. Add the lemon slices to the sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Put chicken on a serving plate and then pour the pan sauce over. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Serves 4

Ramp Ricotta Meatballs

At what point do we all start getting indignant about turning on an oven? At what point do the words meatballs and braise sound too heavy and hot to bear even listening to just because the warmth outside has climbed beyond our collective comfort zone?

I've never been one to not cook because it’s too hot outside. Not sure if you remember, but I had my oven ripping during a heatwave at the end of August in name of pulled pork for dinner. It was so hot in my kitchen that whipping cream refused to whip and these baked peaches had some very lackluster cream drizzle as their garnish. In actuality it was way too hot to have my oven going that day. But that was at the end of August --- very different from these end of spring chilly mornings.

I, for one, have had no problem packing these babies up these past chilly mornings. To top it off, I don’t know about your offices, but mine borders on arctic level temperatures most days. It’s nice sometimes to inhale something comforting and warming after spending the morning with numb fingertips.

I’d also like to think of them as a transition food. They could be considered winter fare for sure. But that springy dollop of ramp ricotta folded into the meat mix not only keeps them moist but adds a fresh spring spin on something normally considered hearty.

While I nestled these little nuggets among some sturdy kale, they would be just as tasty on a bed of fresh baby spinach  leaves which would really lighten the meal up to spring standards. Truthfully, they would also easily fit in among some red sauce --- spaghetti and meatball status, but that brings up unwanted memories of harsh winter weather, which I am desperately trying to forget.

Let’s dismiss that from our minds together and focus on all of the ramps, and peas, and spinach, and rhubarb this spring has brought us!

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Ramp Ricotta Meatballs

with garlicky braised kale

Ingredients:

1 egg, beaten

¼ cup almond flour or oats

½ cup leftover roasted ramp ricotta (recipe can be found within here)

salt and pepper

1 pound ground meat

olive oil for frying

2 bunches kale, chopped into 1-inch pieces (approximately 6 cups)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup chicken stock

¼ cup shredded parmesan

dash of butter

red pepper flakes, if desired

Directions:

(Recipe for ramp ricotta can be found within this recipe)

In a large bowl, mix beaten egg, almond flour, ramp ricotta, and salt and pepper until well combined. Add in the ground meat and begin to gently incorporate until well combined.  Take care not to overwork the meat, let’s keep it tender up in here.

Roll tablespoonfuls of the meat mix into golf ball sized meatballs. You should get about 25 balls out of this.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Once the meatballs have been rolled, heat olive oil in a medium to large ovenproof skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot enough, begin browning meatballs one small batch at a time. Brown the meatballs on all sides and set on a paper-towel lined plate to drain. Continue in batches until all meatballs are browned. Set aside.

Immediately add kale to the same pan. You may have to do this in batches as kale wilts down. Toss to coat in olive oil and meat fat. Salt and pepper to taste. Once kale has wilted down a bit, make a space in the middle of the skillet and add in minced garlic. Saute until fragrant and then mix into the kale. Add the cup of chicken broth, butter, and the parmesan. Stir. Season to taste, add pepper flakes here if desired.

Remove skillet from heat and nestle those little meatballs into the kale mix. Garnish with a bit more parm if desired and then throw into the oven to braise for about 15 minutes.  Serve.

Serves 4 to 6

Roasted Ramp Ricotta Pasta

I keep buying ramps. I keep buying them like I have the faintest clue what to do with them. Sometimes I think I am just buying them for the sake of their seasonality. I know they’re only here for a short time and I mean, everyone else is buying them…

Where’s a mom with her sayings about bridges?

Instagram was telling me that I could just roast them and end it there. Perhaps poach an egg and call it a night. Instagram was also really selling ramp pesto. I wanted to do something else, truth be told I’m not that big on pesto.

Sometimes a new experience, a new adventure, a new place can serve as inspiration. 

And sometimes that place is Brooklyn.

Since the weather’s been getting nicer, my boyfriend and I have been really diligent about going to different areas of the city and just ‘splorin on the weekends. We’ve both lived here alotta years but feel like there are whole parts of the city we’ve never seen. Two Saturdays ago we spent the entire afternoon and night walking all over Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Iced coffees were slurped, comfort food was had, ice cream was discovered, a frisbee was tossed, sunset was seen with toes in the grass. We didn’t want the day to end so we wandered around again until we found a cute little restaurant to grab some matching whiskey on the rocks.

Since we were still full from a heavy lunch, we sat at the bar and just sipped on our Jamesons, but I couldn’t help but look at the menu anyway. Just as I was thinking that the next day I really had to come up with a way to use those ramps --- I spotted a ricotta ramp pasta on the specials menu that sounded completely inspiring. Very springy, very simple sounding, very much something I thought I could replicate with some adaptations here and there.

So I figured out what to do with those ramps.

Watch those roasting ramps carefully! My first time roasting ramps I lost the poor things. Burnt to a crisp. RIP. A little char on the ends is a nice contrast but otherwise you just want them to soften and caramelize a bit. Also, can I just say you’re not doing it right if you’re not covered in dirt and leaves when dealing with your ramps. Clean them very well. They have a lot of crevices and those crevices have mud in them.

If you can find fresh peas, bless you -- USE THEM. I made do with some frozen ones.

And by all means, you can use whatever type of pasta you like, I used a gluten-free, “paleo” pasta by Cappello’s.

Last note, you probably won’t use the entire batch of ramp ricotta, but I can assure you I didn’t have a hard time figuring out how to use the rest. I may have spread it on some toast with roasted red peppers and pepitas. I also may have folded it into some meatballs…

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Roasted Ramp Ricotta Pasta

inspired by a special at Juliette

Ingredients:

1 bunch ramps, trimmed of ends and cleaned very well

olive oil for roasting

salt and pepper

8 oz ricotta (about 1 ½ cups)

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

½ cup diced bacon

1 cup fresh or frozen peas

1 box Cappello’s Fettucine (or approximately 8 oz fresh pasta / 4 oz dry pasta)

squeeze of half a lemon

shredded parmesan for sprinkling (if desired)

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a roasting pan, spread ramps out evenly amongst each other. Drizzle well with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for about 15 to 20 minutes. Begin checking them at around 10 minutes to ensure they do not burn.

While ramps are roasting, begin preparing the other components. Fill a medium sized saucepan with salted water and begin bringing it to a boil for the pasta. In a small bowl fold the majority of the chopped parsley into the ricotta, reserve a bit of the parsley for garnish if desired.

Once the ramps have finished roasting, remove from oven and let sit for a bit until cool enough to handle. Meanwhile begin to render out the bacon in a pan over medium heat. Once bits are close to getting nice and crispy, toss in the peas. Cook the peas until just warmed through and bacon is nice and brown. Remove from heat.

Take the cooled ramps and give them a nice chop. Fold the chopped ramps into the ricotta mixture. Then season it with salt and pepper to taste.

Now that all your components are ready, prepare the pasta. If you’re not using the Cappello’s pasta or a fresh pasta, do your best to accommodate for the cooking time of dry pasta. Cappello’s or fresh pasta only takes about a minute to cook, so I always cook it last.

As soon as pasta is done cooking, reserve a bit of the cooking water, drain the pasta and dump it into a large mixing bowl. Immediately add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the ricotta mix to the pasta. Add the bacon, peas, and some of the bacon fat to the bowl as well. Begin to toss together. I find that using a pair of tongs helps to turn the pasta into the mix gently. If you feel it needs a bit of help becoming saucy add a touch of the reserved cooking water until it’s the desired consistency. A squeeze of lemon at the end helps brighten the whole thing up.

Serve with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and shredded parmesan.

Serves 4

What I Really Eat: Migas Style Breakfast Tacos

"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

Having not encountered much Tex-Mex growing up, I didn’t learn the genius of migas until I was watching the special features section for the movie Sin City. I was a bonafide film nerd growing up (I even went to film school!) so it was normal for me to pour over the special features of any movie I came across. Here is where Robert Rodriguez solidified himself as both a favorite director and a serious crush factor. He makes movies? He cooks? And eggs for dinner at that? Sold. I’m sold.

(I highly suggest watching his other cooking school videos. As he wisely says "not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to f...just watch the videos.)

My love of migas has now totally and completely been cemented since I began visiting friends in Austin, Texas. One night while everyone else was drunkenly digging into some deliciously sloppy nachos, I was happily inhaling migas breakfast tacos at one in the morning.

These should work for all your come-home-a-bit-tipsy midnight snack needs, breakfast for dinner indulgences, and are just as appropriate for the time of day when eggs are usually consumed. They would make an awesome assemble-your-own brunch item. I’ve even packed them up for “not a sad desk lunch". Eaten cold from the fridge with my fingers? Guilty.

These of course would be much more simple without all the frying of various carb sources, but it’s the crunch of the tortillas that gets me every.single.time. More power to you if you make your own tortillas, recipe is in the video link. I’ve done it before and it is for sure worth it. When I’m just looking to stuff my face though, some organic sprouted corn tortillas I found at Whole Foods have been doing the trick just fine. If you do watch the video, I did adapt the recipe to essentially combine the two different tacos he makes. Believe you me, when tomatoes are in season again, those are going right on in.

I don’t believe in Cinco de Mayo, but I do believe in tacos. Here’s my contribution to the “holiday”.

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Migas Style Breakfast Tacos

adapted from Robert Rodriguez’s 10 Minute Cooking School

Ingredients:

¼ cup olive oil for frying

2 smallish yukon gold potatoes, diced

2 corn tortillas, cut into ½ inch squares

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, diced

1 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed and minced

6 eggs

splash of heavy cream or whole milk

salt and pepper

6 additional corn tortillas for serving

sliced avocado

hot sauce to taste

Directions:

In a medium sized skillet heat up approximately a ¼ cup of olive oil over medium heat. Once the oil is hot enough add diced potatoes to oil. Fry up until golden brown on all sides and soft when pierced with a fork. Remove from oil and set on a paper towel lined plate to drain, sprinkle with salt to taste.

Add cut up tortillas to the same oil, watch these carefully they will brown up quickly. Fry until completely golden brown. Turn off heat and add to paper towel lined plate to drain. Sprinkle with salt to taste.

In a different skillet or the same with oil cleaned out, heat 1 tablespoon of butter over medium high heat. Once melted add onion and jalapeno to the pan. While the vegetables are cooking, beat the 6 eggs with the splash of heavy cream and salt and pepper until combined.

When onion and pepper are getting soft and starting to caramelize, crank up the heat to high and add the remaining tablespoon of butter. Swirl to coat pan. When butter is melted and starting to brown, add the eggs to the hot pan. Let eggs begin to set on the bottom and then quickly add the potatoes and fried tortillas to the eggs. Start to pull the eggs away from the sides of the pan as you would scrambled eggs. Continue to cook eggs until the desired consistency. Remove from heat and plate.

Here’s where you do you. To serve, if you want lightly warm a tortilla then scoop a bit of the eggs into it. Top with avocado and hot sauce to taste. Proceed to stuff face.

Serves 4 to 6

Kale & Sausage Dinner Tart with Cheesy Rice Crust

So, it’s Saturday. Not Friday, when this post was supposed to go up. And I have no excuse really. I just suck. But let’s not focus on that right now, let’s focus on this tart, pie thing.

Pie. This was Sausage Pie. And it was glorious.

I’m using the past tense here, because that beautiful thang is long since gone, and I may or may not be still mourning it’s end. The lovely smell of sausage filled my kitchen for the better part of a day and it was heaven. Heaven, I tell you.

I can not take full credit for the ideas, I found both recipes at different times on Food52. But then I had the "genius" (um, common sense) idea to put them together. So la di da. I adapted lightly here and there to adjust for what I had on hand. Most especially there is a lot more sausage in here than the original recipe which I like to think is an improvement. I carnivore, therefore, I am. I am also not the type of person who typically has wine on hand for throwing into recipes. Do you think of me differently now? Chicken stock (from da freezer!) sufficed.

What is actually genius is the vision to smash leftover rice into a crust for a flawless gluten free alternative to tart dough. So thanks for that, Food52. Writing about this makes me want to make it all over again. Next time, I’d go all out and use hot italian sausage instead. Nice and sassy like.

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Kale & Sausage Dinner Tart with Cheesy Rice Crust

Ingredients:

Crust:

lightly adapted from this recipe at Food52

1 ½ cups cooked rice

¼ cup shredded parmesan

¼ cup white cheddar

1 egg white

salt and pepper to taste

Tart filling:

lightly adapted from this recipe at Food52

1 pound sweet italian sausage

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 bunch kale, cut into 1 inch pieces

¼ cup chicken stock

¼ cup ricotta

2 eggs beaten

salt and pepper to taste

shredded parmesan for sprinkling (optional)

Directions:

Heat oven to 425 degrees

In a large mixing bowl, mix together rice, cheeses, egg white, and salt & pepper until well combined. Mixture should be sticky enough to hold together if you squeeze it lightly in hands.

Press mixture evenly into a 9-inch pie pan. Par bake in oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven and cool slightly.

Lower heat to 400 degrees.

Brown sausage in a large skillet over medium heat. Once cooked, remove from pan and set aside in a large mixing bowl. In the fat from the sausage, add onion to the pan and saute until translucent and beginning to caramelize. Add garlic to pan and cook just until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add kale to pan and cook until wilted, 5 to 10 minutes. Add chicken stock to pan and cook until reduced just slightly, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan as you go. Remove from heat and add to bowl with sausage. Stir to combine. Allow to cool slightly.

Once cooled, about 5 minutes, add ricotta, eggs, and salt & pepper. Stir to combine well and then pour into prepared crust. Spread out evenly. Sprinkle top with shredded parmesan if desired.

Bake in oven for about 15 to 20 minutes or until crust has browned a bit on the edges.

Once removed from oven, leave to cool a bit and set.

Serves 8

Spinach Artichoke Mashed Potatoes + Friday Faves!

Because, Super Bowl.

While these aren’t something you would necessarily "dip" into since piling carbs on top of more carbs seems a smidge excessive. But, seriously though, YOU DO YOU. I won't slap a tortilla chip outta your hand or anything. But, if any of you plan on tucking into a more traditional dinner while watching the game this Sunday these are damn near perfect for the occasion.

Oh man, these are so freaking tasty. They taste so similar to that famous dip, but don’t have the globs and globs of mayonnaise and sour cream most recipes call for. The potatoes provide the entire base, I just added some cheese sauce to make them creamy and taste closer to the traditional dip.

They’re best paired with a simple main, since they’re on the richer side. But let’s be real, Superbowl Sunday isn’t one of those diet days.

Here are the Friday Faves for this week:

this is how sassy i *wish* my blog was

seven vegetables that are in season now

to add to my to do list

this reminds me, I have to start composting!

cauliflower, not carbs!

also on my to do list

PREACH!

my generation

oh and p.s. anyone want a bean-free hummus recipe?

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Spinach Artichoke Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 pound potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch chunks

1 tablespoon butter

2 garlic cloves, minced

8 ounces spinach

1 can artichokes, drained

1 cup heavy cream

¾ cup shredded cheddar

cayenne, to taste

salt and pepper to taste

additional ½ cup shredded cheddar for sprinkling on top

Directions:

In a medium sauce pan, cover potatoes with cold water. Bring to a boil over medium heat then reduce to a simmer until potatoes are soft when pierced with a fork, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

While potatoes are cooking, melt down half the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and then add the garlic. Saute garlic until fragrant and then add the spinach. Cook spinach until wilted, less than 5 minutes. Remove spinach and garlic from pan and set aside. In the same pan, melt down the last half of butter. Add artichokes to pan. Cook artichokes just until heated and beginning to caramelize a bit.

Meanwhile in a small saucepan, heat your heavy cream over a medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper. Heat only until just hot enough to melt shredded cheddar cheese.

Once your potatoes are done, drain the water from them and then mash them best as possible, you may need to add a splash or two of cream to get them going. Once mashed, transfer them to a casserole dish.

Stir the spinach, artichokes, and cheese sauce into the potatoes until combined well.

Sprinkle remaining cheddar on the top and throw into the oven until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Serves 6 to 8 as a side