My Uncle Paul

Since this blog is not entirely just about cooking, but more and more about my mother's family, I would be remiss if I didn't report the passing of my Uncle Paul, my mother's only sibling and one of her very few remaining relatives. This has been a painful time for her being far away from him in his final days. She's been blessed with reports from Paul's children who have been caring for him, but those reports have been very hard to hear. Being the caregiver that my mother naturally is, she would have loved to have been by his side to lend a bit of her vast amounts of TLC during the past few months, not only to assist him, but to relieve his children who have put aside their lives to be by his side. But she's got a long list of people to care for here, there, and everywhere. In the end, mother will have her three daughters with her as we travel back to Wisconsin this weekend to celebrate my Uncle Paul's life and have a bit of a family reunion as well...a side benefit of family funerals, I guess.

The following obituary for my uncle ran in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. What it doesn't mention is how he would curse like a sailor when talking about politics, or how he wore black knee socks with shorts, or how he would always convince me that if I could kiss my elbow, I would get a pot of gold coins. He could fly through the NY times crossword puzzle every week. He was an amazing photographer and used his photos to make cards that I always loved receiving as a child. I'd love to have an album of all of his photos, so many of them taken at my grandparents home in Sparta—Granny's peonies, Pa dove hunting. He was a character. He will be missed.

Paul Dillon Howard: February 26, 1925 - June 24, 2010

Born on 2/26/1925 to Augustus & Lula (Dillon) Howard in Akron, OH. The family moved from Akron to Sparta, TN where Paul grew up. In 1943 he graduated from Sparta High School and made the decision to join the Navy. He participated in the Navy's V-12 program which led him to Penn State University where he would receive his bachelor's degree. After college Paul moved to St. Paul where he took on a job at 3M. It was during this time that he met Donna Tofting. The two were married and settled in Hudson. This marriage would be blessed with son, Gordon & daughter, Laura. After some time the marriage dissolved. In 1962 Paul married Marian Webster Kermott and lived in St.Paul for several years before taking a job with FreightMaster and moving to Ft.Worth, TX. In 1992 Paul and Marian bought a condo in Hudson and split their time between Hudson and Ft.Worth. Later in his career Paul started his own business, Transportation Marketing Inc and would run that until his retirement in 2005. In 2007 they moved to The Lutheran Home in River Falls. Paul was a very hard working and dedicated husband, friend, and father. He demonstrated a great work ethic and was loved and respected by all who were a part of his life. He enjoyed music - particularly Jazz. His favorite artists included Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, among others. He also was an avid, self-taught professional photographer. He was never far from a camera and loved to take pictures of everything from flowers, to nature, family, to anything else that caught his attention including advertising photography for FreightMaster. Paul was a very longtime member of AA, always willing to help and lend support to others. He was also a lifetime member of the Hudson Masonic Lodge. His greatest joy was his family and he loved sharing his loves with his kids and grandkids. He had a wonderful sense of humor was always willing to do anything for anybody and left a positive impression on those who called him friend. Paul is survived by; his wife, Marian (Webster) of Hudson; son, Gordon Howard of Eau Claire; daughter, Laura Rush of Eau Claire; daughter, Katharine Kermott (John Ahern) of St. Paul; daughter, Pam Wasson of Fort Worth, TX; daughter, Claudia (Lynn) Rhymes of Santa Rosa, CA; sister, Vera (Jennings) Davis of Oak Park, CA; 12 grandkids and 3 great-grandkids; and ex-wife Donna Vierbicher. He is further survived by other relatives and many dear friends. A memorial gathering for Paul will be held on Sat 7/3 at the O'Connell Family Funeral Home in Hudson, WI from 11am to 1pm. The gathering will conclude with military honors provided by the Hudson American Legion and VFW. A very special thanks to the entire staff of The Lutheran Home for their loving care and continuing care of Marian.

10 Recipes (More or Less) in 2 Weeks

After a bit of a hiatus from the cookbook project (and the blog), a two-week vacation should allow for plenty of time to pick things up full steam. I have a handful of recipes that I've been wanting to tackle and finally have the time to really devote myself to the effort, uninterrupted by the demands of the job and the little one at my feet...she's in school this week while I'm at home and, while I love the peace and quiet of the house, I did have a little pang of sadness dropping her off this morning and turning around to go home without her. The older she gets and the more we actually communicate on a real, formed sentences kind of level, she's become this other person in our world instead of the baby we must tend to and feed and keep occupied, or the terrible two-year-old we're trying to restrain. She occupies herself most of the time now, with little scenarios that involve the Wonder Pets, or baby dolls, or stacking coins, or "reading" books. I sit with her in awe of all that she knows and how quickly she learns and retains.

So while the uninterrupted time will allow me to get back to this project, I have to say the quiet in the house right now is deafening!

Anyway, I started back at it this weekend with two savory casseroles, before I dive into a week of mainly sweets...which will just do wonders for my summer bathingsuit bod. I hope the neighbors are hungry.

The first is a casserole from my Granny Lula's collection, written on a weathered and yellowed index card in her handwriting: Carrot Casserole. Very few ingredients, sounds tasty, so I made it to go with a Saturday night dinner of roasted chicken and sauteed broccolini. Good color for the plate and maybe, just maybe, Olivia would like it since she loves carrots in cooked and raw form.

I really stayed true to the recipe as written; no tinkering, except for the addition of a nutmeg sprinkling on top before it went in the oven. The only question mark was the "2 cups grated cheese" ingredient...what kind of cheese? Which got me thinking, I bet there was only one kind back in the day: cheddar. I wouldn't normally put cheese with carrots, and my first choice probably would have been parmesan lightly sprinkled on top or something. Anyway, must ask mom about that one.

The casserole turned out to be souffle-like, light and fluffy. If you were going to tinker with it, I could see maybe adding some thinly sliced scallions, or add a little red pepper to add a little spice. But it was delicious as is, at least to me. Olivia didn't touch it.

Carrot Casserole
Lula Howard

3 cups mashed, cooked carrots
2/3 stick of butter
2/3 cup of milk
2 cups grated cheese
3 eggs, separated

Boil carrots with salt until mashable. Mix in butter, milk, and grated cheese. Separate three eggs. Beat yellows first and stir into carrot mixture. Then fold in beaten egg white. Pour into baking dish and top with more cheese (and a dash of nutmeg, my only addition). Bake at 325 for 45 minutes.

The next casserole is a breakfast dish that has made my mom famous: Creamed Eggs. It's a standard brunch item for us...Christmas, Easter, or any family gathering calling for a heavy and decadent way to start the day. If you're used to eating a small bowl of granola and a banana for breakfast, this will throw you into a food coma for sure. Add bacon and toast on the side, and you're done for the day.

Essentially here's the recipe: drown 6 hard boiled eggs in a rich creamy cheese sauce, top with more cheese, and bake. It's one of those things that my mom makes that screams home cooking for me, and it will always be a dish that I associate with her, with family gatherings, and with a full belly.

Creamed Eggs
Vera Davis

6 hard boiled eggs, pealed
2 Tbsp butter
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
dash of Worchestershire sauce
sprinkle of paprika

Hard boil eggs and peal. Cut into quarters. Set aside. Melt butter over low heat. Mix flour, salt, and pepper, then stir into melted butter. Stir constantly with a whisk to smooth the sauce. Whisk briskly to avoid lumps. Pour in milk and stir as you mix. Boil until the sauce is medium thick. Add most of the cheese to the sauce, reserving some to sprinkle on top of the dish. Stir until melted and smooth. Add a dash or two of Worchestershire sauce and stir. Remove from heat and fold in eggs. Pour mixture into lightly greased casserole dish. Sprinkle with grated cheese and paprika. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until bubbly. [If you are making this for a larger group, use 12 eggs and double the sauce recipe.]

And yes, that is homemade bread on the side, fresh from the oven that morning. Feel free to clap.

More to come this week: cookie day, the pecan extravaganza, and overcoming the cake conundrum.

Spring Green Pesto

My sister's contribution to the cookbook project is her famously delicious Pesto Sauce. She has perfected this recipe and typically makes it using basil grown in her own potted garden—huge, prolific plants that reap the most amazing bright green leaves. And in the past, the making of the pesto has been an event, as she cautiously tweaks and hones the flavors until the perfect balance of basil, garlic, parmesan, and pine nuts emerges. One such pesto party was in her basement apartment in D.C., during the hot, sticky months of summer when her miniscule kitchen was sweltering. She had piles of her unbelievably fresh basil leaves and a block of parmesan transported from Zabar's in New York. The resulting concoction was the best I have ever tasted, no doubt enhanced by the relief of cool night air that descended on the patio where we ate and the sense of accomplishment that comes from making something so delicious from scratch. If nothing else, this cookbook project reinforces this feeling in me and keeps me going even when grabbing the processed package of Buotoni pesto at the market is quicker and easier.

I have to say my attempt was pretty good, despite the fact that I had to use store bought basil—sadly the basil in our Driveway Garden didn't make it—and I didn't use the parsley in the recipe. But poured over penne and topped with grilled shrimp, it was a delicious spring meal. Hopefully we'll get another round of basil planted in time for a nice summer pesto party in the tradition of my sister.

Pesto Sauce
Liz Davis

4-5 cups fresh basil leaves
5 tsp parsley leaves
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
approx. 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a food processor, pulse the leaves until finely chopped. Add about half the pine nuts, garlic, parmesan, and pine nuts gradually and blend. Then add a slow stream of olive oil into the blending processor until a nice thick consistency forms. Turn off processor and taste. Add remaining portions of ingredients until you get the "perfect balance" of flavors. Finish with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over pasta cooked pasta. Store in refrigerator "for weeks" with a film of olive oil on top.

Driveway Garden Update:
The garden seems to be doing pretty well, with two tomato plants growing like weeds with tons of yellow blooms and the beginnings of delicious tomatoes coming in everywhere. Looking forward to the day when I can make homemade tomato sauce with our homegrown beauties. We also have squash blossoms, peppers starting to pop out of their white blooms, and STRAWBERRIES! Olivia was so excited to pick the first one and eat it right off the plant. I guess two little plants are not going to mean the end of the packages I buy at the market every week, but it's still fun to see them grow in our own backyard (or should I say driveway). 

Success and Failure for Mother's Day

Well, you can't win 'em all...and in my case, you can't make two great desserts in one day. Apparently, only one will be a success and one will fail miserably. 

Let's start with the success. And I consider it a success primarily because my nephew, Cameron, said it tasted just like Granny's cobbler, which is his favorite dessert of all time. So for this reason alone, the cobbler passed the test. I personally think that the top crust was too thick and the filling was a little too buttery, but I achieved the perfect balance between sweet and tart, though, which was my biggest triumph—I've had this cobbler when the rhubarb was so sour, we all sat around puckered and squinting. I'll take the small victories.

For both recipes, I made the crust from "perfect every time" pie crust recipe found in the vintage Crisco Favorite Family Foods Cookbook, the one my mother uses and, in fact, she does make perfect crust every time. It was pretty easy [of course, not as easy as opening the wrapper on a store-bought crust, am I right??!] I made it the night before and then rolled it out with the greatest of ease in the morning, feeling the satisfaction of having done something from scratch...and letting that store-bought crust sit another day in my freezer. See the end of this post for the recipe.

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler
1 large bag of frozen whole strawberries (fresh berries tend to get too mushy)
6-8 stalks of fresh rhubarb
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp flour (or cornstarch)
1 tsp. salt
1 stick butter

Defrost the strawberries and cut in quarters. Peel the rhubarb (like celery) and cut into 1/2 inch pieces. Mix sugar, flour, and salt thoroughly and then add to the fruit. Stir until all dry ingredients are liquified. Pour fruit mixture into the pyrex dish on top of the pastry crust. Cut butter in small pieces and place around on top of the fruit (the recipe actually called for 2 sticks of butter, but I cut it to 1 and still found it too buttery). Then place the other pastry (very thinly rolled out) on top of the fruit. Sprinkle the top with sugar. Place pyrex dish on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 375. Then continue cooking at 350 until golden brown, about 25-30 minutes on the top rack.

The result was really beautiful, bubbly and browned on top, and that gorgeous shade of red oozing out the sides. It looked and tasted pretty good. Success.

Now let's move on to the failure...

Note to self: just because a recipe looks easy on the card, it still has the potential to turn into a complete failure. I thought I had done it right, even gauging the very vague instruction, "stirring constantly until 'right thickness,'" to be the thickness that I remembered seeing my mother achieve when she had made it before. But things started to get shaky when I poured the perfectly thick chocolatey goodness into the 9" pie crust and realized I was probably supposed to double the recipe for a 9" pie pan. I went through the machinations in my brain that I usually go through when I hit a snag with one of my mom's recipes: should I make another batch? should I double the meringue? should I just follow the recipe and let the cards fall where they may? I went with option 3 and made the meringue...that only covered about 1/3 of the chocolate filling. So I'll just make more meringue...but realized I had no more eggs. The disaster was gaining steam. My husband was going to the store for other items in a few minutes, so add eggs to the list, dear, your wife is creating a monster.

In the end, with a sorry batch of pitiful wilting meringue on top, the pie cooked, and turned golden brown on top, and I thought, well maybe it pulled itself together. Maybe. Not so much. I cut into it and the meringue gave way to a pool of liquified chocolate. The slice I was able to get on the plate was essentially crust and meringue with what amounted to chocolate sauce. Okay then.

My mom was horrified, not at my "creation" but because she didn't give me good instructions. She was apologizing profusely, while my sister kept assuring me that it actually tasted pretty good...what she could slurp up into her spoon, that is.

Anyway, no pictures of this one, thank you. Just the recipe that I WILL MASTER SOMEDAY. Try it and if you have more success, please send pictures so I'll have something to aspire to.

Chocolate Meringue Pie (a.k.a. Mother's Favorite Chocolate Pie)
IMPORTANT: If you are using a 9" pie pan, double the chocolate and meringue.

2 eggs yolks (reserve the whites for the meringue; add more if you want a really tall pie)
2/3 cup sugar + 2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa
2 Tbsp flour
dash of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole milk
1 Tbsp butter
cooked pie crust
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Mix cocoa, flour, and salt in a nonstick skillet. Beat egg yolks and add sugar and milk. Use a whisk to mix liquid ingredients with dry ingredients over medium heat, stirring constantly until "right thickness." Add butter and vanilla; continue stirring. Don't boil. Pour into cooked pie crust. Make meringue: beat egg whites (2 or 4 depending) with 2 Tbsp sugar and cream of tartar until you get stiff peaks. Spoon the meringue on top of the chocolate and seal it to the edges of the crust. Bake until golden brown on top at 300, approximately 20 minutes.

Crisco Pastry Crust
Single Crust:
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup Crisco
3 Tbsp cold water

Double Crust:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cups Crisco
1/4 cup cold water


Combine flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut in Crisco (I think this means cut the Crisco in little pieces and mix it into the flour) until mixture is uniform; mixture should be fairly coarse. Sprinkle with water, a little at a time, and keep adding the water until you can form a ball.(If you've made the double crust, cut the dough ball in half.) Put dough on floured board and using rolling pin to roll pastry to "right" thickness (maybe about an 1/8", but not really sure). Place pastry in pie pan, 8" or 9", trim one-half inch beyond edge of pan. Crimp edges. If you are making the cobbler, place the pastry in the bottom of an 8 x 10 or 13 x 9 pyrex pan, then cover the fruit with the other half of the dough; you don't have to seal it, but cut slits in the pastry to allow for air and for a little fruit syrup to bubble through. If you are making the Chocolate Meringue Pie, you'll need to prick the pastry with a fork and then bake it at 375 for about 10 minutes, then fill with the chocolate filling and meringue.

Mother's Day Reflection

Big weekend ahead with two Mother's Day celebrations covering mothers on both sides of the family. It gives me an opportunity to test a few more recipes and actually serve them to my mother on Saturday: Chocolate Pie (which my mother won't eat; more on that later...) and Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler. The Chocolate Pie, covered in delicious meringue, is a Granny Lula specialty and a childhood favorite. The cobbler came along later in the family history, but is a much-requested item by my nephew. So Saturday morning I'll be in the kitchen! Recipes and photos to come...

Now about that no chocolate policy my mother adopted several years ago...that's right, no chocolate. No chocolate chips, flakes, or syrups; no chocolate cakes, pies, puddings, or cookies. No chocolate whatsoever. Ever. She gave it up and for a reason that speaks volumes about the kind of mother that my mother is.

She became friends with a drug addict. Yes, my sweet, innocent, and naive mom from Sparta—who hadn't had more than a sip of alcohol in her whole life, much less a controlled substance—befriended a woman who spent years battling various addictions that landed her out on the street, pregnant, in and out of rehab, and finally into sobriety. [We'll call her Thelma.] My mother wrote Thelma letters, prayed for her, counseled her, visited her in rehab, cried when Thelma ran away from rehab, sat at the hospital while Thelma went through labor and gave up her baby for adoption, and then finally rejoiced as Thelma found her way to sobriety.

Through all of this, my mother came to the conclusion that she was addicted to chocolate and, if she was encouraging Thelma to get clean, well then she should too. It was her attempt to find common ground with this woman—so different from herself—who needed someone to be on her side, making sacrifices on her behalf. Whether or not she was REALLY addicted to chocolate, who knows. Regardless, she gave up something that she loved in order to make someone else feel loved. That's my mother. A mother to everyone.

In Sandra Bullock's acceptance speech at the Oscars, she thanked "the mommies who take care of the babies" in this world. My mother takes care of her babies and her babies' babies. She takes care of friends and strangers, acquaintances, neighbors, children and the elderly, the addicts, the saved and the sinners alike.

And typically all of this caring involves baking a lot of desserts...with chocolate. But she never takes a bite.

Mother's Recipe for a Mother-to-Be

Since my husband and I would certainly balloon to 300 lbs. if we actually ate all of the desserts I'll need to test in order to get through my mother's collection, I am constantly looking for occasions where I can bring the tested delicacies and have someone else gain weight from them. Risky, I know, since the end result of a first attempt could turn out disastrous. But I'll usually give it a go...particularly when I have 2 dozen Susie Cakes cupcakes ordered as back up just in case I have another XXX Sugar incident.

A co-worker's baby shower is the perfect opportunity to test a cake that was one of my all-time favorites growing up: Sarah Oldfield's Hoosier Cake. Sarah Oldfield was a women who attended Westchester Church of Christ with my family when I was a child. Many a Hoosier Cake was consumed at many a church potluck! Not sure why it's called Hoosier Cake...must have originated in Indiana, right? Regardless, it's pretty delicious, yet not extremely rich; you can see from the photo below that the batter is really light—my mother always used Hershey's Cocoa. I guess if you used a darker cocoa, the end result would be richer, more decadent. But then it wouldn't be my mother's Hoosier Cake!

Cooks.com has a recipe for Hoosier Cake that is essentially the same as my mother's but doesn't come on one of her, um, sometimes-not-so-easy-to-decifer recipe cards:

Hoosier Cake
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 sticks butter
4 Tbsp. Hershey's cocoa
1 cup water
1/2 cup buttermilk (again with the buttermilk!)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Mix flour, sugar, baking soda and salt; set aside. Melt butter. Add cocoa and water. Bring to boil and pour over dry ingredients. Mix and add buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. Pour into greased jelly roll pan (this is roughly 2" deep and 9x13"; I borrowed the very one my mom uses...my kitchen will implode if I purchase one more cooking tool). Bake at 350 degrees about 30 minutes.

Icing:
1 stick butter
4 Tbsp. cocoa
6 Tbsp. buttermilk
1 box powdered sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp. vanilla

Melt butter with cocoa and buttermilk. Bring to boil (I would say simmer; the boiling seemed to make the icing thicker) and add powdered sugar, nuts, and vanilla. Pour over cake while icing is warm.

My mom would suggest that you poke holes in the cake before you pour the icing over it so that the gooey goodness of the chocolate permeates the cake thoroughly. And she also recommends that you refrigerate to set the icing before cutting into roughly 2 inch squares.

I have to say this wasn't a great attempt...the icing was not as shiny and oozing as I remember it. Poking holes wouldn't have mattered since the icing turned out to be pretty thick. Next time I'll probably modify it with a darker chocolate and I'll cook the icing slower so it doesn't separate, which is why it had a denser consistency. Still yummy and nicely paired with the tried and true Dutch Cake...I had a quite a bit left over so I was able to share the calories with friends and neighbors!

The Lone Italian

My mother lived the majority of her life in Tennessee, until my father took a job in Los Angeles in 1963 and moved the family out west, to the land of palm trees and crazy liberals.

This was a dramatic move. Their friends and family asked if my parents would actually be taking their furniture with them. How could they possibly want to live out there in La La Land, heaven forbid, permanently?

But move they did and it wasn't easy...mother cried the first time she saw her teeny tiny house and the bizarre palm trees that surrounded it. She says, "My very first impressions were pretty sad since I had moved from an acre lot and a beautiful 4 bedroom home with a big bay window to what I thought looked like a Pan Am filling station." Imagine moving from an idyllic suburban existence in Nashville to the heart of South Central Los Angeles, on the precipice of one of the most violent periods in L.A.'s history, with two teenage daughters and a husband who was married to his job. Dramatic to say the least. [I came along about 8 years later, making me the only member of my family to actually be born in La La Land.]

"I knew this would be our home so I just decided o.k., I hate it, but I couldn't allow your father to feel like he had made a mistake, and I also didn't want didn't want your sisters to have the same feelings I had." [Of course, my sisters were thrilled. Think Beach Boys and bikinis and eternal sunshine...] Ever the optimist and able to turn any negative into a blessing, my mom settled in, with the help of many dear and loving friends who found themselves in the same situation as my family...transplants in a very foreign land.

I can only imagine what her first trip to a grocery store in L.A. was like, her first look at an artichoke, her first bite of pizza. "We had great grocery stores in Tennessee so I didn't think the ones here were any bigger or better.  The foods were different; we saw things I didn't even know what they were.  For instance, jicama...what in the world was that? And since Tennessee was a 'dry' state it was a real shock to see beer and wine in grocery stores and also drug stores."

Mexican and Italian food were introduced to the family as well. Her recipe for Manicotti probably came from the box of manicotti noodles, which she picked up after trying the dish in a restaurant. It is the lone Italian dish in her collection. The recipe doesn't resemble anything that you would find in an Italian cookbook...no garlic, basil, olive oil, homemade sauce. But it is delicious anyway. I, of course, tinkered with it and added a few more items, namely homemade ricotta cheese...

I found a recipe for ricotta in this month's issue of Bon Appetit. I read it and was amazed at how incredibly easy it would be...kind of like my epiphany about bread. So off to Sur La Table I went to buy a candy thermometer and cheesecloth, bought yet another quart of buttermilk, pilfered some of my daughter's whole milk, and less than an hour later, I had made cheese. I made the cheese that would fill the shells for the manicotti that my mother's makes. Cool in many ways.

I think this recipe is a very typical one from my mother's collection. Like many others, it is not a difficult recipe, it does not have a complex array of ingredients or instructions, it's not necessarily authentic, but it tastes good in the way that only something your mother makes for you can taste good...and every time you eat it for the rest of your life, it tastes like family and home. And in the case of my family, it was a flavor that was only experienced after they moved across the country to a very new place, during a very difficult time, where everything that was familiar and comfortable was many miles away, where new worlds of food were available for the first time.

Manicotti with Homemade Ricotta

15 oz. ricotta cheese
1/4 lb. mozarella cheese, grated
1 Tbsp finely chopped parsley (I added basil and oregano as well)
12 manicotti shells, boiled al dente
1 jar marinara sauce
3 Tbsp grated parmesan
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten

Boil shells until al dente. Let cool. Mix ricotta, herbs, sugar, and egg in a bowl. Fill shells with ricotta mixture. Cover bottom of baking dish with marinara sauce. Place stuffed shells in baking dish in a row. Cover with marinara, mozzarella, and parmesan. Cover dish with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes at 400. Remove foil and bake another 5-10 minutes uncovered until bubbly and slightly browned on top.