Member Center
cook of the week
Cook of the Week: Megan Rice
Monday, July 31, 2006Name: Megan Rice.
Home: Trenton.
School: Sophomore at Edgewood High School.
How long cooking: She's been cooking since she was very young, when she got her first Easy Bake Oven. It took about three hours to bake chocolate chip cookies and brownies in it. Later, she started cooking with her mother's oven, making homemade lasagna — a family recipe that was passed down from her great-great grandma Gertie.
How often she cooks: Rice cooks every day in the summer for her brother, Chris Blair, and for herself.
Cooking mentor: Rice has had several influences in the kitchen: Rice's mother, Martina Blair, taught her to make lasagna. Rice's grandmother, Judy Williams, of Hyde Park, is teaching her and her cousin, Tommy Williams, of Fairfield Township, how to make holiday dinners, including mashed potatoes. She also enjoys learning how to cook from her Uncle Daryle Dunn, who was a culinary chef at a local restaurant.
Specialty: Chocolate-covered pretzels.
Favorite cookbook or culinary resource: The TV food
network, especially Emeril.
Favorite restaurant: The Habits, in Oakley (suburb of Cincinnati).
Special interests: Color guard member of the Edgewood High School marching band, and hanging out with her boyfriend, Joey.
Two favorite recipes: Grandma Gertie's lasagna and Williams'
quesadillas.
Grandma Gertie's
lasagna
1 pound hamburger
1 box Muellers pre-cook lasagna noodles (no boiling required)
1 jar Prego spaghetti sauce
1 tablespoon fresh minced garlic
1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 quart cottage cheese
On the stove top in a skillet, brown hamburger. Add minced garlic. Drain grease off hamburger. Add Prego sauce to the hamburger mixture; stir.
In a 9 x13-inch baking pan, put one layer of lasagna noodles in the bottom of a lightly greased pan. (Note: Rice's mother uses pre-cooked lasagna noodles because it saves time. She says it's the best as well as the easiest lasagna recipe she's made.) Spread all of the cottage cheese over top of the layer of noodles. Sprinkle 1/2 of the mozzarella over top of the cottage cheese. Put a second layer of noodles over top of the mozzarella. Spread 1/2 of the hamburger/sauce mixture over the noodles. Add a final layer of lasagna noodles. Spread the remaining hamburger/sauce mixture over top. Top with remaining mozzarella cheese. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.
Yield: 8-10 servings.
Williams' quesadillas
1 boiled chicken breast
1 cup shredded quesadilla cheese (3 or 4 kinds of cheese in a bag)
1 cup mild cheddar cheese, shredded
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, diced
4 round flour tortillas, or more as desired
1 cup sour cream
On the stove top in a deep saucepan partially-filled with water, cook the chicken breast. Transfer chicken to a bowl and shred. Add jalapenos, quesadilla cheese, cheddar cheese, cilantro, and sour cream. Mix all ingredients together. Spread some of the mixture over 2 tortilla shells. Top each with another tortilla shell. Put quesadillas in a lightly-greased baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cut quesadillas into triangles. (Note: She has leftover quesadilla filling and tortillas from the package, so she refrigerates both for a quick, easy meal later on.) When serving, optional garnishes or sides are: additional sour cream, salsa and/or guacamole dip. Yield: 2 quesadillas.
Have fun
An Excuse to Celebrate
World Television Day
Okay, so this is technically a European holiday, but we Americans love TV too. Watch the tube as much as you want today in celebration. TV listings and more »
Best of Dayton
You Decide What's the Best
Best Barbecue Restaurant [poll]
Here's where you get to tell the world what you think. Every week you get to vote on the best that the Dayton area has to offer in entertainment, restaurants, recreation & and a few other bizarro categories.
Voting in this category ends on Nov. 24.
We have REVISED our official rules »
Colleges
Find Local College Events
University of Dayton
- Fourth annual Citizens of the World Exhibition at ArtStreet
- Friday Film Series at ArtStreet
- The Dan Rivers Acoustic Open Mic Show at Bargos Grill
Sinclair Community College
- The Elderly Brothers at J-Alans
- The Sailing, Russian Tombstones and The Audible Influence at Canal Street
- WROU 'Old Skool' dance party at Gilly's
Wright State University
Things to Do
Find Local Events
Check out the hottest fashions at Ebony Fashion Fair [things to do]
International fashion flair will rock Dayton a week earlier than usual. The Ebony Fashion Fair, a longtime day-after-Thanksgiving tradition, catwalks into the Dayton Convention Center on Friday, Nov. 21. Tickets are $25 to $30. The traveling fashion show is expected to raise $10,000 to $12,000 for National Council of Negro Women programs. More »
What's happening this week
- Mothergrove at Peach's Grill
- Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra with Violinist Vadim Gluzman at Schuster Performing
- Auntie Mame at Dayton Playhouse
- The Cover of Life at the Dayton
- Third Friday Fling in Yellow Springs
- 103.9 The X and Live Nation Present Staind, Seether and Papa Roach in Concert at Hara Arena
- Party Crashers at BW3s in Englewood for the OSU-Michigan game
Search Events
Find Local Events
What's happening this week
- Mothergrove at Peach's Grill
- Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra with Violinist Vadim Gluzman at Schuster Performing
- Auntie Mame at Dayton Playhouse
- The Cover of Life at the Dayton
- Third Friday Fling in Yellow Springs
- 103.9 The X and Live Nation Present Staind, Seether and Papa Roach in Concert at Hara Arena
- Party Crashers at BW3s in Englewood for the OSU-Michigan game
Movies
Movies & Showtimes
'Twilight'[movies]
If Buffy the Vamipre Slayer has taught us nothing else, it's that teens, vampires and love affairs make for good entertainment. In "Twilight" new girl Bella is swept up in a passionate and dangerous romance with Edward, a mysterious teen vampire. More »
Find Showtimes
Find Movie Times
New Movies in Theaters
Restaurants
Find Restaurants
Random Top-Rated Restaurants
Food & More
Local Dining
Amelia's Bistro, Bellbrook, restaurant review [review]
Call it comfort food, gourmet style. From crab raviolis with vanilla lobster sauce, to a hand-cut and brined pork chop served with a fig jam, to a simply "Big-Ass Cake" that's a chocolate lover's dream, Amelia's has the potential to become a destination restaurant — worth the drive to Bellbrook. More »
Random Top-Rated Restaurants
Click restaurants to add your rating/review.
ActiveDayton.com: Contact Us | Advertise | Our Partners | Feedbot | Find our free weekly magazine | Sitemap | RSS
Copyright © 2008 Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA. All rights reserved.
By using ActiveDayton.com, you accept the terms of our visitor agreement and privacy policy.
