tamarinne

Lovely weekend - Saturday included Fry Crawl, which was an ill-fated attempt to zero in on the best french fry in Chicago.  Sadly, the first two places didn't open until late, and the line outside Hot Doug's took about an hour (thank goodness we had warm blankets in the car!)  Still, we did get french fries cooked in duck fat, and had a great time - the right crowd makes everything fun.

Saturday evening we had a few friends over for dinner, and served yet another Squash Win: Butternut Squash Lasagna.  Om, nom, nom.  The only sad thing about it is when you serve it to a group of people, there are no leftovers.  Alas!

Sunday was magnificently lazy.  I played computer games while Rick played Warhammer, I took a long nap, did some reading, and we watched a bit of West Wing.  Delightful!

I commented to Rick last night, "I love cooking squash!  It comes with a snack inside [i.e. the seeds, which toast up quickly] to tide you over while you wait for it to cook!"

This is such a huge change for me I can't even properly express it.  "I love cooking squash"?  Two years ago, I never would have said those words.  Didn't like squash, didn't know how to cook it, wasn't sure I wanted to change either of those things.  So CSA as immersive vegetable therapy has been a win, at least for squash.  Maybe next year I'll get better at lettuce.

At any rate, last night I cut open an acorn squash, toasted the seeds for pre-supper snack (nom!) and then set the squash halves to bake.  Meanwhile I chopped up a few sausages and cooked them, chopped up some onions, shallots, garlic, bell pepper and kale and cooked them in some chicken broth until the kale was done, and chopped up a firm pear and sauteed it for a few minutes in a little butter.  Mixed all of that together, stuffed the squash with it, and put it back in the oven for a few minutes with a topping of grated parmesan cheese.  mm.  mmm.

Dinner last night was very satisfying.  I took a red kuri squash, quartered it, and cleaned the seeds.  The seeds (with some oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of spice blend) toasted while the oven was warming up (until they started popping).   While that was going on I rubbed two quarters of squash with olive oil, and sprinkled them with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and some fresh sage.  The other two quarters were buttered and sprinkled with cinnamon, brown sugar, a little salt, and some walnuts. 

I baked the sqush quarters at 400 for about 45-50 minutes, until the squash was relaxed and happy.  We snacked on toasted squash seeds while we waited.  A few minutes before I took the squash out of the oven I put some shredded mozarella and cheddar cheese on top of the savory squash quarters. 

Appetizer, dinner and dessert: all from one squash!  Nom, nom, and again nom.  (Although I liked the dessert better once I'd drizzled a little maple syrup on it.  Rick's squash, however, did not last long enough for the maple syrup treatment.)

Have I really not posted about this before???

Over the holidays, we tried out some bread at Tom & Meredith's from the cookbook "Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day". We liked it so much we told Rick's mom about it, and she surprised us with a copy of the book a few days later.

This book has seriously changed my relationship with home-made bread. We now pretty much only eat warm, fresh-made bread, even after long days at work. We're contemplating getting rid of the bread machine, because it does not hold a candle to the bread we can make from this cookbook, plus the machine takes longer. The bread is crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside, and the dough keeps in the refrigerator for weeks.  You can make as much or as little as you want at one time (one naan, or two rolls, or an entire loaf).

An article describing the basic recipe and the process is here, and if you're interested in buying the cookbook, it's here.

Highly recommended.

Peel and de-seed a butternut squash.
Thinly slice it with a mandoline.
Microwave the sliced squash for about 8 minutes, stopping to rearrange/stir about halfway through.
Make a lasagna as you usually do, but instead of noodles, use the butternut squash. (The only other change I made was to mix a baking spice blend of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg & ginger in with the ricotta cheese & the meat - about 2 t. of the blend in each.) Bake it like you normally bake lasagna.

(I made my standard meat lasagna, but I'm sure it would be equally delicious as an all-veg lasagna. I'll probably try it with my mom's spinach & mushroom lasagna recipe one of these days.)

I could not believe how tasty this was. Very slightly sweet, savory, cheesy, DEE-LICIOUS.

Someone out there (was it you, learnedax ?) was talking about making their own maraschino cherries at some point in the past.  (That narrows it down, I know.)    Did that someone actually end up making them?  Was it worth it?  What recipe did you use?  We're buying a bottle of Luxardo to try to recreate The World's Best Brandy Manhattan that we had this weekend, and I started wondering about real vs. imitation Maraschino cherries and if making them from scratch was worth the effort.  Also, my search at lunch today yielded about a million recipes (brine, don't brine, almond extract, kirsch, maraschino liquer, etc, etc) and if someone had good or bad results with a particular recipe, I'd be curious to hear a report.

So for Alexx's birthday (really intended just for Alexx's visit, until I found out it was his birthday at which point it became a Birthday Feast) I made a recipe I've had my eye on for a while: Big Bucket O' Meat.  (Yeah, they've got some fancy-pants name for it.  Whatevs.)  It was good, although I'm not sure it was worth all the effort, but it led to a larger discussion of meat preparation methods (specifically of braciole, which I'd never made before I made this recipe), which led to the shocking discovery that I don't have an Italian cookbook.

 

Any recommendations out there for a good Italian cookbook?  I need to polish up my braciole skills...

...not a resounding success, either.

Bacon Toffee, sadly, was a little disappointing.  It tasted like toffee and bacon.  Don't get me wrong, it was yummy, but the unholy alchemy that has taken place in some of my other bacon experiments (Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies, Bacon Ice Cream) wasn't present in the Bacon Toffee.  It was good... but it wasn't sublime.

A combination of a sweetest day present for my sweetie, a birthday present for samazon, and a deep, personal love for bacon have led to my latest bacon recipe:

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They are made of salty sweet awesome deliciousness.

Science could not be content with merely making the cookies.  What about my vegetarian friends?  Well, I've discovered that substituting chopped pecans for bacon bits works admirably; chopped vegetarian bacon... less so.   It's still OK, because heck, it's a cookie, but definitely pecans or real bacon are the correct answers.

Below is my version of the recipe, then - I made some changes in the proportions and a slight technique change.  The link above was my original source, though.
( My version of Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies )

Bread - not too sweet, not too thick
Leftover pork roast - sliced thin
Mustard - yellow or dijon
Mayo - or Miracle Whip?
Swiss cheese - one slice
Dill Pickles - sliced or diced
Banana Peppers - ditto
and in lieu of ham... Bacon, baby.   Cooked, but not too crisp.

Butter the outside of the sandwich, and cook it in a sandwich press or foreman grill or the like, about 6 minutes total or 3 minutes per side, depending on your method.   The cheese should be melty and the outside should be toasty brown.

yummmmmmm.....