Stuffed Turban Squash

Tags

dinner, Fall, food, holiday, idea, Pork, sausage, stuffed, turban squash, yum

The first time I saw a turban squash I knew I had to possess one!  They are so gorgeous.  But I had no idea what to do with it. Internet search here I come (what did we do before the internet?)  This is what I found and I’ve never looked back.  My husband LOVES this dish and every fall whoever sees the striped beauty first always brings it home.

The recipe is super easy and open to lots of adaptation.

Ingredients

• 1 turban squash
• 2 Tb butter or olive oil
• 1/2 onion chopped small
• 2 carrots diced
• 2 stalks celery diced
• 1 lb pork sausage
• 1/4 c breadcrumbs
• 2-4 TB brown sugar (depending on your taste)
• salt & pepper
• any herbs you want to experiment with, hot chili? sage? etc

Preheat the oven to 350 F. First you must cut the top off the turban squash and remove the seeds from top & bottom (keep the top). Brush the cut edges with olive oil and put cut side down on a foil wrapped cookie sheet.  Roast the squash until mostly soft, depending on the size it will be at least an hour.  You want to be able to scoop some out but it will also cook a little more when you stuff it so you don’t want it to fall apart.

Saute the onion, celery & carrots in a saucepan in the butter or oil until tender.  Add the sausage and cook, drain any fat.  Mix in brown sugar, bread crumbs, salt/pepper and herbs if you want to use some (I usually like it as is).  Scoop out some squash and add to the sausage mixture.  Stuff the mixture into the squash, cover with the top and bake at 350 F about 25 minutes so the flavors can blend.  Serve!

I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished meal until it was …much…too…late………….

I was lucky to get a picture of these last remains.

My apologies, I’m a terrible food blogger but a wonderful cook! 

 

 

Kale, Quinoa & cheese casserole!

Tags

casserole, cheese, clean eating, dinner, Fall, food, gluten free, healthy treat, idea, kale, quinoa, savory, side dish, yum

So is this a “clean” recipe you might ask?  Somewhat.  Too much cheese can be a bit heavy but I think the other ingredients make up for it and what’s a little cheese between friends?!  The other ingredients are kale and quinoa, plus some eggs and I even added Greek yogurt….so there’s lots of protein and the kale is healthy right?  I’m totally justifying.  What the hell?  Let’s eat some cheese! Lots and lots!!!!  Cheesy goodness.  Whew! That’s out of my system.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 c quinoa
• 1 bunch kale
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 eggs
•  1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 cup cheddar cheese
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• salt/pepper
• panko

Cook the quinoa, I get mine in the bulk section so I always soak in cold water for about 10 mins and rinse until the water runs clear.  Then add 2 1/2 cups water to the quinoa, bring to a boil, cover & simmer until the water is absorbed. While it’s cooking, cut the kale into bite sized pieces and either stir fry or saute until wilted.

In a bowl whisk together the eggs, milk, yogurt, spices, salt/pepper and the chopped garlic.  Mix in the quinoa, the kale and the cheese.  Pour into a greased 13 x 9 baking dish and sprinkle panko or bread crumbs on top.  Bake in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes.  Like all recipes you can adjust the amounts of anything including the spices to your taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And done!

Pavlova by any other name

Tags

chocolate, creamy, dessert, food, gluten free, idea, Merengue, pavlova, sweet, yum

I recently came across an amazing baking blog.  Mostly cakes to be specific. You can find the link below and if you have any interest in cakes I highly suggest you go now…I’ll wait….see you in a few days!  http://sweetapolita.com/  There are so many amazing cakes to try and recreate and I don’t even like cake that much!  But this one  here  was too much. I couldn’t wait.  Especially when some friends invited us to dinner and asked me to bring the dessert.  Me, bring a dessert?  I think I can manage that. 

Pavlova!

 

 As usual I did make some changes so I will write the recipe as I did it and if you want the original, go to the link above.  One thing I was forced to change was the use of marscapone cheese. I couldn’t find it in my local store and really didn’t want to drive all over the place searching for it.  I can substitute of course. I used cream cheese mixed with some sour cream and heavy cream. (I’ll write it in the ingredients, never fear.)  

So Christmas… it was quiet, drama free and filled with stuff I like.  We didn’t go down to LA to be with my family for once.  I thought I would be more sad but it turned out well.  We spent Christmas Eve eating with some friends, turkey, stuffing etc and a to die for Upside Down Pineapple cake that I’m gonna have to remember to get the recipe for.  But the actual day was spent watching Marlon Brando “On the Waterfront”,  a Chinese Movie that was great, I’ll think of the name in a minute.  I made a fantastic chicken/vegetable with dumplings soup that I’m worried I’ll never be able to recreate.  I have to start writing the impromptu things down. Oh yes, the Chinese movie was called “The Stool Pigeon” and I give it two thumbs up.  Totally story driven, set in modern Hong Kong and just what you want in a movie…unless you can’t stand violence cause all Chinese movies seem to have some violence these days.  The Koreans are the Kings of violence though. Great bloody movies with interesting stories!  But you might ask, how can I like violence when I love dessert so much?  As if the two can’t go together?  It’s some strange thing in my DNA that enjoys the sweet with the brutal.

 

Stool Pigeon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this cake isn’t even really a classic cake. There is no flour so if you have friends with gluten allergies this is perfect!  It’s layers of merengue, cream and chocolate.  Oh by the way, I halved the original recipe, next time I will do the full thing.

  On to the merengue:

 

6 egg whites (at room temperature)

1 1/4 cups superfine sugar aka casters’ sugar

a pinch of salt

 

You must beat the egg whites with the salt until the eggs get foamy, add the sugar slowly and beat until the mixture is glossy and stiff.  This is a hard stage to judge, at least for me it was. I was very paranoid because I know it needs to be stiff peaks (but how stiff!?!) and I also know you can over beat and end up on the other side, somehow….I don’t know what this other side looks like and I don’t want to find out!  Here is a picture of where I stopped.  I think next time I will dare to go a bit further.

 

 

Is this glossy or stiff? Enough?!?

  

 

Meanwhile, the oven should be heated to 250 degrees.  Place parchment paper on 2 cookie sheets and make 6 inch circles on the parchment.  You don’t want the the pencil marks to actually touch the merengue so turn the paper over.  Scoop out the merengue onto the sheets and spread inside the circles, it should be about 1 inch or more thick.  I made three circles out of it.  Her recipe said to cook for 2 1/2 hours?!?!!  I did not do it.  I cooked for 1 hours 20 minutes and then left them in the oven with the temp off and the door open to let them cool on their own.

 

circles of fluff!

 

 Now you can make the creamy filling/topping. I used 1/2 package of cream cheese mixed with 2 Tb sour cream and 1/8 cup of heavy cream.  Mix together well and you will have a good substitute for marscapone, or use real marscapone…it’s all up to you.  In a separate bowl I creamed 1/2 cup (plus a dash or two more) of heavy cream with 1 1/2 Tb sugar and about 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla paste (which I recently purchased and like alot, its more liquid than paste and has vanilla seeds in it)  Beat together until the cream is thick, fold in the cheese mixture.

 

 

 

Now we can work on the chocolate ganache.  I feel so elegant when I say ganache.  I always put an accent on it.  A snobby accent.  Say it… Ganache. If you say it too many times it sounds strange though.   Put 9 ounces of chocolate in a bowl. I used a combination of chips and a big chunk I bought. If you use a big chunk, make sure you shave it into small meltable size chunks.  In a saucepan, bring 1 cup heavy cream just to a boil.  If you watch the top of the cream you will see funny things happen and you’ll be able to tell when it’s about to boil.  Don’t let it completely come to a boil or it will boil over the top of the pan quickly. Danger.  Danger of being burnt by hot cream.  Not what you want to happen during a desert making experience.  Pour the cream immediately into the bowl with chocolate and whisk until combined.   If you have time wait for it to cool, if you don’t have much time, put it in the fridge to cool.  You want it to be a bit thick and stay on the cream where you put it. 

 

You can see the cream in the pan, ready to boil!

 

Now it’s time to construct your layers.  I put some ganache on the plate so the merengue wouldn’t slide around as I had to take it in the car to my friends house.  Layer merengue, cream and chocolate.  I also put it in the fridge during dinner to make sure it set as my merengue layers looked a little lopsided. 

 

 

  

This dessert is so amazing that it needs it’s own name.  A name that embodies the crunchy, creamy, chocolatey, melt in your mouthness that is this dessert.  Maybe “Born under a Bad Sign” or “Bad Moon Rising”?  For some reason I feel like a blues song fits this dessert. Or!  I’ve got it!  Brutally Sweet!!!  I am open to suggestions….

 

It didn't last long after this.

 

Now I have a German Chocolate cake to make for a birthday and then……diet!  

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and…not that much trouble, really.

Tags

baking, bubble, dessert, holiday, idea, monkey bubble bread, sweet, yum

Monkey Bubble Bread!!!

Doesn’t that look amazing?  It smells wonderful while it’s baking too.  So, as you may have noticed I’ve been on a baking spree.  There’s even some things I’ve made that I haven’t posted because I forget to take pictures!  I found this in a cookbook, Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito, which I highly, highly recommend.  I remember seeing this type of bread when I was younger but I forgot about it so when I saw it in their book, well it had to be made. I and a bunch of my friends, are glad I did!  I’ve decided to bake for other people now because I’m having to up my gym time to 5 days a week to keep up with the baking and it’s a losing battle. So….bake for others!  I’m probably gonna break down and have to start bringing baked goods to work too.

Anyway….on to the recipe. You REALLY should try this cause it just looks so damn cool and when you walk in carrying this, everyone wants to know what, how etc.  A definite friend impresser….if you’re into that type of thing….and really who’s not?

So here we go again, this is a yeasted bread.  Start with 1 1/4 cup of milk at room temperature, and add an envelope of instant yeast (the kind you get from the supermarket), whisk it in really well and let it sit for at least 10 minutes.  Then in a separate bowl mix together 4 cups flour, 5 Tb sugar, 1 ts salt and then add in 1 beaten egg.  Slowly add the milk/yeast mixture and combine, then add 5 Tb melted butter and start to knead the dough. After you knead the dough to a silky stage, put it in a greased bowl, cover it and let sit for at least an hour, it should double in size.

Let it sit.

Now punch it!

Punch it down and reknead for a few minutes.  Now here I did my famous…I want to go to bed, I don’t want to finish it today and so I wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the fridge.  FAST FORWARD TO….next day.

Punch down the dough if you left it in the fridge and re-knead, if you did not leave in the fridge, just proceed from here…

Shape the dough into little round balls, about 1 inch or so in diameter.

round dough balls!

Melt a stick of butter in a saucepan. In a seperate bowl combine 1 cup brown sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon.  Dip the balls into the butter and then the sugar/cinnamon mix and then place in a bundt pan.  Make layers. Cover the bundt pan in plastic and let sit for another hour to rise again.

Another brick in the wall

start

After the dough balls are nice and puffy, preheat the oven to 350 and bake for 1/2 hour.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then turn it out on a plate. Best served warm.  You can just pull apart the pieces and eat them!

Done!

Shepard’s frolic in the potatos!

Tags

dinner, idea, lamb, potato, savory, Shepard pie, yum

I love Shepard’s pie but I really don’t like the name. How’s Shepard’s frolic?  Or frolicking Shepards?  I think that must be what they do when they hear what is for dinner…I know I do.  To Frolic…I picture people wiggling and jumping in sheer delight.  AND it’s so easy to make, really and truly.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground lamb (try the lamb, it’s super good but if you just can’t then beef will do)
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 chopped carrots
• 1 tb tomato paste
• 1 tb flour
• 1 1/2 tb worcestershire sauce (I can NEVER say that) or I used some amino sauce, you can use soy as well
• 1/2 tsp dijon style mustard
• 1 cup water
• frozen peas (lots!) about 2/3 package or more

The topping:

• Potatoes (about 5-6 med russet) peeled & cut into pieces
• 1 cup milk
• 6-8 TB butter

If you want to make this even easier just use mashed potatos from a tub, or even the instant powder ones I suppose.

Turn the oven on to 425. Cook the lamb on med high until the pink is gone and it’s a bit browned.  Transfer to a colander and drain the fat off.  In the same pan add about 1/4 cup water, turn the heat to med and cook the onions & carrots until soft.  Add the tomato paste & flour and stir until combined, add the worcestershire sauce. Put the lamb back in and add the water, cook until thickened, and add the peas, salt & papper.

Meanwhile, cover the potatos with water, heat to boiling and then simmer until the potatos are fork soft.  Drain off the water, put the milk and butter in the cooking pot and heat to simmering, add the potatos and mash. Salt and pepper to your taste.

Put the lamb mix in a 9 inch deep pie dish or similar type pan or you could put in individual ramekins too. Cover with the mashed potatos and put in the oven for 20-25 mins, the potatos may get brown on top and that is ok.

Pre-oven

I swear I need a better camera! I’ve seen some blogs with amazing pictures, and they must have amazing cameras.  And lighting!

Luckily, I got a picture before it was all eaten up.

Yum!