Roasted Spaghetti Squash Two Ways

This was a homegrown spaghetti squash project that's been lingering for a while. David grew about ten of them this year and they are so good with just olive oil, salt and pepper, roasted in the oven until the tops turn brown and the rind peels away. A little Parmesan cheese or quick tomato sauce over spaghetti squash makes a fast dinner!

These last three squashes were smallish ones, so we par-cooked them in the microwave and then finished them in the oven while the sauce cooked. If you have small ones like we did you can serve it right out of the shell.

To prepare each spaghetti squash for cooking, cut off the top and bottom, slice in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.

Ingredients:
1 or more spaghetti squash, prepared as above
Olive oil
One small or half a large sweet yellow onion, diced
Four cloves garlic, chopped
Four ripe tomatoes, diced
Parmesan cheese for serving

Preheat the oven to 375.

If par-cooking the spaghetti squash, cook the halves in the microwave on high for 4-8 minutes, depending on size, while dicing the remaining vegetables.

Drizzle the squash halves with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet in the oven cut side up and roast at 375 until the tops begin to brown and the skins are soft, or pierced easily with a knife.

While the squashes are cooking, make the tomato sauce. Heat olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat and when hot, add the onion and cook, stirring, until translucent. Add the chopped garlic and cook for one minute. Add the diced tomatoes and juice and cook for ten minutes over medium heat, until the tomatoes are soft. Season to taste with salt and pepper or fresh Italian herbs if you have them (basil, oregano or thyme).

When squash is cooked remove from oven. With a fork, scrape the squash from the rind. Spoon tomato sauce over one half, grate Parmesan cheese and sprinkle over the other half.

Healthy, easy and delicious! Enjoy.

Healthy Eating: Penne with Broccoli and Sundried Tomatoes

It's time to get back to some healthy eating!  Usually my cooking is reserved for comfort foods, carb bombs, and rich/creamy/gooey anything.  This creation is the result of overbuying broccoli at the farmer's market last Saturday (seriously, an enormous bag of broccoli for $3... couldn't pass it up).  I like it roasted or steamed, but this one is mixed with whole grain pasta and sundried tomatoes for a light dinner.

I used a cooking technique I got from this recipe by the Pioneer Woman.  It creates a light sauce without a lot of fat.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
One large or two medium chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
Two tablespoons flour, seasoned generously with salt and pepper
Two cloves garlic, minced or sliced
One or two heads broccoli, cut into florets (about 6 cups)
One bottle white wine
One pound box whole grain penne or similar-sized pasta
One cup sundried tomatoes (if using the kind packed in oil, decrease wine by 1 cup)

Set a large pot of salted water on high heat for the pasta and broccoli.

Heat about two tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat.  Dice the chicken breast and coat it very lightly in the seasoned flour.  (I put it all in a Ziploc bag and shake it up.  The chicken does not have to be completely coated).  Cook the chicken until browned on all sides but do not over cook.  Remove cooked chicken to a plate and cover with foil or another plate to keep warm.

Keep the pan over medium heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil if it is dry.  Saute the garlic for one minute, until fragrant.  Increase the heat to medium high and add 3/4 of the bottle of wine to deglaze.  Stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to release the pan drippings.  Add the sundried tomatoes and cook over medium heat, until sauce begins to reduce and the tomatoes are softened.  When sauce has reached desired thickness, add the reserved chicken and juices and cover to keep warm.

When the salted water is boiling, add the pasta and stir.  About halfway through the cooking time, add the broccoli florets.  When pasta is cooked, drain the pasta and broccoli, reserving 1 cup of the water.

Return the pasta to the pot and add the wine sauce, stirring to combine.  Add some of the reserved pasta water if the sauce is too dry.

Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese!

Mussels in Smoky Roasted Tomato Broth

This recipe is my own creation!  Well actually, it was inspired by another "Mussels in Smoky Tomato Broth" recipe.  I found one somewhere online and bookmarked it.  Months later I was heartbroken to discover the page no longer existed!  I searched and searched, but the recipe was lost forever.

I have struggled to remember what inspired me to make this and recreated it here, with the addition of roasted vegetables for extra smokiness.

Be sure to buy the mussels at the last minute.  I once bought mine too far in advance, put them in the fridge and found about half of them had opened before I had a chance to clean them.  Rinse them with very cold water, remove the beards and place them in a bowl of ice until ready to cook.  If any are open, tap them gently and if they don't close, discard them.

Four tomatoes, any type
1 bunch small green onions, cut diagonally in about 2 inch pieces
One bottle beer (I used a wheat beer, but ale would also work)
One 9 oz tube pork chorizo (I used El Mexicano from Savemart)
One pound mussels, cleaned and debearded (discard any that are open)

Cut the tomatoes into thick rounds, about three slices each.  Arrange on a baking sheet and roast at 400 until they are brown, about 30 minutes.  Remove to a large cutting board and add the green onions to the hot oven for about five minutes.

Heat a large pot over medium high heat and cook chorizo, breaking up with a spoon.  Cook until heated through.

While chorizo is cooking, cut the tomatoes into smaller pieces.  When chorizo is cooked add the green onions and the tomatoes and their juice to the pot.

Heat the used baking pan over medium.  When the pan is hot, turn off the burner and deglaze with the beer, scraping with the spoon to break up the cooked tomato juices.  Add all the beer to the pot.

When it simmers, add the mussels and cover.  Cook for 3-5 minutes.  When the mussels have opened they are cooked.

Ladle the mussels and broth into a shallow bowl and serve with thick baguette slices to sop up the broth.

Enjoy!

Superbowl Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce

Pulled pork will always be one of my favorite things to make.  It's a huge crowd pleaser, makes a ton and you can change it up a hundred different ways.

It's perfect Superbowl food.

You can make the pork and the sauce in advance, then in the morning put everything in the slow cooker to stay warm so you can hang with your guests when they arrive, or bring it with you ready-to-serve.

I like mine on a cheap hamburger bun (nothing gourmet about this meal) topped with a little cole slaw (super simple: a bag of pre-cut slaw mix and a dressing of mayo, mustard, sugar and vinegar).  You could further simplify the recipe by using store-bought barbecue sauce.

But obviously I can't do that.

Start with a nice big pork shoulder, bone in or out. Put it in a slow cooker, pour two cups of coffee over it, and cover with salt and pepper. Cook on low overnight, up to 12-15 hours.
Allow to cool for an hour, then pull apart into chunks, removing any big yucky fat globs.

To make the barbecue sauce:
Chop 1/2 onion and mince 2 or 3 cloves garlic. Heat olive oil in a saucepan and sauté until browned.
Deglaze the pan with about 2/3 cup Jack Daniels.
Add about 1 cup raisins & bring to a boil.
Add two cups apple cider vinegar, 1 cup apple cider, 1/4 cup Worcestershire and 2/3 cup soy sauce. Bring up to boil and add 1/4 cup molasses, 1 cup brown sugar and a 6 oz can tomato paste.
Peel an orange, squeeze the segments and drop them in. Season with 2 tablespoons chipotle peppers in adobo, 1 tablespoon smoked paprika, and a pinch each of allspice and ground cloves.
Boil until thickened and taste for seasoning. Add more soy sauce for salt, or apple cider if too tangy. The sauce should be on the thin side when finished, then run it through a food processor or blender.
Drizzle the hot BBQ sauce over the pulled pork and return to the slow cooker on warm or low setting to serve.

Serve a gob of pork on a hamburger bun and top with cole slaw.

Enjoy!

Jam Plan & the Chutney Challenge

Yeah, so I can't let anything go to waste.  I am officially my mother.

You know when you optimistically buy a pound of fruit, thinking "I'll eat all this today"?  And the next day you forget about them, and the third day it doesn't look as appetizing... and after that it's a lost cause.

So about half a pound of red, green and purple grapes were sitting there getting mushier by the day.  Enter the Jam Plan.

Since I didn't find any recipes to my liking, of course I made it up.  One noteworthy piece of info I came across: the difference between jelly & jam.

To start:
First, discard any yucky brown ones.  Remove all the stems and give them a good wash.  Most of the recipes I saw called for you to peel the grapes, but I'm not wasting a lot of time peeling grapes for week-old fruit I'm just trying to give another shot at life.  So I threw everything whole into a small pot with a little water and a squeeze of lemon juice, turned it on high and hoped for the best.

After a few minutes the grapes will get to cooking, but they don't really pop and burst the way cranberries do.  Add some sugar (I only used maybe a 1/2 cup).  You could throw the grapes in the food processor, or keep cooking until they break down, but I got impatient and decided to use my trusty immersion blender.  Warning: put your apron on first (screamin hot grape goop splattered on arms and neck = NAGL).

Let it cook for a while longer until it thickens.  When you drop a bit onto a cold plate, it should gel up immediately.  But you can eyeball it like I did.

I was curious what color jam I'd get since I used tri-color grapes, but as you can see, purple dominates!

I like toast and jam.

I've done this with strawberries as well.  If you've got apples or mangoes, you can make chutney by adding some onion, vinegar and spices.  Use it to top baked brie or pork!  If you don't wanna wing it, find some recipes here and here that I've used in the past.

Enjoy!

Holiday Gift-Giving: Super-Chunky Christmas Cookies in a Jar

Don't show up to a party empty-handed.

I got that bit of party etiquette advice somewhere, and it stuck.  Even when someone says "You don't need to bring anything, just yourself!"  Bringing your own supply of booze is a no-brainer, or a bottle of champagne if you're celebrating an occasion.

I find that bringing a gift for the hostess always does a little something to ease my party-attending anxiety.  "Oh, that was just a courtesy invite?  Well here's a present."

Prior to Xmas I was invited to two housewarmings and felt compelled to provide something.  But what if the hostess isn't drinking because she's pregnant/Mormon/on medication/in recovery/a teetotaler?  There are few truly universally appreciated housewarming gifts.  Cookies are consumable, but during the holiday season, sweets are already pretty played out.  Dumping two dozen cookies on someone who already has two pounds of See's candy to work through?  Just plain wrong.

So, here you go:  Cookies in a Jar.  Also known as "I put all the ingredients together for you... you can make it whenever the cookie mood strikes you" (or your husband, or your kids).  And it looks good just sitting on your countertop until you get around to it.

This recipe is adapted from the Food Network here.

First of all, it looks really cute.  But it was a little bit of a pain figuring out how to make it work, and the amounts given didn't quite fill up my jar, so be prepared to add a little extra of the cashews, M&Ms, chips, coconut, etc.

Step 1 is to put the fine ingredients in first, and the heavy ones in last, so I have reversed the order the ingredients appear, lest you start dumping everything in a jar without reading ahead:

Start with a 1 1/2-liter glass jar (I got mine at Crate & Barrel, but you can handily order them online here)

Super-Chunky Christmas Cookies Ingredient List

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder (or regular cocoa powder, sifted first)

3/4 teaspoon salt (or... leave this out if you accidentally bought salted cashews, like I did)

1/2 cup chopped cashews

3/4 cup red and green M&M's (or some other fun, season-appropriate combination of colors)

1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks
1 cup toasted shredded coconut

So how to get it to look nice and neat?  If you dump the flour in the bottom, it will cloud up the rest of the jar.  My boyfriend came up with this parchment paper funnel:

See how I used my cute Crate & Barrel Xmas bag to obscure the messy kitchen background?

Slowly lift up the paper and gently shake the jar until the flour fills the bottom, then repeat with the cocoa.

Not bad.

I added the cashews next, placing a layer around the sides of the jar and then filling up the center, to get a clean look.  Don't make the first mistake I did and drop them in from the top... they will drop like asteroids into a sandy chocolate desert and create a dust cloud of extinction-level proportions in your nice clean jar.  The mouth of these jars is wide enough to get your whole hand in, as long as you do a small handful at a time.

Repeat the layers through the coconut, remembering to add a little extra to each layer as you go, if it doesn't look like you are going to reach the top with the specified amount.

The finished product.

I finished mine off with a little ribbon and tied the recipe to it (and on the back, identified the ingredients inside, in case of kid allergies).  I printed it up with a cute font, but you could also handwrite it for a personal touch:

Beat 1 1/4 cups sugar and 1 stick butter with a mixer until fluffy. Beat in 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Add the cookie mix and stir until well combined. Scoop big round cookies (about 2 heaping tablespoons each) onto a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees until set, about 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on a rack.

It takes a little time (I don't recommend doing this in a hurry), but these jars were really fun to give, and the color combos are limitless: pink and red for Valentine's, Reese's pieces for Halloween... what about red and gold for Niner fans?!

Of course, now I need to bake them myself to see how the cookies turn out :)

Enjoy!

Holiday Egg Nog

What is better at Christmastime than touring the Fabulous 40s neighborhood of East Sacramento to check out the gorgeous holiday light displays?  Doing so with a mug of nog...  'Nuff said.

This recipe is not for the faint of heart, small children, the elderly, those who may be pregnant or nursing... you get the idea.  If you live in fear of salmonella or raw egg poisoning, you can cook it over low heat on the stove.  But I prefer to live dangerously.

5 eggs

1/3 cup sugar
1 pint heavy cream
2/3 cup brandy, or to taste
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor.  Blend on high for 60 seconds or until frothy.

Try not to drink it all at once.  Enjoy!