Roasted Butternut Squash and Cranberries

No, I am not testing recipes for Thanksgiving side dishes, because the truth is that as much as I love to cook, the holiday isn’t at my house and I don’t do much (any) of the cooking. However, this weekend I was thinking about the cranberries in my refrigerator, and wondering if I could roast them. I had some butternut squash on hand too, so I decided to give this a try.

Please be warned – although roasting generally brings out sweetness, this dish is still quite tart. You might get a few ‘faces’ at the table if you serve this as a side dish, especially if they are expecting something similar to sweet cranberry sauce. So if you’re serving this on it’s own, I’d add another tablespoon of sugar.

I decided to toss the squash and cranberries over a spinach salad with white beans, with a balsamic vinaigrette. When all the flavors mixed together, it was just right. Not to mention, quite a pretty salad!

1 20 oz. package butternut squash, peeled and cut
2 c. cranberries, rinsed and drained
1 T canola oil
1 T brown sugar
1 t cinnamon

Toss all ingredients in a large bowl, and place in a 13″x9″ dish. Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, or until squash is softened, stirring occasionally.

Must-Have Thanksgiving Foods

With Thanksgiving around the corner, everyone seems to be talking about their favorite holiday foods. To be completely honest, I could skip the turkey entirely. I could forget about the mashed potatoes. Gravy – meh. I do enjoy the turnip, but I could wait until St. Patrick’s Day. Nothing beats a piece of my Mom’s apple pie, but it might be even more fun to eat after a smaller dinner.

The one recipe that makes my Thanksgiving is this stuffing. The one that contains sausage and ground beef, with some Italian bread, cheese, and eggs. The one that’s even better when cooked outside of the turkey, and gets nice and brown on top. I’ve blogged for 2 Thanksgivings, and still don’t have a great picture of the stuffing, but I’ll try again this year. Trust me though, a picture will not do this dish justice.

What’s your must-have dish on Thanksgiving?

Spotted!

Today I wanted to highlight a post by Caitlin of Healthy Tipping Point on freezer friendly meals. You all know that I think a well stocked freezer is the key to success in healthy eating for really busy people. And especially this time of year, we’re all really busy! She even highlighted this Fall Minestrone that I made a few weeks ago.

I forgot my packed lunch yesterday, and had to scramble to find something to buy. I ended up with a very lame sandwich. It made me so thankful that most days, I do remember to put a container in my bag, and can count on a healthy meal.

So go ahead and cruise my section on soups and stews, and find something to cook this weekend to enjoy in the work days before Thanksgiving, or to stock your freezer.

Vindaloo Vegetables

It was Sunday, and I needed to cook lunches for the week. I wanted something vegetable heavy, and a little spicy. I have 2 people to thank for this recipe, Robin Robertson who published the original recipe in Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, and Fat Free Vegan for adapting it and publishing it on her website. I adapted it further, removing the step which calls for cooking the onion and carrot in a frying pan before adding the vegetables to the crockpot. Really, I am just too lazy to take out another pan! I also increased the ginger and cut back on the cayenne.

But this dish was incredibly easy to put together. Within a half hour, the crockpot was going, and I was studying. (Or tweeting, or looking for more recipes…) And then 6 hours later it was done, and the smell was incredible. I cooked some brown rice, and then put together lunch containers for the week.

1 T minced garlic
2″ cube fresh ginger, peeled and diced
1 mini (0.5 oz.) box raisins
1 t coriander
1/2 t cumin
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1/2 c. cold water
3 carrots, peeled and diced
3-4 c. cauliflower florets
2 zucchini, diced
1 (15 oz.) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
1 c. hot water
1/2 c. frozen peas, thawed

Place garlic through water in food processor, and pulse until well blended. Pour in the bottom on a large crockpot. Add carrots, cauliflower, zucchini, and beans. Mix tomato paste and hot water, and pour over vegetables. Toss ingredients to ensure all vegetables are coated, and cook on low for 6 hours. Add frozen peas in the last half hour of cooking.

Pineapple Cupcake

So last week my Mom and I had some unexpected time together, and decided to bake cupcakes. Well, the starting point was a can of crushed pineapple that my Mom wanted to use. And then Google helped us figure out that the pineapple could replace the water in a cake mix. Yup, there was a yellow cake mix in the cabinet so we were in business.

Really, that’s it – you just follow the cake mix instructions and substitute a 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple for the water. Well, my Mom followed the instructions and made the cupcakes, and I did some homework.

But then we needed frosting of course! We used the old fashioned method of whipping up a tablespoon or two of butter, adding a splash of milk, and then mixing in enough powdered sugar until it looks like frosting. My nephew was not too happy about the mixer (he hates the noise) but when he got a tiny lick of the frosting, he recovered well. And we all enjoyed our cupcakes later that night.

Fall Fruit and Yogurt Parfait

My cooking group’s theme this month was “Breakfast for Dinner”. We’ve done that theme before and it’s always a good one, and this year we even wore our pajamas and slippers. It was a very relaxing evening of chatting and eating…..

My contribution was this fall fruit and yogurt parfait. If I were serving this at home, I would have made the parfait in wine glasses. But I was taking this to South Boston and there aren’t enough cup holders in my Hyundai, so I used a more easily transportable pie dish. The fruit at the bottom was inspired by this recipe, which is good enough to stand on it’s own. The cranberries make it less sweet than you might expect, but it works well with the yogurt, and the granola adds some crunch. It’s perfect for a fall breakfast, or um, dinner.

There were more great dishes at our meal, and I’ll be back to talk about those later!

2 Macintosh apples, peeled and chopped
1 pear, peeled and chopped
1 c. cranberries
1/2 c. water
1 tsp margarine or butter
2 T sugar
2 c. plain nonfat yogurt
1 c. granola

Place apples, pear, cranberries, water, margarine, and sugar in a saucepan. Simmer on medium-low heat for 20 minutes, until fruit is soft. Remove from heat, and allow to cool completely before spreading in a pie dish. Chill fruit layer for 2 hours, or overnight. Spread yogurt on top, and then sprinkle granola over the entire dish.

-Recipe adapted from Russianseason.net

Remember that Tomato Sauce?

Remember the tomato sauce that my family slaved over a few months ago? Well, this week I took a small container out of the freezer, and made a simple meal of it with whole wheat linguine and grated Parmesan.

The sauce was still a little thin, but the taste was fresh. And in the midst of a difficult week on many fronts, this not only made for an easy meal, but made me appreciate that crazy day!

Roasted Delicata Squash Salad

I’ve tried a few fun squash recipes this year, like this Sweet and Sour Kabocha. But there are still plenty of squash varieties I haven’t tried, and recently I picked up a delicata squash for the first time. It’s a fairly small squash, and the skin is edible which means no peeling.

The squash was fairly easy to cut, and then I scooped out the seeds and sliced it thinly. I roasted the slices in the oven with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. OK, then I stopped to try it – yum! I could have just stood in the kitchen and eaten the whole pan, but I had a salad to make.
I placed some squash slices on a bed of baby spinach, and added some pumpkin seeds and ricotta salata, inspired by this recipe. I made a simple dressing of sauteed shallots, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. This was one of the best salads I ate all year! The flavors all worked together well, and there was squash is almost every bite. I was even able to pack this for dinner one night, keeping the salad and dressing in separate containers until right before class.
It was so much fun to pick up a squash that was new to me, and create such a fabulous meal.

Apple Cheddar Scones

I took advantage of my extra hour this weekend to make apple cheddar scones. This is not really an “everyday” kind of recipe, but I was in the mood to bake and had two apples that needed to be used. The combination of apple and cheddar was very appealing, both things I love.

Baking novices beware, this is not an easy dough to work with. It’s very wet, which made it difficult to shape in order to cut the scones. I finally gave up and just formed the scones with my fingers the best I could. According to the recipe reviews, it seems important to start with very cold ingredients, not to overmix, and not to add too much flour. That was a lot to think about at 7am on a Sunday, but I took Deb’s advice and went with the flow.
The end result was good, but not great. And after all that work, I had high expectations. The scones were fairly flat, and I didn’t like the apple and cheese combination as much as I thought. You all know how much I like the recipes on Smitten Kitchen, but this one just didn’t work for me.

Crockpot Rice and Beans

Rice and beans – a warm Latin American meal that’s easy and inexpensive. This recipe in the crockpot makes it even easier. It’s like crockpot express, because in just 3 hours I had perfectly cooked rice and beans. I used brown rice to make this a whole grain dish, and added a teaspoon each of cumin and chili powder in place of the Italian seasoning and onion flakes. The seasoning was just right, but you could make it spicier if you wish. Oh, by the way, it’s also great nutrition, with protein and whole grain.

This is a recipe I know I’ll make over and over again. The ingredients are common pantry staples, and I can set this up on a weekend afternoon and have a warm healthy dinner that night.