Moroccan Stuffed Acorn Squash

I had two acorn squash that I had to use up soon since I accidentally tore the stem off while harvesting - Oops! Oh well, my loss is my gain as I found some great recipes for this particular squash, and not your run of the mill "drizzle it in honey" recipes. In fact, I found two really interesting ones and couldn't decide, so I made them both!

The recipe base came from elizadomestica.com. Just like Eliza, I had to make a few changes. The original recipe came from the October 2009 edition Martha Stewart Living magazine if you are interested.

The following is my version of this recipe...

Ingredients

• One medium acorn squash, cut in half and seeded
• 3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 scallion, separate the green and white parts and chop
• 1 slice sweet onion, chopped
  
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup chicken bouillon
• 4 cups water
• 1 cups of veggie burger mix
• 1/2 cup barley
• 1/8 cup raisins, minced
• 3 tablespoons chopped ripe sweet pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped apple
  
• 2 tablespoons of toasted pine nuts
• 1 tablespoons cilantro, minced

Directions

Cut acorn squash lengthwise and remove the seeds. Bake at 350F face down in an oiled baking dish for 30 minutes.

While squash is baking, saute in a medium frying pan white scallion, onion, and garlic in 1 TBS olive oil. Add chicken bouillon and sprinkle in cinnamon and nutmeg. Once the bouillon and seasoning are thoroughly mixed in, add water, veggie burger mix and barley. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the barley is cooked. Add more water during the cooking if necessary to keep it moist.

Near the end of the cooking process, add the raisins, pepper and apple.

Turn the heat up a little, add 1TBS olive oil and allow the mix to dry out so that it holds a form. Add the pine nuts and cilantro and mound into squash halves. Bake for 15 - 30 minutes until squash is soft.

The following are pictures of the squash before and after cooking.












The dark is the Moroccan (the light is the other recipe I tried: Corn Chowder Acorn Squash). This was definitely a great recipe, and, it was even better as leftovers!

Apple Chips

I went a little nuts this year. I told my apple orchard friend that I would like 3-4 bushels of apples for making applesauce. He gave me close to four bushels. What was I thinking?! After having made about forty quarts of apple sauce, I decided that I might want to make something else with the remaining apples.

I love the apple chips that I have gotten from the stores -- the very expensive apple chips. So why not make those? And guess what? They are easy!

I borrowed a cast iron apple peeler/corer/slicer. This tool slices the apples to the perfect thickness - about 1/8 inch --, but you could do that by hand. You don't have to peel or core the apple. Just slice the apple into 1/8in thick slices and pop the seeds out. If you use the peeler/corer/slicer, disengage the peeler. The apple will be sliced in a spiral with this tool, so line up your knife with the spiral end and slice through one side of the apple. This will leave you circles instead of a spiral.

If you want them flavored: mix 4TBS brown sugar, 1/2 - 1TBS cinnamon, and 1/8-1/4 cup water. Dip the slices in the mixture, shake them off and lay them in a single layer on a dehydrator* tray sprayed with Pam. IMPORTANT: If you do not Pam the tray, you will not be able to get the chips off the tray! I learned this the hard way and lost half my first batch.

Let them dehydrate about 18-24 hours. They may feel a little pliant when you remove them, but once they cool they should be as crispy as a potato chip.

These are addictive, but as healthy as they are, that's just fine. You should be able to store these as long as any other dried fruit, but you probably won't have to worry about storage times as they won't stick around long!

*If you do not have a dehydrator, you can do this in the oven. I didn't do any batches in the oven, so I'm not sure the best way to do that, but I hear a SilPat is indispensable. I don't have one, so I would line my cookie sheets with my cooling racks, Pam those and lay the apple slices on that. If I ever try the oven, I will update this post with directions.

Awesome Apple Pie!

I'm not a huge fan of pie. I really can't remember the last time that I baked pie. It could have been last Thanksgiving, but in any case, none could have been as good as this apple pie that I created especially for my apple growing coworker.

As usual, I made this recipe up as I went along.

Crust:

• 1-1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup COLD butter
• 1/4-1/2 tsp salt (I use sea salt, cause I love it)
• 2-4 TBS ICE COLD water
• a little bit of brown sugar (please use the C&H pure brown sugar, not the colored, flavored white sugar that a lot of companies try to pass off as brown sugar)

The important thing about pastry is that everything should be cold and you DO NOT want to over-work the dough. The way that pastry gets light and flaky is through the expansion of the little bits of fat in the dough while it's baking. If all the fat is mixed in too well, it does not do the job. No tiny air pockets mean dense, tough pastry.

So with that in mind, you really should mix this by hand with a pastry blender. A fork will also work, but I find that they dig into my hand. OR, you could just mix it with your hands. This technique can work well as long as you work fast, because the heat from your hands will start to melt the butter.


Mix the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Break or chop the cold butter into bits into the mix. You want the dough to form fairly uniform crumbly bits. Then add just enough ICE COLD water to hold the dough together.

Now most people will roll it at this point. Any of you who have followed my recipe posts know that I like to cook and bake simple. All I do with this dough is push it into the pie plate to form a crust. There will be some left over dough. Hang on to that.

With my crust, I put the lump of left over pastry in the middle, threw plastic wrap over the whole thing and stuck it in the refrigerator while I prepared the rest of the pie. I actually had the crust in the fridge over night as I only had enough time to make the crust that night. I have heard that you should let the pastry "rest", so maybe this helped too.

The Filling:

• 4-6 apples-- cut, cored and peeled
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (remember -- C&H!)
• 1-2 tsp sea salt
• 1-3 TBS ground cinnamon
• 1-3 TBS ground ginger (depends on how much zip you want in the pie.)
• a couple dashes (or more!) of Captain's spice rum

I used a variety of apples in the same pie since my apple growing coworker had given me so many different kinds. I think I mainly used Connelly Red and Honey Crisp.

To prepare the apples, I first cut the apples into wedges, kind of like you'd do for pizza. Then I made "V" shaped cuts in the center of each slice to remove the core. Then I cut the peels off. I have found that this is the fastest, easiest way to prepare apples for me; you do what you want.

Mix all the filling ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Now would be a good time to turn the oven on as you want the oven to be HOT when you start baking. 325-350F

Topping:

• Left over pastry
• flour
• a couple handfuls of quick oats
• 1/2 - 1 cup brown sugar (you know the drill)
• 1/2 tsp of sea salt
• 2-4 TBS ground cinnamon
• 1-2 TBS ground ginger
• 1-2 TBS COLD butter (optional, but the topping will be more dry)

Put the pastry in a mixing bowl. (If you did not have left over pastry, you will need to mix some flour, butter and water to get a gob of "pastry"). With your hands, mix in everything but the flour. You want this topping to form a fairly uniformly crumbly mix. If the mix is just too moist, add a little bit of flour at a time until it looks right.
Assembly:
crust -> filling -> topping

Simple, right?

Bake for about 30-50 minutes depending on your oven, the moisture content of the pastry, the moisture content of the apples, altitude, etc.
You want to bake this until the crust is golden brown.

Serve fresh and warm with whipped cream.

It made me like pie again. I will never eat any other apple pie again! It simply MUST be THIS pie!!

Pomecranapple Chicken

This was the recipe on the opposite page of the Turkey Madeira. Well, actually the recipe was "Chicken in Pomegranate Sauce" but once I started making it I realized that I did not have the 1 cup pomegranate juice that it called for, so I substituted 1 cup cranapple juice instead.

Another slow cooker recipe! I really like cooking in the slow cooker because I don't have to be home all while it is cooking. It is great for throwing together in the morning before I go to work, and having a nice hot meal by the time I get home!

1 lb chicken
1 pomegranate
1 large sweet onion, sliced
1 cup 100% cranapple juice
2 cinnamon sticks
salt and pepper

You can use any cut of chicken for this. I used regular chicken breasts because the meat will be tender enough to take off the bone with just a fork and there are a lot of fantastic nutrients that are added to the meat and sauce from the bones while it cooks - wouldn't want to miss out on that!

Salt and pepper the chicken and place in the slow cooker. Add onion, all the arils from one pomegranate (I bought some back before Christmas and they kept very well in the veggie drawer in my refrigerator), cranapple juice, and cinnamon sticks - seriously.

Cover the pot, set to low, and cook for 8-10 hours. Just in time for you to get home for dinner - unless you are a masochistic commuter!

I served this with a side of whole kernel corn mixed with sea salt and a couple tablespoons of dried cilantro - yummy! And raw baby carrot sticks, as you can see.

This was very similar to the Apple and Herb Chicken I did a while back, but with a little more tanginess due to the cranberry juice.

It was very good, not as good as my Apple and Herb Chicken, but I think I would make it again before I would make the Turkey Madeira. Next time I would add some actual cranberries to the pot for added zip!