Delicata with Wild Rice and Cranberry Stuffing

I grew delicata for the first time and wasn't exactly sure what to do with it. The recipes I found online were your standard squash recipes: butter and brown sugar. I wanted something more savory, so I came up with something on my own. Our exchange student had never had wild rice before, so I knew that was in and it just sort of evolved from there.

• 1 cup uncooked wild rice
• 1/4 cup craisins
• 2 TBS chopped scallions
• 1 TBS chopped medium-hot pepper
  
• 1/2 tsp ground rosemary
• 3 TBS fresh thyme
• 1/4 tsp fresh chopped sage
• 2 TBS butter
  
• 1 TBS honey
  
• 2 Delicata squash

	Cut the delicata lengthwise and scoop the seeds out. The seeds are said to be good for roasting, and this is an heirloom squash, so you may want to try to save the seeds.
Cook the wild rice in 2 cups water until tender. Add craisins, onion, herbs, and honey. Mix well and stuff the delicata halves with the mixture.
	I baked these at 400F in a claypot cooker for 40 minutes. You could probably get by with 350F in a regular baking dish. This was the first time that I had eaten delicata. It was a tiny bit mealy, but sweet. The skin, although fairly hard when raw, is soft enough to cut with a fork after cooking and completely edible.

The recipe? It was delicious! I will definitely be making this again. And the stuffing could be a stand alone dish as well.

Morel Cream Sauce

I had my best morel year ever. My son and I usually just saute the mushrooms and eat them as a treat, but I actually had enough to make some kind of a dish with the morels that I found. I wanted to keep it simple and mild, since this was the first time that I was actually cooking them into a dish and wanted to be sure they would hold their own.

So, although I was going to do a stroganoff or an Alfredo, I opted for a simple cream sauce. I basically went out to my garden and pulled what was available.

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1-2 TBS garlic chives, chopped - whites and greens
• 1-2 TBS chives, chopped
• Small leek, chopped - whites and tender greens
• A few rosemary leaves, chopped (or a pinch of ground rosemary)
• 1/3 cup (or more) morel mushrooms, chopped
• 1-2 TBS flour
• 1/2-1 cup cream or half-n-half - enough to get consistency you want
• Sea salt
• Pepper

Saute the chives and leeks.	Add mushrooms and saute until the mushrooms are fully cooked.
Sprinkle in the flour and mix well.	Pour in cream/half-n-half a little at a time and mix well. You want to dissolve all the flour into the liquids.

Add the salt and pepper and cook until thickened.

I used this over egg noodles. It was delicious!!

The sauce was mild enough that the three mushrooms I used easily held their own. If you want to add a little more spice, like thyme or convert it to a stroganoff by adding sour cream, or an Alfredo by adding some Parmesan; I would add more morels. Heck, if I had had them, I would have added more anyway :)

Grilled Portabella & Pastrami Sandwich

• Pastrami (I used turkey pastrami)
• Portabella mushroom cap
• Mozzarella cheese (I used shredded, you could also use very thin slices)
• 2 slices of bread
• Butter
• 1/2 TBS Olive oil
  
• Fresh rosemary

Fry the pastrami and portabello in olive oil and rosemary. Butter one side of each slice of bread. Sprinkle a little cheese on one unbuttered side, lay on the fried pastrami, sprinkle a little more cheese, lay on the portabello, sprinkle little more cheese, add the second piece of bread buttered side out. Set the sandwich in the hot pan to grill both sides.

My son was so excited about this sandwich he had almost half of it gone before I could even take a picture! Two thumbs up from my teen. He reluctantly gave me a taste as well, and I agree it is a keeper.

Champagne Chicken

This is a great way to use up left over champagne from any celebration, mine was Valentine/anniversary weekend. I had this at a local Italian restaurant a couple of times and liked it enough to try to make it myself. I like mine better.

• 3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 6-8 sprigs of fresh young rosemary
• 6-8 cloves garlic (sliced)
  
• 1/2 tsp dried sweet basil
• 2 TBS butter
• a little flour
• 8oz fresh mushrooms
• 2-3 TBS olive oil
• 2-3 TBS butter (optional)
• 1 - 2 cups champagne (I like Ballatore Gran Spumante)
  
• 1/8 cup half-n-half
• salt & pepper

Butterfly the chicken breast (slice the breast like a hot dog bun). Rub each chicken breast with a little sea salt. Stuff each breast with 2-3 sprigs of rosemary, a sprinkling of dried basil, a TBS or more of sliced garlic, and 1/2 TBS of sliced butter. Pepper each breast and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow all the spices to penetrate the meat. The longer you leave it, the more the meat will absorb the flavors. If you like, you can set the chicken in 1 cup champagne about 1/2 hour before cooking.

When ready to cook, heat a frying pan on medium heat. Add 2-3 TBS olive oil. Place the breast in the pan and dust with a little flour. Keep an eye on the heat; you don't want to burn the flour. Flip them carefully away from the cut side and dust the other side with flour. Once the one side is seared, flip again to sear the other side.

Push the chicken to the side of the pan and add the sliced mushrooms and the additional butter if desired. Once the mushrooms are seared, add the champagne - you can add the champagne that the chicken was sitting in as well.

Turn to low heat. Cover and let cook for about 5-10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Take the chicken from the pan. Turn the heat back to medium. Add the half-n-half to the pan. If you would like a thicker sauce, mix a little flour to the half-n-half before adding to the pan.

Serve the chicken topped with the sauce.

This, as I said, was delicious. The sauce had a tangy, almost bubbly zip. I served this with a cabbage salad and fried mashed potato patties.

Turkey Meatballs with Wine Sauce

I had a work party to go to and needed a dish to bring. I wanted something that could be a meal dish or h'orderves. Meatballs would sure fit that bill. I have my very own recipe for meatballs that I just LOVE!

Turkey Meatballs

2lbs ground turkey
1 sleeve of saltines
3 TBS rosemary
1 TBS Italian seasoning
1 TBS thyme
2-3 eggs
1-3 small cloves garlic minced
1/2 sweet onion minced
a couple of dashes olive oil
Salt and pepper

I do not eat mammals, but poultry is fair game! I thawed out 2lbs of ground turkey. Nothing like meat in a tube!
Pre-heat the oven to 350°. Mix all the ingredients together and roll into balls. I chose to roll them into small balls that could be picked up with toothpicks, but you could make them as big as you like. place them on a cookie sheet. They can be very close to each other. Bake until they are completely cooked.

These are DELICIOUS!
And they go really well with spaghetti and sauce.

Speaking of sauce, my husband thought a sauce might be nice with these, so I made one up for them.

Wine Sauce

1/2 bottle Madeira wine
4oz rice vinegar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1-2 tsp soy sauce
2 TBS stone ground Dijon
1 TBS cornstarch dissolved in water

Put the first 4 ingredients in a saucepan on medium heat. Simmer until the liquids start to concentrate. Add the Dijon and the dissolved cornstarch. Stir over heat until thickened.

Serve with the meatballs, or any other meat that might go well with a wine sauce. It is fantastic!

These were a big hit at the party. People were asking about the meatballs and the sauce. I rock!

Turkey Meatballs

These meatballs I made on the spur of the moment. We needed something to eat and I was sick of boxed meals.

1 lb ground turkey
2 tsp dried rosemary
1/3 sweet onion, minced
2 cloves garlic
1 egg
1 sleeve saltines, crushed
1 TBS oregano
1 TBS basil
salt & pepper
2 TBS olive oil

In a bowl I mixed the ground turkey, egg, saltines - crushed, onion, garlic, rosemary, oregano, basil, salt and pepper, and olive oil.

Form the mix into bite-sized balls and place them on a cookie sheet.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350F for about 20-30 mins.




These came out slightly crispy on the outside which was fantastic. I served them with spaghetti pasta and marinara sauce. The meatballs were YUMMMY! I will definitely make these again, but I would serve them with a sweeter sauce next time.

Chicken Sum'n Sum'n

I was asking my husband what he wanted for dinner. He said that he didn't know. I said that I could make chicken... er, sum'n sum'n. He laughed and said that I should actually come up with a recipe and call it that.

So I did! And now you too can make chicken sum'n sum'n.

• 1 whole chicken
• 1/2 bottle wine
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 3-4 TBS thyme
• 1 tsp celery seeds
• 1-1/2 TBS sea salt
• 4 TBS pomegranate arils
• 1 medium sweet onion
• 1 tsp ground rosemary

In a stain-free bowl, mix wine, hoisin, thyme, celery seeds, and 1 TBS sea salt. Marinade the whole chicken in this mix for at least an hour.



Place the marinaded chicken in your chicken pan of choice. I used the clay pot cooker, but you could use regular pan or a dutch oven. In a non-clay cooker, I would suggest adding about 1 inch of the marinade to the bottom of the pan to keep the chicken from going dry.

Sprinkle 1 tsp sea salt, 1 tsp ground rosemary over the chicken. Add pomegranate arils and a onion cut into 2 inch pieces into the pan around the chicken.

In the clay pot cooker, I cooked it for two hours at 450F. I'm not sure what it would be in a regular pan: 1-2 hours on 350F? I would cover with tin-foil for first hour if in a regular pan, and then crisp the skin for twenty minutes without tin foil.

When cooked in the clay cooker it is so tender that you can use a fork to get meat off the chicken.

I served this chicken with garlic & rosemary mashed potatoes and a salad made with red lettuce, chopped pecans and the rest of the pomegranate's arils with a fat free honey dijon dressing. Oh Joy!!

Apple and Herb Chicken

I created this recipe for my clay pot cooker, but you can use it for how you normally roast a chicken.

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 medium sweet onion
• a few potatoes
• a few stalks of celery
• 2 cups baby carrots
• 1 TBS ground rosemary
• 2 TBS thyme
• 1 packet apple cider mix
• sea salt

While the clay pot was soaking in water (you need to soak it in water for 10-15 minutes before putting the ingredients so it will keep your food moist while it cooks) chop up the sweet onion, potatoes, and celery. Grind the rosemary and thyme in a mortar. Once the pot has soaked up enough water, dump the apple cider drink mix in the bottom, pile in a cut whole chicken, sprinkle it with sea salt and the ground spice, then dump in the chopped veggies with the baby carrots. On goes the lid and into a cold oven. Turned on the oven for 450 degrees (100 degrees hotter than you would usually cook the food). Bake for about an hour.

When I made this I ran some errands and came home a little late. Doesn't it look delicious even if it is a little, er, toasty?

IT WAS! The apple cider mix was a great inspired touch, too! And even though it cooked long, it was still moist.

Rosemary Basil Chicken with Spaghetti

This is one of my very own recipes that I made when I needed something quick for dinner. Fast and yummy chicken pasta.

• 1lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 1 lb pasta
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3-5 medium tomatoes
  
• rosemary, fresh or dried
• feta (optional)
  
• basil, fresh or dried
• olive oil
  
• sea salt
  

The best way to chop chicken is while it is partially frozen. It's more like chopping celery than like chopping over-ripe tomatoes. If your chicken isn't frozen, make sure you have a sharp knife.

While I was defrosting my frozen chicken(about two minutes on defrost in the microwave), I started a pan of water for the pasta. I chose spaghetti because we had just bought some. You could use any plain pasta. I always put salt and oil in the water. They help heat the water faster, season the pasta, and they help keep the noodles from sticking to each other.

I heated up another pan, my cast iron fry pan, of course. Once it was hot, I put in about two tablesoons of extra virgin olive oil (cause you only live once) . While that was heating up I chopped up the still mostly frozen chicken into one inch cubes. You can chop them up however you like. I made sure that the pan was good and hot before throwing in the chicken. This sears the outside to keep the juices inside, plus it makes it taste better. Start stirring right away to make sure that no side gets over-cooked and all sides get seared fairly evenly.

Once the chicken cubes are fully seared, turn down the heat to about medium. Make sure that there is still moisture in the pan to keep the chicken from getting dry. Add a little water if you have to. Mince two cloves of garlic and add to the chicken. Grind up half a tablespoon of rosemary and throw that in. Add about a tablespoon of basil- or more if you like. Add a couple of big pinches of sea salt (or regular salt, or garlic salt, whatever). I like sea salt because regular table salt is too harsh for my tastes, and sea salt gives the food a nice flavor.

The pasta water should be ready by now. Add the pasta, stir, reduce the heat slightly, and cover.

Dice up the tomatoes into thick chunks. Throw them into the chicken pan. I never peel tomatoes. Peeled tomatoes are for wusses. The tomato peels add a nice bright red garnish to the dish. Cook the mix down until the tomatoes make a pseudo sauce. Add a little black pepper if you like. I did.

The pasta should be done, or at least when it is done, drain and add to chicken mix. OR you can do it the lazy Sylvana way- just tong the pasta out of the pan you cooked it in right into the chicken mix pan. What's a little pasta water among friends, eh? Stir the whole thing together. For added zip, add a couple handfuls of feta cheese (good stuff, that feta). And serve.