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.

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!

Corn Chowder 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 base recipe came from fredlet.

• 1 acorn squash, cut in half lengthwise and seeded
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup half & half
• 1 egg
• 1 can sweet corn, drained
• 1/3 cup grated Italian cheese (I used Romano and Asiago)
• 2 shallots, minced
• 1 sweet pepper, ripe (orange or red are great) chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1. Turn on your oven to 350F
2. Cut the acorn squash in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon
3. Cook acorn squash cut side down in an oiled baking pan for 30 minutes.
5. Put the corn, shallots, garlic and sweet pepper in a frying pan (I used cast iron) over medium heat. You want to roast these ingredients. A little charring is ideal, just don't burn them.

Mix egg, half & half, cheese in a saucepan. Warm over low heat to melt the cheese.

Add the roasted mix and continue heating until the chowder thickens. Stuff the squash halves with as much of the chowder as they will hold. Bake at 325F for 40-45 minutes.

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


The light one is the corn chowder squash (the dark is the other recipe I tried: Moroccan Stuffed Acorn Squash). This was definitely a great recipe. My son ate a half of one clean and I froze the other for a quick dinner later.

Potatoes and Parsnips in Four Cheese Herb Sauce

OH.MY.GOSH!!

I made the most delicious sauce today!
Seriously, I almost cried.

• 1 sweet onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 medium potatoes, sliced
• 2 parsnips, chopped
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 3 TBS butter
• 1/8-1/4 cup flour
• 1 pint half-n-half
• 2 TBS thyme
• 2 TBS Italian four cheese mix
• salt & pepper

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat. When the onion is about half cooked, add garlic. Add butter, be careful to monitor heat so that the butter melts but doesn't burn. Once it is melted, mix in enough flour to make a paste. Mix in half and half, thyme, four cheese mix and sea salt and pepper.

O.M.G!! It was YUMMMMMY!!! I wanted to eat it right then.

Place potatoes and parsnips in a baking dish. Pour the sauce over the potatoes and parsnips mixed it in, and bake the whole thing at 350F for an hour.

It was delicious!! I will definitely make this again. My son and husband weren't so sure about the parsnips (although they each had two huge servings), so I may omit them in the future. I think they just weren't expecting them.

In any case, I definitely have big plans for that sauce!

Mixed Veggie Pakoras

Mmmm... Indian food! Most Americans have made some Italian food, Mexican dishes, and possibly even tackled a French or Chinese dish or too - even if they were highly Americanized. But I don't know too many people that have tried Indian food, let alone tried to make it themselves.

So, when I got my new favorite cookbook, probably my favorite recipe book of all-time, I marked the pakoras on my list of recipes to try.

I made them last week, and as usual, I didn't have all the right ingredients, so I improvised. Maybe that is a talent.

Here's the recipe as is in the book:

• 6 TBS gram(besan) flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1-1/2 tsp white cumin seeds
• 1 tsp pomegranate seeds
• 1-1/4 cups water
• 1 TBS finely chopped cilantro
• your choice of vegetables
• vegetable oil for frying
  

Well, I thought I had besan (gram flour), which is a flour made from chickpeas/garbanzo beans; but alas, I did not. SO, I took some dried chickpeas and ground them into a powder with my blender. Only realizing afterwards that taking canned chickpeas and grinding them up would have been much easier! Oh well, NEXT TIME!

First you add everything but the cilantro and vegetables. Using a grinding mixer (I used a hand mixer), blend until smooth. Instead of white cumin seeds, I used cheap-brand cumin and PLENTY of it! 1-1/2 tsp my ass! I used cayenne pepper for the chili. You can use any kind of chili pepper you want. Some pepper may be too distinct for this dish, but off hand none come to mind - so just use what you want. I also threw in extra gram and some regular flour because the batter was so soupy. I figured that the batter should have the consistency of onion ring batter.

I also threw in extra pomegranate seeds. This is my first run in with a pomegranate. Interesting fruit. I will have to find more uses for it. But it is SO expensive! I figured since I had gone through so much trouble getting the sucker open and really didn't know what else I would use it for, I should throw extra seeds into this recipe. I think I used about 3-4 TBS.

Once the batter is the way that you would like it, mix in the chopped cilantro. Once again, I threw in extra because I LOVE cilantro!!

Start heating a few inches of oil in a heavy pan. The pakoras should be able to float. Or if you have a deep fryer you can use that too. I used peanut oil.

Once the oil is hot enough to fry, mix the vegetables of your choice into the batter. I would suggest using fresh vegetables. I used frozen mixed veggies with the beans, peas, corn, Lima beans, and carrots - but we all agreed that even though the pakoras were very good, they would have been great if I had used fresh veggies.

Cauliflower is a good one to use for this. I also chopped up potatoes and added this to the frozen mix veggies. That was really good. Just use what you like. I do have to say that this batter makes Lima beans delicious (well, probably as delicious as Lima beans can get anyway).

Using a slotted spoon, spoon the veggies out of the batter and into the hot oil. Be careful the oil isn't too hot or the batter will burn and the veggies won't cook. Turn the pakoras once they appear to have browned nicely on the underside. Fry the other side until it is also deep brown.

Using another slotted spoon, take the pakoras out of the oil and place onto a plate lined with a paper towel to drain the excess oils.

The finished pakora pictures didn't turn out that great, but the pakoras sure were tasty!

Serve these hot on their own or you could make a yogurt sauce for them. They are also very good reheated later.

Thyme and Zucchini Fritters

There's more to zucchini cuisine than bread. I have quite a few recipes for zucchini that I simply LOVE! And of course, I am always looking out for new ones to try. So when I bought the most amazing recipe book EVER!!! I decided I just had to try this easy Thyme and Zucchini Fritter recipe.

Of course, I almost always just use a recipe as a guideline, so the following is how I made them and will not exactly correspond with the recipe in the book.

• 2 eggs
• cup flour
• 2 cups grated zucchini
  
• baking soda
• milk
• thyme, fresh or dried
• salt and pepper
  

In a medium sized bowl beat together two eggs into a scant cup of flour. When this is mixed thoroughly, sprinkle baking powder over the top of the batter, just enough to dust it. Mix this in as well. Mix in enough milk so that the batter will just barely run from your mixing utensil. This is about 1/4-1/3 cup. Mix in about 2-3 teaspoons of dried thyme. You can also use fresh if you were lucky enough to remember to grow it this year. Salt and pepper to your taste.

Cut the ends off the zucchini, and start grating.Wrap the grated zucchini in paper towel and squeeze out the moisture. Mix the grated zucchini into the batter.

You need a frying pan and some oil. I use a cast iron skillet. I love the way that cast iron cooks food. It just adds something extra to the food that I can't explain. It makes pancakes and hashbrowns perfectly.

Heat the pan first on medium heat. I learned years ago that the key to non-stick (save for those cancer causing teflon thingies) is cold oil on a hot pan. I don't really know if this is true, but what the hell. Do it anyway. I splurge on extra virgin olive oil. You only live once! Use a couple of tablespoons.

Once the oil is heated enough, scoop some of the batter into the pan and spread out slightly. You can put a couple of these in the pan at a time. I got three in at a time. Fry each side until they are golden brown and there is no more raw batter coming out the sides.

I served these warm with real mayonnaise. I did try them with Miracle Whip too, and that was good as well. I would have made my own garlic mayonnaise, but I was way too eager to try these while they were still warm and I hadn't thought to make it ahead of time.

The verdict? Nummy! I would definitely make these again.