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.

Spinach Pesto Quiche

There was a sale on eggs and I suddenly had the flavor of fluffy eggs, bacon and basil with a light, buttery pastry in my mouth.

QUICHE!!

I have only made quiche once; and although it wasn't terrible, it wasn't the best.
But this time, it was AWESOME!!!

The Pastry
Start with the pastry. It is very important that the butter be cold and that you do not over mix. The thing that makes the pastry flaky is the tiny bits of un-mixed butter melting and expanding, leaving air pockets.

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick COLD butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbs ICE COLD water
  

Mix the salt and flour well. Cut the butter into the flour until just crumbly. Whisk the egg yolk and water and mix lightly into the flour mix. DO NOT OVER-MIX! Just mix it until everything is incorporated. Some recipes will have you roll it out at this point, but then you risk over-working the dough. I just pushed it into the bottom of the pan in which I was baking the quiche until it was evenly distributed across the bottom and sides.

Bake it slightly at 425F before putting in the filling.

The Filling

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups light cream (the only cream that I had was half-and-half singles - the kind that you use for coffee. 48 of them equals 2 cups :)
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cheese (usually, you would use Swiss - for this I used my four Italian cheese mix)
• 2-3 tablespoons minced sweet onion
• 1-2 tablespoon minced garlic
  
• 1 cup chopped, raw spinach (I probably used more than this)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (and I probably used more than this too)
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4-1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
  
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
  

Saute the onion, garlic and pine nuts. Whip the eggs and cream. Mix in all other ingredients, as well as the sauteed ingredients. Pour into the lightly browned pastry crust and bake in a 425F oven for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 350F and bake for another 30 - 45 minutes until a knife comes out clean.

This was even great as left overs!

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!

Northern Pike in a Caper Sauce

I got some northern pike on sale last week and wanted something quick for dinner tonight, so pike it was.

Northern pike is a fairly common, mild-flavored, predator fish from where I grew up. It has a loose skeletal structure which makes it very difficult to get completely bone-free. But this was professionally filleted, so I was good to go.

I actually took the recipe from the package the fish came in (but of course I made a few changes). It had capers in it and I had bought a jar of capers months ago, but didn't have any recipes to use them in. Mmmm... capers!!!

• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 small tomato
• 1-2 TBS butter
• 1-2 TBS wine or sherry
• 2 TBS basil
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 3 TBS capers
• 2 TBS Italian four cheese mix
• salt & pepper

Mince garlic and saute in olive oil. Chop up tomato and throw in the pan with the garlic. Throw wine (I actually used sherry), basil, capers and butter. Cook until the butter is melted. Salt and pepper to taste.

I used my clay pot cooker for the fish. It works great for fish too! I put a little olive oil in the bottom of the pot, But I don't think this was necessary. I put the fish fillets in frozen and poured the lemon juice and the caper sauce over the top. I sprinkled on the Italian four cheese mix and baked this for 20 minutes at 500F.

It was DELICIOUS!!!! This is going on my favorites list. And now I have a recipe to use up those capers on. Mmmm... capers!!