Roasted Spaghetti Squash w/ Mushrooms
TEXT MESSAGE BETWEEN HUSBAND & WIFE:
Husband: What's for dinner?
Wife: Spaghetti squash w/ mushrooms
Husband: K. be home in 15.
After texting his wife, husband drives home with the thought of digging into a big bowl of creamy/carb dense spaghetti with mushrooms & a full glass of wine. When husband walks up to the kitchen table, he looks deflated after realizing he's been duped AGAIN with spaghetti squash! Why does his wife always try to pull a fast one? Doesn't she know he's not vegetarian?
Knowing this might be the case, wife plans ahead and makes a small batch of garlic bread to compensate for the lack of carbs. Turns out husband (a carb lover who doesn't love mushrooms) actually enjoys this Roasted Spaghetti Squash with Mushrooms recipe. Wife is satisfied with the dinner she concocted and is happy she is able get a huge bowl of vegetables into her husband's belly. Good wives know that the key to a man's heart is through garlic bread.
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SNACK TIME: Avocado + Charred Tortilla
I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite snacks.
Avocado + Charred Corn Tortilla, meet Shutterbean Readers.
Shutterbean Readers, meet Avocado + Charred Corn Tortilla.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about this favorite snack of mine. It's really simple, absolutely tasty and worth it when you find an awesome avocado. I think I've only had two really good avocados this year. What gives? Sometimes I eat this tortilla & avocado number with an egg in the morning. Sometimes it's a full blown lunch or maybe it plays the role of an afternoon snack. The protein of the avocado works wonders!
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CANNING PARTY!
Last weekend I had my friends Jenifer & Leslie over for a Canning Party! It was a LOT of fun and a LOT of work. Oof! I hadn't felt that exhausted since the weekend at the HomefriesU retreat. I took some pictures on my cellphone throughout the day so you could see what we were up to...
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Baked Apples with Savory Stuffing
It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without my mom shouting at my brother, "That's NOT FULLY COOKED, you're gonna get sick!" while he's hunched over the refrigerator door, grabbing a spoonful of uncooked stuffing. I can't really blame him for wanting to eat it uncooked; our mom really does make the most incredible sausage & chestnut stuffing.
These baked apples taste just like Thanksgiving except my mom isn't in the background shouting at me for getting into them. The filling of sausage, celery, herbs & onions remind me of her stuffing, but the apples add a nice sweet/tang to round out the flavor. I love how the tops of each apple overflow with crispy golden bread and browned sausage thanks to the teamwork of small dabs of butter and a hot oven. It's like I just faked a Thanksgiving dinner on an average October weeknight. You gotta love that.
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Pumpkin Gingersnap Ice Cream
I have a history of not letting things set. This means I'm the worst at letting my nail polish dry, but that's because the second I finish painting my last nail something urgent comes up and I'm frantically trying to navigate through my life with wet polish! An important phone call, a scratch that needs scratching, a knock at the door, my son jamming bread up his nose, or picking up a bowl's worth of Cheerios off the floor are all things that would happen the second I'm done painting my nails.
The reason why I don't often make ice cream is that I'm totally impatient when it comes to letting ice cream set. About 2 hours after I put this ice cream into the freezer for its big deep chill, I dipped a clean spoon in to taste. To my dismay, it wasn't finished but it DID taste totally awesome. Why didn't I just let it set??!
OK so I let it set. Then I scooped out some ice cream, plunked in a lone gingersnap and got right down to business. Creamy pumpkin ice cream studded with gingersnaps and perfumed with hint bourbon? You know you want it! This is the ice cream recipe that made me realize that ice cream really is worth the wait. Perhaps after 32 years of living I will finally figure out patience?
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Butternut Squash Ricotta & Sage Crostini
I went to Michael's yesterday to get a few things for my Halloween decorating project and almost EVERYTHING Halloween related was reduced in price. The aisles were quickly being cleared of Halloween decor to make room for the bright colored greens and reds of Christmas. I wanted to scream WAAAAAAIT. Wait just a minute! Am I seriously behind on this Halloween decoration thing??! (don't answer that). I just don't think I'm ready to get in the head space of Christmas yet. I haven't even thought about what I am going to make for Thanksgiving this year!
When you wake up to a cold crisp morning don't you just want to put on a scarf and roast something? Here's your chance! Butternut squash gets roasted with a bit of brown sugar in this recipe. Your house will smell terrific & autumn like. Garlic rubbed toasted bread gets accessorized with a nice dab of lemon scented ricotta. Cubes of roasted butternut squash are topped on the ricotta and finished off with fresh lemon juice & fried sage leaves. I think I just figured out what we're making as a Thanksgiving appetizer. It's definitely fall, not winter. Someone tell Michael's.
Arugula Fig & Fennel Salad
Whenever I see a fennel bulb, memories flood into my head of my dad picking wild fennel on the side our driveway. I remember him taking a bite and offering me some. I also remember being puzzled as to why my dad loved the taste of fennel; my uneducated palette just didn't get it. When I set a plate of this Arugula Fig & Fennel salad in front of my dad on Cooper's birthday, with beaming eyes he told me how much his father loved figs and how they'd pick them off the trees during this time of year when he was a boy. I could tell the salad triggered a fond memory for his father in the same way fennel triggers my memories of him.
This is what I love the most about feeding others. It's always a pleasure hearing other people's stories and connections with food. It's particularly exciting when food helps brings back memories from my parent's childhood because I am always so eager to learn more about them.
Peppery arugula and crunchy fennel slices are spiked with a simply lemon dressing and finished off with beautiful quarters of sweet juicy figs and shavings of fresh Parmesan. It's a perfectly pretty and well balanced salad. Hurry up! Fig season is almost over!
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Scallops with Creamed Corn and Tarragon
The key to a successful relationship is compromise. Sometimes you just have to take one for the team. Doing the dishes without being asked, watching an episode of Project Runway, tolerating a 16 inning baseball game or eating Indian food for dinner because that's what your significant other was craving are all legitimate examples.
I'm not a die hard fan of scallops, but my husband is. I've had a few seared scallops at restaurants over the past few years and I've learned that searing a scallop is key to me liking a scallop. So why would I make scallops for dinner even though I don't really love them? Because I'm taking one for the team! I'm making my husband happy and that, my friends, is compromise. What I love about this recipe is that it tastes like it was made in a restaurant. I'd totally spend $20 for this dish because tastes expensive and exotic. It's all about the vermouth & tarragon. Casey told me this dish was one of the best things I've made; he's not wrong. Sometimes through the act of compromise, you find things you really like. Compromise can be awesome.
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