Michelle - Food Shenanigans

Stuffed Butternut Squash

March 7, 2011 By Michelle 2 Comments

I’ve recently started getting weekly organic vegetables delivered to our house, courtesy of Boston Organics. Every week, ninjas deposit a box of local, organic vegetables on my front porch. It’s kind of amazing. Besides getting really fresh, delicious produce delivered to me, it’s also forced me to think a bit outside our usual veggie choices of broccoli, asparagus and peppers. It’s been really enjoyable coming up with new ways to use the vegetables I’m getting [as well as sometimes trying to identify them!].

This stuffed butternut squash recipe is something I came up with to use up more of that couscous. It’s not something that’s terribly fast due to having to roast the squash before adding the filling, but if you were to roast it a day ahead of time this would come together pretty easily.

Stuffed Butternut Squash

1 squash
1/2 cup water
1 carrot, diced
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1lb ground turkey
1/2 cup couscous
1 cup chicken stock
2 oz mozzarella, shredded
1 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Slice the butternut squash in half length wise. Place in a baking pan cut side up with half a cup water in the bottom of the pan. Bake 60 – 65 minutes or until fork tender. While the squash is baking, heat a large pan with the oil. Once the oil is hot, add in the carrots and onions and cook until softened. Add in the turkey and cook until browned. Add in the cumin and nutmeg, then the chicken stock. Bring up to a boil; add in the couscous and cover for 5 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed.

Once the squash is done, add in the turkey couscous mixture and then top with cheese. Bake at 350 for another 15 – 20 minutes, or until the cheese is completely melted and just beginning to turn golden brown. This will be extremely hot so it’s best to let it sit for a few minutes before serving.

This is really good. The sweetness of the squash plays off the warm spices very well while the turkey and couscous stuffing make this hearty and filling. What I would probably do next time is scrape out the insides of the squash and then mix that into the stuffing prior to baking.

Filed Under: vegetables Tagged With: boston organics, butternut squash, cheese, couscous, ground turkey, stuffed butternut squash, stuffed squash

Dill Carrot Couscous

February 23, 2011 By Michelle Leave a Comment

For some reason, my husband and I decided to buy a giant container of couscous when we were grocery shopping last month. It’s not that we dislike couscous, it’s more that I’m wondering what the hell I’m going to do with 2lbs of it. I mean, couscous is pretty small, right? And 2lbs is not an insignificant amount. So… we’ll see, I guess.

This is a very quick side dish and I almost feel guilty posting about it because it was so easy. It was just something I threw together to go alongside some steak tips and it all came together in less than 20 minutes.

Dill Carrot Couscous

1 cup couscous
1 3/4 cup vegetable stock
1 large carrot, diced
1/2 small onion, diced
1 teaspoon dill weed
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan (optional)
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a small, heavy bottomed pot, heat the oil. Add onions and carrots and saute until tender, then remove from pan and keep warm. Add in the vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Add in couscous, dill and Parmesan cheese if using. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes until all of the stock is absorbed and couscous is light and fluffy when run through with a fork. Add salt and pepper as needed.

This is good; it’s simple and satisfying. It’s also very versatile since there are so many options for seasonings and vegetables that can be used. It’s a nice vegetarian dish and can also very easily be made vegan without sacrificing any of the taste.

Filed Under: Grains & Rice Tagged With: carrots, couscous, dill, dill weed, onions, recipes, vegetable stock

Fried Rice: Why did it take me so long to make this?

February 16, 2011 By Michelle 1 Comment

There was a whole two week span last month wherein I kept trying to make fried rice and kept failing. They key is in the preparation: rice must be cooked the day before in order to be used effectively in making fried rice and I just couldn’t manage to do that. Sad, I know. For some reason I’d always intend upon making the rice and then.. I wouldn’t. I’m not even sure I can tell you why other than the day/evening would get away from me? It’s a pretty paltry excuse but it’s all I have.

Finally, I remembered to cook some brown rice and then I let it cool and dry out so I could make fried rice the next day. Except I didn’t, because I think we ended up ordering take out. Oops. But the next night, I totally made fried rice and it was completely worth it.

Fried Rice

2 cups day old rice, white or brown [I prefer brown]
2 medium carrots, diced
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons oil, divided
1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
handful of bean sprouts

Heat one tablespoon of oil in your wok or large skillet. Once the oil is shimmering, add the carrots and quickly saute. Remove the carrots, leaving as much oil as possible in the wok, and add in the eggs. Quickly scramble the eggs until mostly done, then remove from pan. Remove any egg residue from the pan and add in the remaining oil.

Once the remaining oil has been heated, add in your rice in one flat layer across the surface of the wok. Let it heat for about two minutes before turning it or attempting to stir it. After two minutes, stir and flip the rice over to fry the other side. Let this sit for another 1 – 2 minutes, then stir again. At this point, add in the soy sauce, carrots and peas to heat through. Next, add in the eggs and mix those thoroughly into the mixture. Finally, top with bean sprouts and remove from the pan.

The key to making this is to make sure the wok isn’t too crowded; if it is, you’re not frying things, you’re just really steaming them. Make sure all of your ingredients can touch the cooking surface at all times to ensure even cooking. This recipe is very much adaptable to whatever you have on hand in your kitchen: you can add in more vegetables, meat, take out the eggs – the options are endless.

Filed Under: Grains & Rice Tagged With: bean sprouts, brown rice, carrots, Chinese food, eggs, fried rice, peas, recipes, rice, soy sauce

Braised Bok Choy

February 9, 2011 By Michelle Leave a Comment

A few years ago, we had a wok in which my husband would cook stir-fried noodles and dumplings. He was very proud of this and it was always pretty tasty, plus I enjoyed the night off from cooking. Then one day, something went awry [as it always does in our kitchen...] and noodles ended up burnt to the wok badly enough that they wouldn’t come off. So we said goodbye to our wok and went on with our lives. Recently we went to the Super 88 and husband purchased a new wok while I got a bunch of produce, including some really cute baby bok choy.

Having never cooked bok choy before, I took to the internets to find something tasty. I stumbled upon this recipe on the Epicurious website and decided to try it based on the great reviews.

Braised Baby Bok Choy

1 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 lb baby bok choy, trimmed
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Bring broth and butter to a boil in a large pan, then add the bok choy in an even layer. Cover and let simmer for 4 – 5 minutes or until the bok choy is tender.

Using tongs [or in my case, a really big fork], remove bok choy from pan to a serving platter and cover to keep warm. Bring broth back up to a boil and let it reduce to about 1/4, add in the sesame oil and pour over bok choy.

This is great; the boy choy soaked up all the tasty chicken broth and the cooking time is just right. The boy choy stalks [is that even what they're called? someone should look that up!] were not at all mushy as I had feared, they were still fairly firm and the leaves were tender and silky. This was so easy and such a great side dish along with the ginger teriyaki steak tips we had.

Filed Under: vegetables Tagged With: baby bok choy, bok choy, braised bok choy, butter, chicken broth, recipes, sesame oil, vegetables

Homemade Butter

February 2, 2011 By Michelle Leave a Comment

I forgot to mention this previously, but I have a great new blog design thanks to my wonderful husband and his new freelance business, Heavy Digital. He was able to take the header that my friend Katie made for me and use that for the inspiration for the new design. I’m happy to have something that is much more reflective of my personality and the aesthetic I enjoy.

This week’s entry is an exercise in futility. Why, you ask? Because I made butter for no good reason and now I’m about to show you how to do it as well. And before you get too excited, it’s not special butter or anything. Just regular ol’ butter you can get at a grocery store for a few bucks. The problem was that I had too much heavy cream leftover from Christmas [long story short: my husband was a saint and went out in search of whipped cream for me at about 9PM on Christmas Eve, couldn't find any, and instead brought home 4 pints of heavy cream for me to use for homemade whipped cream] and it was about to go bad, so I tried to think of creative ways to use it up. And now we have butter.

I was honestly a little dumbfounded by the thought of making butter from ‘scratch’; for some reason I never really thought about the process involved, and I guess I must’ve missed that part of the field trip we took to a farm when I was 6 years old? I remember milking a cow, but I do not remember churning butter. Either way, allrecipes.com did not fail me when I simply entered “heavy cream” into its ingredient search – there were several versions of homemade butter on there.

The whole thing seemed pretty easy so I decided to give it a go. While some “recipes” called for weird things like glass jars and marbles, I just decided to dump the heavy cream into my KitchenAid stand mixer and hope for the best. The internet told me this would take anywhere from 5 – 25 minutes, although there wasn’t much to specify why there was such a variable in time. So I got home and went to work.

Homemade Butter
1 pint of heavy cream

Pour heavy cream into bowl of stand mixer; I used my new 3 qt bowl and it worked great. I’d probably go for a bigger bowl if using more than 1 pint of cream. Set the mixer to 8 and let it do it’s thing. It’ll get to the whipped cream stage pretty quickly and then it needs to go past that, which can take awhile. Here’s a very important step that you may want to follow, that I did not: don’t leave your mixer unattended and/or uncovered. I only say this because half of my kitchen ended up splattered in undoubtedly delicious, and mostly unusable, buttermilk.

Once the buttermilk has separated out and you start to see solids in the mixing bowl, you’re pretty much done. You’ve made butter. Now you get to squeeze out all the excess buttermilk and then rinse it off with water to ensure that all of it is gone. If you don’t do this step, you’ll still have homemade butter, but it’ll spoil pretty quickly. By squeezing out/rinsing off the buttermilk, this will be fine to keep refrigerated for about a month. After this, just put all the pieces together and form into whatever shape you’d like or put it into molds or add some fresh herbs or cinnamon and honey. The possibilities are really endless.

Would I do this again? Probably not. It was a lot of mess/work for something I can easily buy and while the taste is really creamy and fresh, I don’t think it’s something that bears repeating. I will, however, say that I did boast about my butter-making quite a bit at work that week. Because really, who makes homemade butter?

Filed Under: Dairy Tagged With: butter, dairy, heavy cream, homemade butter, recipes

Mashed Honey Cumin Carrots

January 26, 2011 By Michelle Leave a Comment

My husband and I have to get in our anime fix for the evening, so this’ll have to be quick. We’ve recently begun obsessively watching anime series and the most recent one is XXXHolic, which is pretty good. We’re about 15 episodes into the series (24 episodes, then a movie!) and he is impatiently waiting for me to be done here so we can split an eclair and watch our program. It’s like we’re 70 years old.

This recipe isn’t terribly difficult, but it’s a tasty and quick way to make carrots. This was a great side to make along with the baked ham I picked up from Trader Joe’s. The carrots had an earthy, sweet taste to them that really complemented the salty ham.

Mashed Honey Cumin Carrots

1 lb carrots, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon cumin
1.5 tablespoons honey
salt and pepper to taste

Fill a medium sized pot with about an inch of water and bring to a boil. Place steamer basket in the pot, add carrots, cover and cook about 8 – 10 minutes or until the carrots are fork tender. Remove carrots from the steamer basket and drain the pot. Add the carrots back into the pot along with the butter and mash them with a potato masher (for a smoother consistency, a stick blender would work; the carrots would have to be softer for a stand mixer to work with them). Add in the honey and cumin, then salt and pepper to taste.

See? Easy. But these are a really nice change from steamed or roasted carrots and the seasoning possibilities are endless. Dill would obviously work really well in this or honey, lime and maybe cayenne pepper. Someone at work suggested cheese, but I’m fairly certain that I am anti-cheesy carrots.

Filed Under: vegetables Tagged With: carrots, cumin, honey, mashed carrots, recipes

Mediterranean Nachos

December 23, 2010 By Michelle 1 Comment

One night a month or two ago, my husband and I got some take out with one of our friends. We got it from this great El Salvadorean restaurant that’s close to our old apartment, and it’s good enough that every once in awhile we actually drive over there to pick up the food, since we’re now out of their delivery range. And for people who don’t like leaving their house, this says a lot about the quality of food. The main reason we go to this place is the amazing plate of nachos they make. It’s full of perfectly cooked beef, crema, tomatoes, lettuce, guac and salsa, on top of warm and crispy chips. It’s basically perfect. We started talking about other nachos we like and we were lamenting the lack of Mediterranean nachos in most establishments. Clearly, we had to rectify that.

A few weekends ago I got all of the ingredients ready and we started the process of making our nachos. For the sake of this recipe and my pride, I made my own pita chips. You are more than welcome to skip this step as I don’t think it’s 100% necessary. They were good, but I feel like store bought would’ve been just as good and possibly a bit of a time saver, since we were in the kitchen for quite awhile.

Mediterranean Nachos
8 small pita pockets, cut into quarters
1 medium-large cucumber, chopped
2 tomatoes, seeds removed, diced
1lb ground lamb
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon better than bouillon
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup tabouleh
1/2 cup feta
1/2 cup shredded cheese of choice
1/2 cup tzatziki
1 T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Take the pita bread quarters, toss them with the olive oil and make sure they’re all coated. You can add salt and pepper to them, but don’t make the same mistake I did in forgetting that other components to this are salty as well. Bake the pita quarters for about 12 – 15 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Remove from the oven and store in air-tight container until ready to use.

Preheat a skillet over medium-high heat. Once ready, add the lamb and cook until nicely browned. Drain off the fat from the pan, add in the Better Than Bouillon, water, paprika and cinnamon. Let that cook together for a few minutes until all of the flavors are absorbed by the lamb and the lamb is still moist – you don’t want all of the water to evaporate. Take off the heat and set aside.

Take out a baking pan and layer your nachos however you’d like: we went with a structure of chips, meat, cheese, repeat. While originally I was going to just use crumbled feta, we decided we needed to have a cheese that would melt well, so we added in some chedder-jack but any cheese will work well. Bake that in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown and everything is heated through.

While the nachos are baking, mix together the tabouleh, tomatoes and cucumbers. Once the nachos are out of the oven, plate them and use the tabouleh mixture as a salsa and sprinkle it over the top. Top this with a healthy dollop (or three) of tzatziki and you’re done.

I’m not gonna lie: these were amazing. All the flavors we were wanted were in there and the meat was seasoned perfectly. Our chips ended up being more chewy than crispy, but even with that they were still great.

Filed Under: meat Tagged With: cinnamon, cucumbers, feta cheese, greek food, ground lamb, Mediterranean, Mediterranean nachos, nachos, paprika, recipes, tomatoes

Broccoli and Cheddar-Gruyere Gratin

December 3, 2010 By Michelle 1 Comment

For Thanksgiving dinner this year, I brought a side dish and dessert to my in-law’s house. For dessert I made a sweet potato pie [which I shall not be blogging about as it cracked in the center, the bastard] and then for the side dish I made this really delicious gratin from Real Simple magazine. Every time I bring something for a holiday dinner, I try to make sure it can simply be reheated in the oven, since stove top space is at a premium, so this was perfect.

Broccoli and Gruyere Gratin, adapted from Real Simple magazine
2 large bunches broccoli, roughly chopped (about 12 cups)
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk [the recipe called for whole milk, but I used skim with no issues]
2 cups grated cheddar-gruyere
kosher salt and black pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 shallot, diced

Preheat oven to 375. Fill a large pot with 1 inch of water and steaming basket, bring to a boil. Once water is boiling, bring it down to a simmer and add the broccoli to the pan. Cover and steam for about 4 minutes, until the broccoli is vibrant green and tender.

Melt the butter in a medium pan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and cook until translucent and fragrant. Add in the flour and stir briskly to combine. Once combined, slowly add in the milk, and keep stirring until the mixture starts to thicken. Once the sauce thickens, add in one cup of the cheese and continue stirring until melted. Once fully incorporated, turn off the heat. Add in the salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Put the broccoli in a large bowl and add the cheese mixture. Make sure the broccoli is evenly coated, then pour the mixture into a 7 x 11 baking pan. Top with the remaining cheese. Bake in the oven for 30 – 35 minutes, or until the mixture is bubbling and the top is nicely browned.

While this was cooking, it smelled amazing. Gruyere is such a great cheese for baking, it melts so beautifully. I actually used a cheddar-gruyere block of cheese that I got at Trader Joe’s because while I like gruyere, I also like having the sharpness of cheddar in there. This reheated really well the next day and tasted great; everything about this was satisfying, from the creamy cheese sauce to the perfectly cooked broccoli. A great addition to any holiday table!

Filed Under: vegetables Tagged With: broccoli, broccoli gratin, cheddar, gratin, gruyere, holiday recipes, recipes, thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Tacos!

November 27, 2010 By Michelle Leave a Comment

Now, some of you may think I’m a freak, but: I don’t really like turkey. Dark meat is okay, but white meat does absolutely nothing for me. And it’s not even like I’m being served dry, over-cooked turkey; my mother-in-law does a great job at cooking turkey and keeping it moist, but even so I’m still not a fan. So a year or two ago, when faced with a mountain of leftovers and no bread to make a delicious sandwich filled with sides and minimal turkey, I came up with the perfect solution — THANKSGIVING TACOS.

I know we’re a little over the top with our love of tacos at Casa Shenanigans but this is seriously good/genius. It’s also not really a recipe per se, but it’s something we enjoy and I think everyone else should too. There’s no wrong or right way to do this, but basic idea is layering different sides with turkey on a tortilla, then cheese, then heating it up. Like so:

Butternut squash is spread over half of the tortilla, with shredded turkey on top of it. You can really do whatever you’d like on this taco, as long as it is somewhat spreadable. My husband prefers to have turnips and carrots with his, but I prefer the sweeter base to mine. Then, add stuffing (or mashed potatoes) and top with cheese.

You can either heat it up in the microwave or oven/toaster oven until the cheese is nice and melty and everything is heated through. It doesn’t look particularly pretty when it’s done, but it’s good. The only thing that would’ve made mine better was having leftover cranberry sauce in there between the squash and turkey.

Filed Under: meat Tagged With: butternut squash, recipes, stuffing, tacos, thanksgiving, thanksgiving leftovers, turkey

Fried Mashed Potato Cakes

November 21, 2010 By Michelle 1 Comment

Our power just went out! How exciting. I’m glad I was sitting safely here on the couch when it happened instead of wielding a knife somewhere. That could’ve ended in disaster, and we’ve had enough of those today; I almost baked cupcakes without eggs, I somehow managed to get cookies stuck to the baking sheet, and I may or may not have sliced my thumb with my chef’s knife.

I’ve seriously spent so much time in the kitchen today, it’s like I’m cooking for 30 people all the time instead of just the two of us. I use SO MANY dishes, there’s an endless amount to wash. Plus today I had to bake for work tomorrow [the almost-eggless cupcakes] and I wanted to use up some of the leftover mashed potatoes that I had from Franksgiving. Franksgiving, you say? Why yes! One of my lovely friends hosts a friends Thanksgiving every year before we all do the family thing. Friends + Thanksgiving = Franksgiving. I know, it’s cutesy enough to make you want to puke, but it’s a good time with friends and delicious food.

This year and last year, I’ve made mashed potatoes, and will likely continue to do so for the rest of our lives. My husband says it’s because everyone praises my mashed potatoes and I enjoy praise. Which… fair enough. So anyway, I made 15lbs of potatoes and have a bunch in my fridge that I’d like to use up. The obvious answer to this is fried mashed potato cakes with dill sour cream.

Fried Mashed Potato Cakes

2 cups mashed potatoes, cold
1/3 cup flour
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil

Place a cookie sheet lined with paper towels in the oven and preheat to 200. Heat the oil in a small pan. Take 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes and form into a hamburger size patty. Dredge the patty in the flour and place in the hot oil. Let fry for 3 – 4 minutes until golden brown on the bottom and flip over, cooking an additional 3 – 4 minutes. Remove the mashed potato patty from the oil and place on the cookie sheet in the oven, to keep warm and absorb some of the oil while the other patties are cooking. Repeat with the rest of the mashed potatoes, making a total of four patties.

Dill Sour Cream

1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped dill
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients together. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.

Serve each potato patty warm with a dollop of the dill sour cream.

These are really simple and really good. The outside of the potato is nice and crispy and the inside is warm and slightly oozy. This works best with mashed potatoes that aren’t made with a ton of cream; I make mine with sour cream, cream cheese and butter so they hold their shape really well when cold. If your potatoes are too loose, add an egg to the mixture as a binder and follow the rest of the instructions. There’s so much you can do with these – I served them as a side, but you could easily make this the main component of your meal by adding a protein or some veg in there. Just chop it up pretty well and add it to the cold potatoes before making the patties.

Filed Under: vegetables Tagged With: fried potatoes, leftovers, mashed potatoes, potato cakes, potatoes, recipes, thanksgiving