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Butternut Squash Pasta

April 6, 2011 by 4 Comments

The other night I was at my friend’s house and we were talking about squash [my friends and I talk about food A LOT] and how delicious it is. And that reminded me that I made this really quick and tasty butternut squash pasta over a month ago and hadn’t posted it yet. Kind of makes me wish I listened to my husband’s advice of always having a backlog of blogs ready to post every week. It makes so much sense, and yet.. I still haven’t done it. Nor, to be perfectly honest, will I. For some reason I just like to make things difficult.

Luckily, this recipe is pretty easy and since I had a giant mutant squash, I was able to make both the pasta and an unfortunately dense butternut squash bread as well. Note to self: there actually is a reason to use baking powder. But we’re talking about a success here, not fail bread. The first step to this is to roast a butternut squash until tender, to build the right base for the sauce.

Butternut Squash Puree

1 butternut squash, halved
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix together spices and set aside. Spread softened butter on both halves of the squash and then sprinkle with the spice mixture. Pour water into a 9 x 13 pan and then add the squash, cut side up. Roast for 50 – 60 minutes, or until fork tender. Remove from oven and let cool.

Once the squash is cool enough to be handled, scoop out the insides and add it to your food processor in batches. Puree until smooth. Set aside until ready to make pasta. [Please note awesome cat measuring cups that my friend gave me for Christmas!]

Butternut Squash Pasta

8 oz spaghetti
1.5 cups butternut squash puree
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup reserved pasta water
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon minced rosemary
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a pot of salted water to boiling. Add in pasta and let cook until al dente. Drain pasta, reserving 1/4 pasta water. In a medium sized pot, heat the butter until just starting to turn foamy. Add in the minced rosemary and cook until fragrant. Add in the milk and let that come up to temperature, stirring frequently to avoid a skin forming on top. Then add in the butternut squash and the cheese. Let that come up to a simmer and cook for a few minutes until combined well; slowly add in some of the reserved pasta water until the sauce is the right consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Combine sauce with the drained pasta and serve immediately.

This is a great way to get more vegetables into your diet. The sauce is silky thanks to the milk and coats the pasta perfectly. The spices in the squash worked really well in flavoring the dish overall. This would also be great with some shrimp or grilled chicken served alongside it.

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Braised Bok Choy

February 9, 2011 by 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.

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A happy steak is a well-cooked steak

June 28, 2009 by 3 Comments

Well, I suppose the happiest steak would be the one on a still breathing cow? But then I’d be unhappy, because I wouldn’t have had this awesome dinner. And I’m pretty sure my feelings trump the feelings of a farm animal. Also, vegans/vegetarians/etc, don’t hate. I love animals, I really do. I just love me some red meat as well.

But before we get to the goods, let’s have a Food Shenanigans moment of cooking safety. You see this plate? This is what happens when you put a styrofoam plate on a still hot burner. You probably shouldn’t do that. And if you do unthinkingly follow my poor example, you might want to hide it in the trash better than I did, so that maybe your husband [or wife] won’t find it. Of course, the burnt bits of styrofoam on the stove probably would have given me away eventually.

ANYWAY. On to the cooking. I had the best of intentions in following recipes for this dinner, but ended up just doing a mish-mash of the various recipes I had read.

First, I got the onions going, since they were going to take the longest. My goal had been to do an onion jam as a topping for the filet, but I couldn’t wait that long. So we ended up with delicious balsamic caramelized onions that were just short of the time and effort involved in becoming a jam. I sliced one vidalia onion and added it to a pan with 1 tablespoon of salted butter. They cooked over a low heat for about 20 minutes until they were a nice even brown, and then I added a few splashes of balsamic vinegar. Then they continued to cook another 20 minutes or so, basically right until the steak was ready to be served.

Next, I halved and then parboiled a package of brussels sprouts and in another pan started cooking 4 ounces of diced pancetta. After about three or four minutes, I removed the brussels sprouts from the water and drained them. The pancetta was likewise removed from the pan, and put on a plate to crisp up. At this point, the sprouts go in with the pancetta fat and a tablespoon of salted butter for good measure. The sprouts were cooked until they were nicely browned and starting to caramelize, and then the pancetta went back into the pan along with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

The best part of the meal, in a cruel twist of fate, was the easiest one to cook. I oiled the two steaks, put some Montreal steak seasoning on them, and then slapped them into the cast iron pan. They cooked about four minutes on each side, so my pan definitely wasn’t hot enough [I still need to experiment with it more], but I had my trusty meat thermometer out and cooked it to 120 degrees and then let it rest until it came up to 125.

Everything came out really well, and I was happy to have finally cooked a steak perfectly; I almost always ended up cooking it to more of a medium, than a medium rare, and it makes me sad. But not anymore! Now, I shall always have perfectly cooked meats. Also, because I’m a jerk, I sent this picture to co-workers last week to taunt them with its awesomeness:

 
Also, another indicator that the dinner came out really well? It’s husband approved! [He's eating noodles that I made for him along with everything else that are not posted because they're from a boxed mix.] Aww, isn’t he precious?

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What is a scape, anyways?

June 19, 2009 by 2 Comments

So I came across the Boston Localvore site when I was looking for a farm share to join. They have a blog, too! They are a bit surly, but I love surly.

Yesterday, I read that they received a bunch of garlic scapes in their share and made pesto. Having never seen a garlic scape in person (and not really knowing what it was) I didn’t care too much and focused on the part where they made fun of Pete Wells for being a pansy and complaining about money (he’s an editor at the NYT).

On my way home today I passed a farmers’ market and, lo and behold, there were garlic scapes! And they were cheap. Take that, Pete Wells (even though I still like your writing).

A tangle of scapes

A tangle of scapes

They come all tangled like that. A garlic scape is the stem of a garlic plant before it flowers. Apparently they straighten up some and bloom, but we (people) usually eat them before that can happen.

Here’s a single, tangly scape.

I have to admit, I wasn’t too imaginative with these, as I was way too excited about the idea making a pesto from scratch. So I did what the localvore ladies did. It’s extremely easy.

1. Chop up scapes into bits an inch or so long.

2. Fight with the safety on your food processor.

3. Calm down and then process the bits into a chunky mixture.

4. Add grated Parmesan cheese and process some more.

5. Add olive oil and process after each addition until you like it.

6. Consume!

Optional: I stole this from the localvores as well. Fill an ice cube tray with the pesto and then freeze it. Garlic scapes are pretty much only available in late June or early July, so now I can have this pesto whenever I want, in neat individual-sized portions. Ta-da!

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Bok choy makes cool noises

June 9, 2009 by 1 Comment

Seriously. I made the second dish from my first farm share today; this time using the bok choy and Zephyr squash. Bok choy sounds cool. When you snap it from the base or whatever you call it, it makes a cracking/ snapping noise. When you rinse it or pull the leaves apart, it squeaks. When you slice it, there is a neat crunch and slice sound (this sound evokes the word “crisp” in my brain). And when it’s cooking in the pan, it makes sizzling/ bubbling/ popping noises. Food isn’t just about what you can taste and smell and see. It’s also about how food feels and, when you are cooking, sometimes sounds.

So yeah, bok choy sounds neat.

Like with the Daikon radish, bok choy is a food I’d never prepared before, but it turned out pretty ok. It’s a type of cabbage, and I love me some cabbage.

Stir-fried bok choy with Zephyr squash

Just look at these bright leaves! I used a whole head of the Chinese cabbage, tearing the leaves from the base and then rinsing them.

As it turns out, vegetables fresh from the farm are dirty. In the case of things with lots of crevices, you should probably rinse the leaves after you tear them off. I missed a little soil here and there.
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When stir-frying bok choy, cook the stems a little longer than the rest, because they are a little tougher. I cut my cabbage into chunks and tossed the thicker ends in with a little vegetable oil (any neutral oil will do) over medium-high heat.

IMG_1989

Cook the stems for about 3 minutes until they become a little softer. Then add the leaves and about a half a cup of water. You can eyeball this. You want enough to simmer the cabbage, but not so much that it’s still soaking when you are done. Leave the cabbage simmering in the water for about 8-10 minutes, until the stems and leaves have wilted and the water has evaporated. I cut up some of the Zephyr squash and added it in this step. Feel free to add some other vegetable with a smallish cooking time.

Used a little too much water, which I then had to pour down the sink. The bok choy should be wilted and tender, but not brown or super-soggy.

Used a little too much water, which i then had to pour down the sink. The bok choy should be wilted and tender, but not brown or super-soggy.

After draining the water, I finished with some kosher salt, soy sauce, a squirt of lemon juice, and a drizzle of sesame oil.

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Unfortunately, this dish has no corroborating witnesses. I forgot that Justin doesn’t like sesame, so he wouldn’t try it. :-( But I’m declaring this one a success. If I get more bok choy in Thursday’s farm share, I’ll likely make this again.

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