Spaghetti Squash with Fried Sage Crisps

Wow, I didn’t think I would ever find a squash I liked more than delicata squash.  For taste and ease of preparation, it is hard to beat.  But I took a chance on spaghetti squash today and feel that my loyalties may have shifted.

I’m a bit surprised that I have never had spaghetti squash in my kitchen before today.  I think I’ve worked with just about every other type of squash but something always turned me off about the spaghetti.  Maybe it was that I didn’t feel I could trust a vegetable masquerading as a pasta.

Now I know better.  This dish is extremely simple, has a short ingredient list, and perfectly embodies the fall flavors I’ve been craving lately.  It’s a keeper.

Spaghetti Squash with Fried Sage Crisps

Ingredients
- 1 spaghetti squash, halved with seeds removed
- 2 Tbs olive oil
- a stalk of sage leaves
- butter, to taste
- salt, to taste

1. Roast spaghetti squash at 375F for 20-30 minutes, until easily pierced by a fork.
2. Prepare the sage leave.  Chop leaves in to small, sprinkle-sized pieces.  Heat oil over medium-high heat and fry sage for about 5 seconds.  Remove from heat and transfer to a paper towel to cool.  They will become crisp as they cool.
3. When the squash is ready, use a fork to remove the flesh.  Toss with butter and salt.  Top with sage crisps.

 

I’m glad I finally got a post up here, since it has been a little while.  I’ve been so overwhelmed with school that I haven’t had much time for anything else.  My seeming inability to juggle schoolwork, apartment maintenance, and a meager social life has been getting me down this week and I’m hoping for a moment soon in which I can relax and catch my breath.  I hope everyone is having a good Halloween!

Sweet Potato Nachos

Hello!  I have been completely sidelined from the blogosphere by a particularly brutal week of school.  I’ve still got one midterm exam and a couple of papers to go, but I had to take a quick break to write a post about the incredible lunch I just ate…sweet potato nachos.  They are basically like regular nachos but with sweet potatoes taking the place of tortilla chips.  They’re quick, versatile, and you can make them as light/healthy or decadent as you want.

I was leaning towards decadence today.  These did not let me down.

I topped mine with refried beans, lean ground beef (cooked with taco seasoning), verde salsa, cheese, avocado, and sour cream.  If you want it vegetarian, I might suggest sprinkling taco seasoning on the sweet potatoes or mixing it into your beans.  I think the extra oomph from the spices makes a big difference.  I think I’m going to try that tomorrow

To make the sweet potato chips, just slice your sweet potatoes into rounds and bake on a greased pan at 450F for 15 minutes.  Then flip them and let them bake for another 10-15 minutes.  If you buy organic sweet potatoes, you can leave the skin on.  Otherwise, you might want to peel.

I cannot wait to eat these again tomorrow.

Ok, I’m going to go hit the books for another few hours.  Tonight, J and I are getting treated to fancy dinner at Clyde Common by some folks he is working with so I have some motivation to work hard this afternoon!

 

Pumpkin Power Breakfasts

Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal.  There are so many ways to do it well without spending a lot of time in the kitchen and buying expensive ingredients.  Seriously, the same meal invented omelets, oatmeal, AND smoothies?!  Genius.  I’ve been known to eat breakfast-y items for every meal of the day.  And I’m ok with that.

In honor of fall, I decided to try a couple new pumpkin-infused breakfast bowls this week.  The first is a pumpkin pudding inspired by a recipe I saw at Spinach and Yoga.  It looked like just the thing to help me break out of my oatmeal rut.  The second was a magical amalgamation of my favorite Rice Porridge bowl and aforementioned pumpkin pudding.  Both are recipes I will be returning to for sustenance and comfort as my midterm exams draw near this and next week.

Pumpkin Pudding
serves 1
(Chia seeds won’t digest well unless they’re allowed to soak in liquid before consumption.  Plan to make this at least an hour before you plan to eat it; overnight is best.)
Ingredients

- 1 cup pureed pumpkin (I used canned)
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 1/2 Tbs chia seeds
- 1 Tbs ground flax seeds
- 1 scoop of your favorite protein powder
- generous sprinkles of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- a handful of raisins
- a few walnuts (optional)
- agave or maple syrup (optional)

1.  Blend pumpkin, almond milk, chia and flax seeds, protein powder, spices and vanilla extract until ingredients are well incorporated.  Scoop into bowl, mix in raisins and refrigerate at least an hour or overnight.

2.  When you’re ready to eat, heat in the microwave for about a minute until warm.  Garnish with walnuts and agave, if desired.

 

Pumpkin Power Porridge
serves 1, generously

Ingredients
- 1/4 cup brown rice cereal (directions for making your own here)
- 1 cup water
- 1 banana, mashed well
- 1/4 c pumpkin puree (canned is fine)
- 1/2 scoop of your favorite protein powder (optional)
- a handful of raisins
- a few dashes each of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbs ground flax seeds

1. Mix all ingredients except flax in a saucepan over medium-high heat.  Cook stirring frequently until rice is softened, about 10 minutes.

2. Top with flax.

 

Creamy Cannellini Bean Sauce with Pasta and Vegetables

I can hardly remember the last time I made pasta.  It’s not that I have anything against Italian food (it’s one of my favorites!) but pasta, to me, seems like a treat better saved for a romantic night out than something cooked at home.  The problem is that I can’t bring myself to do the whole wheat noodle thing.  I want to be healthy but there’s something about the texture or taste of whole wheat pasta that just ruins it for me entirely.  Enter Ancient Harvest Quinoa Pasta…

It’s a bit of a misnomer since it seems to also have a healthy amount of corn but I’m not complaining.  It has more fiber and protein than regular semolina pasta and doesn’t turn all mushy the way rice pasta does.  Instead, it keeps a nice chewy texture when it’s cooked, which just the way I like it.  It was on sale at the grocery store this weekend and so I decided that now was the time to give it a try.

This recipe is adapted from Yvonne and Julie’s blog.  I changed it a bit to reflect what’s in season right now but otherwise stayed pretty true to their version.  I realized after I’d done my grocery shopping that mushrooms would have been the perfect addition!

Creamy Cannellini Bean Sauce with Pasta and Vegetables
serves 4

Ingredients
- 1 package Quinoa Harvest Pasta Pagodas (or your favorite pasta type)
- 10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 2 Tbs + 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 15 oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 tsp fresh rosemary
- 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
- juice from 1/2 of a lemon
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large head broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 red pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1/4 cup hazelnuts

1. First, toast the hazelnuts in a saucepan over medium heat, shaking regularly to make sure the don’t burn.  Remove from heat, allow to cool, and roughly chop.

2. Cook the garlic in 2 Tbs olive oil over medium heat (don’t let the garlic get brown).  Remove from heat and set aside.

3. Cook pasta according to package instructions.  Steam vegetables until slightly tender.

4.  While the pasta and vegetables are cooking, make the sauce.  Place sautéed garlic, beans, remaining olive oil, rosemary, salt, and lemon in the blender.  Add coconut milk as needed to reach desired consistency.  Sauce should be thick but pourable.

5. When the pasta is done drain and return to pot.  And sauce and vegetables and mix it all together.  Scoop into bowl and garnish with hazelnuts to serve.  Drizzle with a little olive oil, if desired.

Well, I’m off to get some studying done.  I get a little panicky when I look at all the assignments I have due in the next couple of weeks but I just have to remember to take it one thing at a time.  Deep breath

Apple and Almond Cake

This cake is amazingly decadent but nicely balanced with the sweet-tart apples.  If you don’t like butter, don’t eat it.  Or if you’re watching your calories you can do like I did: skip dinner and have this instead.  :)  You’ll want to have some apples that will hold their shape a little when baked.  La Domestique has a good synopsis of some common varieties you’ll find in the grocery store this time of year.

Apple and Almond Cake
(Adapted from the recipe in River Cottage Every Day)
Serves 8

Ingredients
For the apples
- 3 apples (I used 2 Jonagold and 1 Gala)
- 2 Tbs butter
- 1 heaping Tbs granulated sugar
For the cake
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- scant tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup blanched almonds
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp almond extract

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease an 8-inch springform cake pan.

2. Cut the apples into slices about 1 cm thick.  Melt the 2 Tbs butter in a large pan over medium-low heat.  Add the granulated sugar and stir for about a minute while the sugar dissolves.  At the apples and cook, stirring constantly, until they are softened, about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat and let cool.

3. Mix together the flour and baking powder.  Put almonds in food processor and pulse until they are finely ground (but don’t turn them into almond butter!).  Clean and dry the food processor to make the batter.

4. Add remaining butter and sugar into the food processor and mix until fluffy.  Add eggs and almond extract.  Mix until well incorporated.  Add flour mixture and ground almonds.  Mix until batter is uniform.

5. Smooth mixture evenly in prepared pan and place apples on top.  Drizzle any extra juice from the apples on top of the cake.  Bake for 45-50 minutes.  Allow to cool before serving.

Aloo Gobi (One-Pot Dinner)

I’m a big fan of one-pot meals.  When my dinner starts having too many separate components, I usually fail miserably at getting the timing of one (or all) of them right.  It feels so much easier to throw everything in a pot and call it dinner.  I was originally planning on making a batch of aloo gobi and some quinoa or rice to serve it with but once I had my aloo gobi ingredients simmering away, I couldn’t stop myself from throwing in the quinoa along with everything else.  The end result was a big pot of veggies, grains, and chickpeas that will definitely be just as satisfying as leftovers as it was for lunch today.

The quinoa is definitely not traditional Indian fare, but I included it to add extra substance and nutrition.  Rice would be another good option but you may need to play with the amount of water to get the right consistency.  Enjoy!

One-Pot Aloo Gobi
serves 8

Ingredients
- 1 Tbs coconut oil or butter
- 3 small red potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 small yellow onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 Tbs curry powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1/8 tsp ground clove
- 3 cups water
- 1 small head cauliflower, chopped
- 1 cup green beans, chopped
- 1 Tbs tomato paste
- 1 cup dry quinoa

1.  Melt butter or coconut oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and add onion and potatoes.  Sautee until onions are soft, 5-7 minutes.  Add garlic and cook for another minute.

2.  Add salt, curry powder, cumin, cloves, and water.  Bring to a boil.

3.  Add remaining ingredients and cook until vegetables are soft and quinoa has soaked up most of the extra water, about 20-30 minutes.

Weekend Link Love

Here are some links from around the web that I’ve been loving this week!

Beautiful dishcloths to give the kitchen a little makeover.  And it’s not too soon to start thinking about Christmas!

Yay new Wilco album!

Here is a great article about the Wall Street protests.

I need to make this recipe, stat!  (Uh oh, hospital talk infiltrating my daily life.)

Just finished “The Long Song” by Andrea Levy.  Loved it.

Yesssss!!!!!

I hope everyone is having a happy weekend!

Hännah

Breakfast Porridge

The cold weather is definitely here and, with it, a change in my breakfast routine.  During the summer months, I am a huge fan of smoothies packed to the brim with fruits and vegetables.  With the chill in the air now, a big cold glass of anything seems unappetizing.  These days, it’s all about the rice porridge.  This is similar in texture to Cream of Wheat but it’s a much healthier whole grain option.  I made mine by simply grinding short grain brown rice in the dry container of my Vitamix, but you could definitely buy the exact same thing pre-ground for you (Bob’s Red Mill is a good option).

I’m the kind of person who starts looking forward to the next day’s breakfast before I even get to bed.  The plan for this recipe came together as I was drifting off to sleep.  I knew I wanted something sweet, warm, and comforting.  The next morning as the rice porridge was heating and softening on the stove and I was happily mashing a banana, I came to a realization.  ”Oh!  I’m making BABY FOOD right now!”  Which kind of makes sense, as cold weather makes me regress to a much earlier stage of development in a real Freudian kind of way.  All I want is food, sleep, and blankets.  If you feel the same way, this breakfast might be just the thing.

Breakfast Porridge
serves 1

Ingredients
- 1/4 c brown rice cereal (see directions for making your own below)
- 1 1/4 c water
- 1 banana (over-ripe is best)
- 2 Tbs raisins
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- a few dashes of cinnamon
- 6 walnut halves
- 1/2 Tbs coconut oil (or butter)

1. If you are making your own rice cereal, put a few cups of your favorite style of brown rice into the dry container of a high-powered blender.  I’ve heard that a coffee grinder can also work and so might a food processor.  Set to medium high and allow rice to be ground down to the desired consistency.  It should be similar in grain to sand.  I let mine go for about 10 seconds and then gave it some additional pulses.

2.  Cook the rice and water over medium-high heat until soft, about 5-7 minutes.  While it’s cooking, mash the banana and add to the pot along with the raisins, vanilla and cinnamon.  Mix well.

3.  Scoop into your breakfast bowl and top with coconut oil or butter and walnuts.

Baked Delicata Squash (or, the weirdest lunch I ever made)

Well, it didn’t take long for school to get back into full swing.  I try not to look too far ahead at my calendar since doing so is likely to throw me into a panic.  I haven’t had a chance to cook a real meal in almost a week, but I’m trying to at least keep the kitchen stocked with quick, healthy food options…and sometimes even that doesn’t quite happen.  Like the other day when I realized that the only thing I really had to pack for lunch was a baked delicata squash.  An entire delicata squash.

It was actually delicious.  It’s just that I don’t think I would recommend making it the main and only course of your meal  If you haven’t had one of these before, I recommend that you make it your next side dish.  Delicata squash are ridiculously easy to make and have a lovely sweet flavor.  Best of all, their skin is so thin (you might say delicate) that you can eat it along with the flesh.  It’s a lazy person’s dream come true.  This, as well as most types of winter squash, pairs well with other sweet flavors.  Brown sugar is a favorite but you could definitely experiment with another sweetener of your choice.  For this recipe, I actually decided not to add any extra sugar and relied on the sweetness of the squash instead.  I found that this was plenty for me.

Baked Delicata Squash
serves 2

Ingredients
- 1 squash
- a little olive oil
- 1 Tbs coconut oil (or butter)
- a few dashes of cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 400F and lightly oil a baking sheet.  Using a sharp knife, cut off the ends of the squash and cut in half, lengthwise.  Scoop out seeds.

2. Place squash face-down on baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes until squash is tender and easily pierced with a fork.

3. Remove from oven and spread coconut oil or butter evenly between the two halves.  Sprinkle with cinnamon.  Serve warm.

I love the coconut oil in this, which is good because I have a LOT of coconut oil in my pantry at the moment.  I mean, I have a ridiculous amount for someone who does not have a restaurant of a family of, like, 12 to feed.  Why do I have so much coconut oil?  Because I love deals and when I ran out of my last jar of coconut oil I decided to find the most cost-effective (per ounce) replacement.  I ended up finding it on amazon.com.  The catch being, of course, that it was in bulk.  So here is what showed up on my doorstep a few days later.

[Headsmack]  I love deals too much for my own good.

Bloody Mary Sliders and Spicy Horseradish Salad

This is a cooking-for-one kind of recipe.  I had the apartment to myself this afternoon and wanted to feed myself something simple and satisfying with minimal fuss.  Now, I don’t usually eat very much meat.  I’ve spent time as a vegetarian and a (kind of) vegan and have learned that I don’t need meat on a daily or even weekly basis.  But this was a day for a burger.  These sliders are moist and flavorful but it’s the salad dressing that packs the biggest flavor punch.  If you prefer to eat your burger on a bun instead of on salad greens as I did, just whip up a serving of the horseradish dressing to smear on the bread.

Bloody Mary Sliders
serves 1

Ingredients
- 1/3 lb 95% lean ground beef
- 1 tsp tomato paste
- 1/4 tsp prepared horseradish
- 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- a few dashes of celery salt
- pepper to taste
- a little bit of olive oil

1. Mix the tomato paste, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, celery salt, and pepper.  Add the ground beef and mix until everything is incorporated.  Form into 2 equally-sized patties.

2. Heat oil over medium heat.  You don’t need a lot of oil, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan and keep the sliders from sticking.  Cook the sliders until slightly browned, about 4 minutes on each side.

Spicy Horseradish Salad
serves 1

Ingredients
- 3 cups salad greens
- 1 Tbs plain yogurt
- 1/4 tsp prepared horseradish
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar

1. Mix together yogurt, horseradish, and vinegar.  Toss with salad greens until coated.

To serve:  Heap salad onto a plate and top with sliders.  Sprinkle everything with a little bit of sea salt.

Also, here is a picture of the top of my head and the top of my dog’s head.