Roasted winter squash purée

This is a great alternative to mashed potatoes or a starchy side. It's a pretty intuitive dish, simple, and easy to experiment with. Woo hoo! Playing with food! You know I love it. *grins wildly*

This makes the dish an excellent repurposed leftover food. Yes. Waste not want not! I start with a good sized winter squash (thick skinned like an acorn or butternut), and cut into quarters. I brush just a bit of olive oil on it, nothing else (it'll get the love later), to help encourage caramelization.

I roast it at high temp of 425 to really coax out those toasted savory flavors. Once the flesh is soft when pricked with a fork, and the tips are a little toasted, I pull out the squash to cool.

Time to get naked! The squash, that is. Well, you can too. I won't judge. Turn the squash flesh side down in a bowl. This makes the skin super easy to remove.

Next it's time to mash, add a little salt, pepper and butter to taste. Wasn't that easy?


With this base, you can upgrade fresh or from leftovers by adding:

• Cinnamon, brown sugar and cardamom
  
• Goat cheese, parsley and garlic
  
• Ham, caramelized shallots and fresh thyme
  
• Topping of bacon crumbles, crème fraiche, and scallions
  

The list could go on and on....

Enjoy!

Ratatouille with spinach

This dish screams comfort to me. It's fast, healthy, and most importantly, delicious. Most ratatouille uses eggplant, summer squash (zucchini or thin skinned squash), onion, and root veg. For this recipe, I subbed out the squash for spinach because.....well, I didn't have squash. But hey! That's the great thing about cooking. Improv! Play! Experiment! Who makes the rules? You do. The one with the knife! Ok. Sorry. I got carried away.

I have some tips when it comes to that wonderfully bulbous purple veg: the eggplant. The skin (or more exactly, right under the skin) holds a little bit of bitterness. Some like it, some don't. If you are in the "don't" category, peeling the eggplant will mellow it out. Slice the eggplant into rounds before cooking, sprinkle with salt, and lay them in a single layer on a cookie sheet for a half hour to an hour prior to prepping (dicing). This also mellows out bitter favors, and helps to leech out some of the moisture so your end product is firm and not mushy. Who wants naked mushy eggplant? Not me. If you are crunched for time, microwaving also helps leech out some moisture. Microwave for 5 minutes, let sit to cool, then pat with paper towels. Voila! Eggplant that is prime time and ready to party.


In my recipe I used:

• 1 eggplant
  
• 1 bunch of spinach
  
• 1 parsnip
  
• 1 carrot
  
• 3 roma tomatos
  
• 1 bell pepper
  
• 4 garlic cloves
  
• Kosher salt, black pepper and dried oregano. (A little secret - the mexican food aisle of the grocery store, where all the little cellophane bags of herbs are? Dried oregano there is amaizing. The leaves are whole little round things of oregano loveliness. So fresh tasting, and at 65 cents a bag, it's a steal.)
  

Veg gets chopped into similar sized chunks and garlic gets a dice.
Get your hard veggies into a pan (onions, carrots, parsnips) heated to medium with some olive oil or ghee. Sautée them til they start to give up a little love, and caramelize a bit.
Then add the rest of the goodies, all except the tomato. You can add some butter and a splash of white wine for extra flavor. Go for a dry wine like Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio - it will add a nice hint of acidity and brightness. Stay away from oaky heavy Chardonnay. Eggplant loves to absorb the flavors it's cooked with!

Season with oregano, salt and pepper, and sautée for about 3 - 5 minutes, or until cooked to your liking. Not too long or the eggplant will get mushy. Just keep an eye on the eggplant and use that to gauge how long your sauté should be. And taste it!

Add tomato and go 2 - 5 minutes more. You can stop here, or...if you have a stove to oven pan, drizzle a bit of olive oil on top and fresh grated parmesan and broil for just a couple of minutes. Broiling will make the tomatoes cry mercy, and adds a great roasted flavor to the dish. A flavored oil such as lemon tarragon works good for this step. Or any flavor oil you wish. You have the knife, remember?

Cheers!

Homemade stock - quick version

Homemade stock is the best. You can control the salt content, ingredients, richness...and it's a handy way to use all of your "scraps"' so nothing goes to waste. Whenever I chop veggies, I keep the good scraps in a big plastic bag in the freezer. Mushrooms on the edge, green onion ends, carrot tops, beet tops...fresh herbs that are just about to give up before I have time to use them - it all goes in there.


I throw this all in my pressure cooker with a bouquet garni (I use what's on hand: usually kosher salt, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, & peppercorn) and some water (til the veg is submerged). For extra oomph I'll sometimes add some stock I have already prepared.





After it comes to pressure, I usually cook it for 20 minutes. If cooking in a traditional pot, I try to simmer for up to 6 hours or so, or less - depending on how the flavor has developed and how much I'm making. After it's given all it can give, the stock gets strained and portioned out into 1 cup and 2 cup portions and frozen. Super easy! It's nice also to reserve a couple of cups and reduce it down even further, til it reduces by half or more - and freeze into ice cubes (then store in a baggy or the like). It makes for a quick and easy demiglace icecube that you can use to make a pansauce, punch up a soup base - eat as a snack...(kidding. Go for it though, it's healthy!) The veggie broth makes for a good base to start a quick meat broth as well. Nothing is better than a soup or risotto made from homemade stock! In cooking school, we will go over the long "proper" method later. Enjoy!