Roasted Squash and Bacon Pasta

Hooray for Fall! I'm so happy when squash and sweet potatoes start featuring in our meals again. In my produce bag last week, I had a big acorn squash, and I used it to make this meal from my Williams-Sonoma cookbook. So delicious. I've stolen the photo and recipe from their website since I forgot to take a picture at the time. My squash was a lot squashier, and ended up smeared all over the noodles instead of in nice little cubes, but I thought that made it yummier. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 2 lb. butternut or other winter squash, peeled, seeded and cut into small cubes
• 1 large yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 4 thick-cut bacon slices, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh sage
• 2 Tbs. salt, plus more, to taste
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1 lb. rigatoni or other large pasta shape
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving

Directions:

Roast the squash and onions
Preheat an oven to 425ºF.

On a large nonstick baking sheet, toss the squash, onion and bacon with the olive oil. Sprinkle with the sage and season with salt and pepper. Spread in a single layer. Roast until the squash is caramelized and tender and the bacon is crispy, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven.

Cook the pasta
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add the 2 Tbs. salt and the pasta to the boiling water. Cook, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until al dente (tender but firm to the bite), according to the package instructions. Drain, reserving about 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

Return the pasta to the pot. Add the squash mixture and toss for 1 minute over high heat, adding as much of the cooking water as needed to loosen the sauce. Add the 1/2 cup cheese and toss, then serve immediately. Pass additional cheese at the table. Serves 4. (More like 6, for us.)

Ok, fine. Here's the photo I took of my leftovers.

Not quite as artsy. But it's oh-so nummy and gooey.

Green Hot Chili Peppers

A couple of weeks ago, my farm produce bag brought me a whole bunch of hot peppers--green chili peppers and jalapeños. "What do I do with these?" I thought. And the subsequent search led me to a couple of really yummy recipes, both from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

Primero: Baked Chicken Chiles Rellenos

It's kind of like Chiles Rellenos inside out.

Ingredients:
6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/3 cup flour
3 tablespoons cornmeal
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1 4-ounce can whole green chile peppers, rinsed, seeded, and cut in half lengthwise. (I just used fresh ones, since that's what I had.)
2 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, cut into six 2-x1/2-inch sticks.
2 tablespoons snipped fresh cilantro or fresh parsley
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1 8-ounce jar green or red salsa

Directions:
1. Place each chicken breast half between two pieces of plastic wrap. Using the flat side of a meat mallet, pound chicken lightly into rectangles about 1/8-inch thick. Remove plastic wrap.
2. In a shallow dish combine the flour, cornmeal, and cayenne pepper. Place egg in a second shallow dish; add water and beat lightly to combine.
3. Place a chile pepper half on each chicken piece near an edge. Place a stick of cheese on each chile pepper half. Sprinkle with snipped [parsley] and black pepper. Fold in side edges; roll up from the edge with cheese and chile pepper. Secure with wooden toothpick.
4. Dip chicken rolls in egg mixture; coat with cornmeal mixture. Place rolls, seam sides down, in a shallow baking pan. Drizzle with butter.
5. Bake, uncovered, in a 375 degree oven for 25 - 30 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Remove toothpicks. Meanwhile, heat salsa; serve over chicken.


Y Segundo: Salsa!

I've never made homemade salsa before. And this recipe makes that great, fresh-chopped kind that's so cool and refreshing and just makes you feel healthy.

Ingredients:
1 cup seeded and finely chopped tomato (3 small)
1/3 cup finely chopped red onion (1 small)
2-4 fresh serrano, habañero, or jalapeño chile peppers, seeded and finely chopped (I recommend you wear rubber gloves, especially if using the spicier peppers)
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons snipped fresh cilantro [OF COURSE, I left this out. And it made it ever-so-much more delicious for me and most of my cilantro-hating family.]
1/4 tsp. salt
4 cloves garlic, minced

Directions: Basically, chop it all up and stir it all together in a bowl, then chill it for 2-48 hours. Yum! (The chopping got a bit tedious, as you may be able to tell from some of the big chunks in the picture below. If I could have one real chef skill, it would be speedy chopping.)

Thanksgiving Leftovers Pizza

I just realized, to my shock, that I'd never posted this recipe on the cooking blog. It was such a fun Christmas experiment, and it turned out to be so remarkably delicious, that I'm surprised I forgot to post it.

This all resulted from the great pizza-for-Christmas-dinner scandal of 2010. Wonderful Grandma Hale was trying to make Christmas dinner easier for everyone (and more acceptable for those younger grandchildren with limited palates) by proposing that we all just make or buy pizza and have a pizza potluck for our Christmas Eve dinner.

And though my sister Annie is usually loathe to state her opinion strongly, she ventured out of her shell to say, "What!!!! Pizza! Must all of our Christmas traditions be so profaned? As an american teenager I am so thoroughly sick of pizza that chain logos make me nauseous. And as a college student I am so generally deprived of wholesome holiday food the Christmas commercials make me weep. If we must have pizza can I suggest one topped with mashed potatoes and gravy? Maybe some turkey too? Beef Jerky? And how about we remove the crust from beneath the potatoes and instead serve it in circular roll-like bits? Just a suggestion."

And though my brother Jon responded by saying, "This girls does not speak for american teenagers or college students, or she would not say what she does. Hurrah for pizza!" I thought Annie's suggestion was brilliant.

So on Christmas Eve, my family assembled a couple of pizzas based loosely off the suggestions of online recipes for Thanksgiving Leftovers Pizza. (Like this one or this one.) Basically you take either pizza dough, a store-made prebaked pizza crust (we used Boboli--yum!), or biscuit dough, then use gravy for the sauce, mashed potatoes for the "cheese," and whatever thanksgiving leftover-type toppings you please for the toppings: turkey of course, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, whatever! It was mostly as a joke, but it turned out so delicious that I fully plan on making one next day-after-Thanksgiving.