Great Baked Pumpkin with Herbed Barley and Chickpeas

Once again, I love "Cookwise." All the recipes from it are so delicious! And they often have such interesting combinations of flavors. This recipe is no exception--as you'll see below, it has sesame oil and soy sauce, but also Italian spices, and then some orange marmalade. It's awesome! And it's the first time I've ever cooked my own pumpkin. Hooray! A very Fall dish.

Ingredients:
-1 fresh pumpkin, about 10 inches in diameter
-2 large onions, chopped
-1/4 cup sesame oil
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-3 cups quick-cooking barley [I couldn't find barley anywhere! So I used some leftover brown rice that I'd already cooked. Since it was already cooked, I should have decreased the amount of liquid in the recipe, but I just drained some off afterwards and it was fine.]
-3 cups homemade Chicken Stock or canned chicken broth
-3 cups water
-2 cans (16 oz. each) chickpeas, drained
-2 cans (16 oz. each) navy beans, drained [oddly, I couldn't find those either, and used pinto]
-1 T. dried oregano
-2 t. dried basil
-1 t. dried rosemary
-1/2 cup orange marmalade
-2 T. light brown sugar
-1/2 cup chopped parsley
-1/4 cup soy sauce
-1 t. salt
-1/2 t. white pepper
-1 to 2 T. Chinese hot chili oil [I didn't have any and left it out, but it was delicious without]
-Large green leaves, for garnish [also left out]

1. Cut the top from the pumpkin slightly lower than for a jack-o'-lantern. Scoop out and discard the seeds. Set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Cook onions in sesame oil in a large skillet over low to medium heat (to avoid damaging the sesame oil) until the onions are just clear, not brown. Stir in the garlic and cook briefly. Cook the barley in the stock and water for 10 minutes at a low simmer in a large covered saucepan.
3. Stir together the onion mixture and the rest of the ingredients except garnish in a large mixing bowl. Spoon the mixture into the pumpkin and fit the lid back in place. Place on a small pizza pan in the lower center of the oven and bake for 1 hour. The pumpkin should be lightly browned.
4. Serve the pumpkin surrounded by large green leaves [or not]. Remove the lid and lean it against the side of the pumpkin. Serve a piece of pumpkin with the filling.

Hint: This was extra delicious with some cinnamon sprinkled on top after serving. If you eat the pumpkin separately, it needs a little salt. But it's great if you mix it in with your rice/barley mixture.

Shallot Mashed Potatoes with Garlic

I'm still going through the bushels of potatoes we got from our summer CSA fling. (That's Community Supported Agriculture, if you haven't been as indoctrinated with local food movement thingies as I've been of late.) It's over now, but it was really fun.

This is a delicious recipe from Cookwise (all the recipes I've tried from that book have been). I couldn't find shallots at the store, so I used a combo of small onions and green onions. Was ever so yummy. I also only mashed the potatoes by putting them through a ricer--didn't stir with a hand mixer or anything--so they had a neat texture.

Ingredients:
-4 to 5 medium Burbank Russet (Idaho) or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/3 inch thick
-3 medium shallots, crushed
-2 cloves garlic, crushed
-2 tsp. and 2 tsp. salt (4 tsp. total)
-1/2 tsp. cider vinegar
-5 shallots, finely minced [8 total!]
-2 cloves garlic, finely minced [4 total!]
-3 tablespoons butter
-1/4 tsp. white pepper
-1 cup heavy or whipping cream
-1/2 to 1 cup half-and-half or milk

Directions:
1. Precook the potatoes by heating enough water (about 6 cups) to cover them in a large pot over high heat until hot but well below a simmer. Turn heat down to low and add the potato slices, crushed shallots and garlic, 2 tsp. salt, and vinegar. The potatoes will cool the water down to about 160 degrees F. Cook at about this temperature, well below a simmer, for about 20 minutes. Drain and run cold water over the potato slices to cool them. Let them stand in water in the pot until you're ready to finish cooking, or drain, cover, and refrigerate.
2. When ready to mash, saute the minced shallots and garlic in butter over medium heat until just soft in a heavy, medium saucepan. Stir in 2 tsp. salt and the white pepper. Add the cream and half-and-half and heat gently. Set aside.
3. To finish cooking, add water to the cool potatoes if necessary, bring to a boil, and simmer until fork-tender, about 5 minutes at a simmer. Drain, remove the crushed shallots and garlic, put the potatoes back in the pot, and heat for about a minute to dry them out. To mash, put the potatoes once through a ricer or large-holed strainer into a medium mixing bowl. Bring the shallot and cream mixture to a boil and stir into the hot mashed potatoes. Taste and add more salt or pepper as needed. Serve immediately. (Makes 4-6 servings)

Yum!

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.

Cherry Apricot Pie with Almond Streusel Topping

I confess, California got to me. While there, for a book club, I read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and, while not becoming fanatic, developed a desire to eat more locally and organically. So after we moved back to Utah, I looked up local organic farms. I ended up signing up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) weekly drop-off of a bag of organic produce from Borski Farms, a family-run farm in Kaysville.

It's been quite the fun adventure getting a bag of random produce every week and figuring out what to do with it. It has revealed my lack of veggie knowledge, though. I recognized rhubarb the first week I got it. I wanted to be efficient and use all parts of the vegetables they gave me, so I took a couple of the rhubarb leaves and plopped them onto a sandwich for lunch. Later that day, Mom told me that rhubarb leaves are poisonous. Whoops... (I did a bit of research, and you'd have to eat a good 11 pounds of the stuff for it to be really lethal, but best to be safe).

Then, later, when I was given some cherries and what I thought was rhubarb again, I wanted to make a cherry rhubarb pie. I was very disappointed when Mom and Dad broke the news that my rhubarb was actually Swiss Chard. Learning curve...

Anyway, one week I got both cherries and apricots in my bag, and I looked online recipes for cherry apricot pie. (That's one of my favorite things to do--to have random extra ingredients and search for a recipe to use them in.)

This one seemed the best. I made it on Saturday for a party with the Browns, and it was so delicious that I made it again today for my family to try. Enjoy!

Cherry Apricot Pie with Almond Streusel Topping

Ingredients

• FOR STREUSEL: 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup crumbled almond paste (about 2 3/4 ounces)
• 1/4 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• FOR FILLING: 1 cup sugar
• 4 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pound Bing cherries, stemmed, pitted, halved (about 2 1/4 cups)
• 1 pound ripe apricots (about 6 medium-large), halved, pitted, each half cut into 4 wedges (about 3 cups)
• 1/2 cup apricot preserves
• TENDER PIE CRUST: 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/2 cup frozen vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 5 tablespoons (or more) ice water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream (optional)

Preparation

1. FOR STREUSEL: Whisk flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt to blend in medium bowl. Add almond paste and butter. Rub in with fingertips until mixture begins to clump together. Add almonds and work in with fingertips until well incorporated. Refrigerate until ready to use. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.)
2. FOR FILLING: Line baking sheet with foil; place in bottom of oven. Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375ºF. Whisk sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon in large bowl to blend well. Add cherries, apricots and apricot preserves and toss to blend well with sugar mixture. Let stand until juices form, about 20 minutes.
3. THE PERFECT TENDER PIE CRUST: Blend flour, sugar and salt in processor. Add butter and shortening and cut in using on/off turns until mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix 5 tablespoons ice water and vanilla in small bowl; add to processor and blend using on/off turns until mixture begins to form moist clumps, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry.
4. Gather dough into 2 balls. Flatten each into disk; wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated. Soften dough slightly at room temperature before rolling out.)
5. TO ASSEMBLE: Roll out 1 pie crust disk on generously floured surface to 12-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Fold crust edges under and crimp edges decoratively, forming high standing rim 1/2 to- 3/4-inch above sides of dish. Spoon filling into crust.
6. Bake pie 30 minutes. Cover edges with foil collar to prevent overbrowning. Bake pie until filling just begins to bubble at edges, about 15 minutes longer. Sprinkle streusel over top of pie. Continue to bake until crust and streusel are deep golden brown and filling bubbles thickly in center, about 45 minutes longer. Transfer to rack and cool at least 2 hours. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature with ice cream or sweetened whipped cream, if desired. (Can be prepared 8 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.)
7. FOR A PRE-BAKED PIE CRUST: Line the pie dish with crust; crimp edges and bake at 375ºF. until golden and baked through and piercing crust in a few places with fork if crust bubbles, about 30 minutes. Cool and then fill with your choice of already prepared fillings, such as mousses, cream fillings, or lemon curd.

Chile Relleno Breakfast Bake

This picture might not look like much, but its the warm gooey goodness beneath the biscuit topping that's the special part. We had this a few weeks ago for Fast Sunday breakfast-for-dinner with the Cresaps. I was craving it, so I made it again last night. And I then proceeded to eat several pieces, filling me so full of protein that I wasn't even interested in dessert (which is a big deal). It's so yummy!

Ingredients:

1/4-1/2 cup butter (1/2-1 stick)
2 7-oz. cans diced green chiles, drained (though I used half that much last time and it was fine)
1/2 lb. chorizo sausage, browned and drained (the recipe lists this as optional--we used kielbasa both times and it was so yummy)
1 8-oz. pkg. shredded cheddar cheese
1 8-oz. pkg. shredded Monterey Jack cheese
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1 cup biscuit mix* (see recipe below)
1 tsp. chili powder or southwest seasoning
1/2-1 tsp. freshly ground pepper

*Homemade biscuit mix:
3 cups flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup shortening
*Stir together the dry ingredients, and then blend in the shortening. Store in the fridge.

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a 9x13 glass baking dish. Layer the chiles over the butter. Sprinkle with the browned chorizo, if using. Layer the shredded cheeses over the sausage. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, biscuit mix, chili powder and pepper. Pour over the other ingredients in the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown. Serves 10-12. (I halved it last time and it was plenty.)