Butternutz

My mom delivers seasonal fruits and vegetables to me every time I see her at my grandmother's weekly Sunday night dinner, like a CSA that knows your proclivities. She gave me a butternut squash, and after I roasted half of it with olive oil (delicious!!), I decided to try a soup. Butternut squash has the most wonderful natural flavor. Really does taste like butter.

This is the second veggie soup I've made (the first was potato leek; the post is forthcoming), and I am a total convert. Soups are soup-er simple (Margot isn't the only one who can pun!!) to make when you have a food processor, which I bought only about a year ago. So key.

This was, of course, a Minimalist recipe from his list of Thanksgiving dishes:

13. Sauté sliced shallots in olive oil, then add chunks of butternut squash, some rosemary and chicken stock or water to cover. As the soup simmers, bake strips of prosciutto until crisp. Purée the soup, swirl in some cream if you like and serve topped with crumbled prosciutto.

I used half of a butternut squash, about 1.5 cups of chicken stock, rosemary from the front of my parent's house, and one strip of BACON. so delicious!

Thanksgiving Eats: Bacon-Balsamic-Roasted Garlic Deviled Eggs

I've never had to be at the helm of any Thanksgiving celebration before (thank goodness? Or should I be yearning to stay up the night before, freaking out?). So contributing a dish or two is a way to enjoy seasonal cooking without all the stress. This year, I had two T-Day celebrations to attend (score!) and I ended up making two dishes. The first one was a classic that gets devoured no matter how simple or fancy you make it: deviled eggs. While the bacon-in-everything trend has been beaten to death, that does not change the fact that bacon will always be a delightful salty addition to almost anything. So I took bits and pieces from this recipe and this recipe to create the egg-sellent appetizer.

Recipe

18 large hardboiled eggs

1 head of roasted garlic (in the future I'd either increase this to 3 heads or leave out the garlic and add more mayo)

6 strips of bacon, cooked to crispy and finely chopped

3/4 c. mayonnaise

1.5 tbs grated red onion

1.5 tsp granulated sugar

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

3/4 tsp. balsamic vinegar

chopped chives (optional garnish)

paprika (optional garnish)

Everyone has their own method of boiling perfect eggs. Mine is to heat up the eggs and cold water together in the pot from the get go. Once the water starts to boil, I lower the heat a little so the eggs don't crack. Boil the eggs for 20 minutes, then immediately rinse with cold water and dunk the eggs in an ice water bath so the membrane shrinks back from the white, making peeling a piece of cake.

Slice the eggs in half and dump the yolks in a mixing bowl. Mix all ingredients together, then spoon or pipe the yolk mixture into each egg white half. I don't have a piping bag, so usually I snip the tip off of a Ziploc bag and use that to pipe the yolk mixture in. Works pretty well, if I might say so myself. I chopped chives to use as garnish (the store was out of a lot of other herbs, ha) and added a sprinkle of paprika for color. EGG-STREME!

Pasta with Onion and Bacon

i run basically because i love to eat pasta. a simple al dente pasta with a whisper-light red sauce and a few fresh but succulent ingredients is my idea of heaven. i recently had a wonderful version at the new pizza place in sf zero zero: Bucatini, Mendocino Uni Butter, Garlic Chives, Roasted Garlic and Breadcrumbs. my mouth is watering just at the thought!

i found this recipe from mi amore marco bittman, who's writing for runners world now. i used pancetta cubes from TJs, but it seemed like it needed a stronger meat presence, so i'd recommend bacon or real thick pancetta cubes. i also used TJ's garlic and chive linguine.

first crisp up the pork.


then sautee the onions in the leftover oil until they brown.


smash up some plum tomatoes and cook em with the onions until it becomes a sauce. toss it with the pasta, top with the crunchy pork, fresh parsley, and parmesan.

three delicious ingredients - just like us!