Sasha's Kitchen: Squash Fig Crostini

I was looking for a new fall recipe for a dinner party that I was throwing and came across a delicious sounding recipe for ricotta/squash crostinis with sage in Bon Appetit magazine.  I decided to modify up the original recipe with some perfect mission figs that I had just ordered with my FreshDirect delivery, Turns out that figs and butternut squash are just the perfect food combination for fall.  I made the crostinis for my dinner party a small plate, served on a large platter for when everyone had just arrived.  They were a huge success and I'd be happy to serve them again at my next fall dinner party.

Sasha's Fig & Squash Crostini
1 15 oz container of ricotta cheese
1 loaf of french or italian bread, sliced and toasted
sage leaves
2 T of butter
1 container of mission figs (cop up about half a cup)
butternut squash (enough for two cups)
3 1/2 T of olive oil
fresh lemon juice and olive oil for vinaigrette

First, chop up about two cups of the butternut squash.  Chopping butternut squash is such a pain and takes some work.  I wish I had bought it pre-peeled and chopped, but I didn't. Here you need to peel the squash and cut it up into a nice dice so it is east in the end to spoon over the bread.  Mix the squash with 2 T of oil and a pinch of sugar.  Preheat the oven to 425 and broil the squash for 25 to 30 minutes on a rimmed baking sheet, tossing occasionally.  Allow to cool completely.  You can store the squash in the fridge.  Heat the other 1 1/2 t of oil in a small pan and add about 24 sage leaves.  Cook until the edges begin to curl and turn dark green.

Spread the toasted bread slices with the ricotta and cover with the squash, adding some figs.  You will need about a half cup of figs, chopped and two cups of squash.  Add the sage leaf and season with some pepper.  Toss a vinaigrette with lemon and olive oil and sprinkle on a light vinaigrette just before serving.   The original recipe calls for some lemon zest in with the ricotta but I left that out since my husband, Brad isn't a big fan of lemon.

Sasha's Kitchen: Squash Fig Crostini

Sasha's Kitchen: Butternut Squash-Apple Soup & My Thanksgiving Menu

Ah butternut squash, how I love you. And acorn squash, spaghetti squash and just about every other kind of squash. This is the season for every kind of squash creation that you can imagine. One of my favorite ways to eat a half acorn squash directly, with brown sugar and butter. But, I also love it in soup. I made plenty of pumpkin soups recently, so it was totally time for some squash soup. I love apples combined with other fruits and vegetables in soup, as long as you use the right kind of apples to make sure its not overly sweet.

Sasha's Butternut Squash-Apple Soup
2 1/2 lbs of butternut squash
2 Cortland Apples
Olive oil
1 quart of low sodium chicken stock
1/3 cup heavy cream
cinnamon to taste
cayenne pepper to taste (not enough to add heat, but enough to make sure the dish is not bland)
pepper to taste
pinch of nutmeg
dollop of creme fraiche (for serving)

First heat the oven to 400. Broil the squash for about an hour and a half until it is cooked. Then scrape out the squash (or use pre-cut butternut squash) and mash with a fork (or puree in a blender). Meanwhile, saute the apples (peeled and chopped) in the olive oil and add to the squash puree. Blend with the chicken stock in a blender. Place in a pot and over medium heat add in the heavy cream (just a small amount and you can add less if you prefer, or even leave it out if you want to avoid the extra fat from the cream). Season with cayenne, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg to taste.  Serve with a small dollop of creme fraiche.

This tasted great, was surprisingly simple, and made for a perfect classic fall dish!

Did I mention that I am making Thanksgiving Dinner this year for our family? Here's what I plan to have on my menu, and I will share the results with you after Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin-Cashew Soup
Turkey with an Orange-Maple Glaze
My cranberry, apple, pecan, turkey sausage stuffing
Green beans with pecans and shallots
Personal acorn squash with brown sugar
My Sweet potato chipotle pancakes with lingonberries (I plan to repost this from last year with better photos)
Chocolate pudding bars (from my new baking cookbook, Baked)
An amazing recipe I found online for gingerbread ice cream made with Belgian trappist beer
My Pumpkin Creme Brulee (because you don't get to use a mini blow torch for pumpkin pie)
My pumpkin gingerbread panna cotta
Wagner Vineyards Riesling
Non-Alcoholic Frozen Harry Potter Butterbeer (adapted by me from the original recipe)

Sasha's Kitchen: Butternut Squash-Apple Soup & My Thanksgiving Menu

Sasha & Brad's Kitchen: Butternut Squash Risotto

Squash and pumpkin are my two favorite vegetables this time of year.  I plan on making some squash soup for thanksgiving to rival the pumpkin soups I made this time last year and shared here. I figured that squash (or pumpkin) would make a delicious risotto, and I was definitely correct. I engineered this recipe, but this time my husband executed and prepared it - it was a delicious and perfect fall treat, prepared using the delicious ShopRite risotto that I received as part of the ShopRite blog panel that I am part of. You really could make this with fresh pumpkin as well, and it would also be great. You can prepare this using fresh butternut squash from your garden, or make it easy on yourself and buy it already cut up. Either way, the dish is surprisingly easy to make once you have the risotto making art down pat. Risotto is one of my husband's favorite dishes (both to make and to eat) and this one is certain to appear again on our dinner table. Brad and I are hosting Thanksgiving for my family this year, so I am really excited to try some great new pumpkin and squash recipes along with our holiday turkey!


Sasha & Brad's Butternut Squash Risotto
1 lb fresh squash, broiled and diced
1 onion, diced
2 T of butter or olive oil
1 cup white cooking wine
4-5 cups of low sodium chicken stock
1 1/2 cups of risotto
1/2 tsp cinnamon

To prepare the risotto, first roast the butternut squash at 400 degrees for about an hour and a half, until cooked. If you are using fresh squash, then get rid of the skin. If using cut up squash, you can then cut into smaller pieces. Squash is really hard to cut before you broil it - I always have a hard time cutting whole squashes open before putting them in the oven!

Cut up the onion and saute in the butter or olive oil. Then add the rice and coat in the olive oil / butter. Add the white wine, and allow to reduce by half. Add the chicken stock, one cup at a time, allowing the first cup of chicken stock to reduce by at least half before adding the next cup. In total, you will add somewhere between 4 to 5 cups of chicken stock before it gets to the right texture. Just before the risotto is done, mix in the cinnamon.

Usually we make risotto with parmesan cheese, but this time we left it out and it was just perfect - and healthier too! I did garnish with a tiny bit on top.

Sasha & Brad's Kitchen: Butternut Squash Risotto

Sasha's Kitchen: Vegetarian Dinner Party and Simple Winter Squash Recipe

My husband and I had a vegetarian (or vegetable-oriented, perhaps a better term for it) dinner party last night with some friends of ours here in Brooklyn.  Here was the menu:

Appetizer: Baby Acorn Squash (recipe below)
Caesar Salad
Green Apple Risotto (My husband, Brad, prepared this and will post the recipe soon)
Sweet Potato Chipoltle Latkes (Pancakes) with Lingonberries
Rainbow Frosted Honey-Vanilla Cupcakes
Mini Chocolate Souffles (prepared by our friends for us, but something I plan on making for this site very soon)

Below is how to prepare the baby acorn squash, a perfect appetizer or side dish for a fall or winter dinner.  This recipe serves four, but they are so good, that you might want to prepare extras.

2 medium sized acorn squash
4 T butter
4 T brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

And a second variation of the dish, incorporating apples that I will be preparing this weekend for another dinner party:

Diced honeycrisp or gala apples, mixed with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and a 1 tsp of lemon juice

Cut the acorn squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Fill with the butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. Add the apple mixture too, if making that variation.

Bake at 350 F for an hour and a half.

The end result is a very simple, but delicious farm fresh seasonal treat, best prepared using organic or local produce. I really enjoy cooking vegetarian-style. It's not that I don't enjoy meat and fish - I do, and plenty of it. But too much of our eating revolves around the meat entree, and it doesn't always need to be that way. Sometimes it is nice too cook without meat, and it enhances the fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses, grains and other ingredients that you are using. I find that I have learned a great deal of how to better work with these ingredients by occasionally leaving meat out of a meal.  Not only is it healthy to occasionally skip out on meat, but it enhances the experience we have eating everything else, as well as the quality of the produce.  I believe this is why I am such a big fan of the farm to table approach to cooking. I plan to do another vegetable-oriented dinner party next weekend, as well.

vegetarian
squash

Sasha's Kitchen: Vegetarian Dinner Party and Simple Winter Squash Recipe

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Another Squash Soup

Perhaps it's the season, or the fact that it hasn't been above 40 degrees in six weeks here in Sun Valley, or that squash from Idaho's Bounty is incredibly inexpensive, but I've made another squash soup.

I started with a small butternut squash (one that was almost acorn-squash-shaped rather than oblong), cut it in half, removed the seeds, and placed the halves in a baking dish. I added about a tablespoon of butter in pieces, a tablespoon of brown sugar, and heavy sprinklings of cinnamon and red pepper powder (still trying to use up the joint spice cabinet). I baked that at 350 for, oh, two hoursish? Until it smelled really good and was soft to a fork, anyway. When that was done baking, I removed the dish and let it cool.

While the squash was cooling, I sauteed about half a white onion, two or three shallots, and half a head of garlic (all chopped fairly fine) in about a tablespoon of olive oil and half a cup of white wine. Once the onions were half sauteed, I added more cinnamon and some smoked paprika (probably about a tablespoon or two of each). Once the whole mess was lightly browned, I put it in the Cuisinart. I added the flesh of the squash, and about three cups of the pureed potatoes that were such a failure in that last post (they had been in the freezer).

As the contents pureed, I added a bit of heavy cream. Probably less than a total of a cup, but I'm not sure, I just poured until it looked right. Out of the Cuisinart and into a medium-sized pan, I added a bit of vegetable broth to thin out the consistency. Again, probably a total of a cup or so, but I'm not sure. Also, a teaspoon or two of black truffle oil. As you can tell, I tend to cook by the seat of my pants, (today, the new jeans I won from Lee off Facebook!) which makes me a poor baker.

There was some toasting and buttering of San Francisco sourdough slices going on as I served up the soup. Thinking about visual and textural contrast, I diced up some cilantro left over from our elk fajitas last weekend. That went onto both bowls, and some grated reggiano onto my bowl (but not the fiance's). He said the cilantro could have been sliced finer, as it created too much of a textural inconsistency, but I liked it. Eh, to each his own.

For another soup recipe, check out Kelly's Carrot Soup, by clicking here.

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Another Squash Soup

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Sweet Gingery Carrots (as a side)

So I tried four new things tonight -- two mostly from a recipe, and two from my head.

The two from a recipe were basic white/wheat bread and mashed potatoes, out of Joy of Cooking. The two without were what I'm calling Sweet Ginger Carrots with Leeks, and Cream of Squash Soup. More about those last two later.


Potatoes:
Unfortunately, I decided to use my Cuisinart instead of a masher to make the potatoes, and they ended up being potato puree. I did originally try a ricer, but it was going so slowly that I gave up. I really need to learn how to properly use a ricer.
I should have gotten out my manual masher, but just didn't think about it, so into the Cuisinart the potatoes went. The flavor (check out that Joy of Cooking recipe -- it has garlic, celery, bay leaf, etc) was awesome, but the texture left much to be desired. I'll definitely remember that for the future.

Bread:
The bread is currently in the oven, but there were two major issues. The first is that it is very possible that I was using old yeast. And that, I've heard, is not a good thing -- your bread just doesn't rise. When I set the bread aside in a warm spot, it basically just didn't expand at all.
The second problem was that when I opened my white flour bag, it was full of gross bugs that looked to have been breeding there for a while *ICK!* Fortunately, I hadn't used it in a while, so I'm not too worried I've been downing, um, extra protein.
I sent the fiance to the store for some more white and threw the nasty flour in the trash, but my understanding is that timing is important when adding yeast to the dough, and I'd already done that with the wheat flour. So I had to leave the dough sitting for 20 minutes until he came back with more white flour. I'm blaming these two things for my imminent bread failure, and hoping to more successfuly explore baking further in the near future.
(P.S.: At the end of baking, the bread has good flavor, but is, as I expected, extremely dense -- if you end up with this problem someday, use as large a bread pan as you can, because the middle of the bread is good, but the crust is too thick. The small individual-loaf pans I used left too little good middle and too much thick crust.)

And now for the successes. W00t!

The carrots:
I sliced two large carrots to a medium thickness, and added them to a medium nonstick saute pan with about three tablespoons of butter, salt, pepper, half a diced white onion, a tablespoon or so of pinot noir, and about 2/3 tablespoon of pre-minced ginger. That pan got a lid, and about halfway through the cooking process I added about a tablespoon and a half of brown sugar -- late enough so it didn't caramelize too much and make everything too sticky/overbrowned.
In a separate pan I sauteed some leeks in Trader Joe's (OMG I miss Trader Joe's) black truffle oil and a little white wine, though I got distracted and let them go a mite too long, so a few sides of the leeks were a bit blackened (I threw out the worst pieces).

The soup:
Early in the day, I baked a squash (I think it was acorn, but I'm not certain, as I got a variety bag full of squash from our local growers' membership food co-op, Idaho's Bounty, and forgot what was in the bag). Halving the squash and removing the seeds, I put in the empty cavities about two or three tablespoons of butter, a heavy sprinkle of brown sugar, and a medium sprinkle of powdered red pepper, and baked that whole business until it was soft to a fork, probably a couple hours at 350. This is the easiest thing in the world, and there's so much you can do with the finished squash, I highly recommend it.
Later in the day, I sauteed a half-dozen diced raw garlic cloves, two large roasted garlic cloves, two large celery stems, a few slices of white onion, and salt and pepper. I put that and the scooped-out squash innards into the Cuisinart and pureed the whole mess with a tiny carton of heavy cream until smooth.
The puree was put in a medium pan on very low heat, and tasted as I was working on the other parts of the plate. It was tasting kinda meh, not complex enough, so I added some white wine and the juice from some canned chipotle peppers (probably half a tablespoon of chipotle juice total, for I'm guessing eight cups of soup). And that gave it the perfect heat -- enough to give it zing, but not so much that it overwhelmed the beautiful creamy squash flavor. I ended up topping it with some dried chives, which wasn't the right choice. Thinking back, I'd float a little citrus oil and some grated citrus peel, probably lemon, on top. Or perhaps some grated hard cheese of some kind, like an asiago, Jarlsberg or manchego (though that would be just for me, as the fiance isn't so fond of cheese). Or maybe fresh julienned Italian parsley. Mmmm...

Overall, the meal was a success: the soup and carrots definitely starred the show, enough that the weird potato texture almost got lost. Fortunately, there's some soup left, now waiting for another meal in the freezer. There were also left-over potatoes, which I'm eager to reinterpret in other contexts, perhaps as the plate base for some of the Lava Lake lamb sirloin tips I'll be getting from Idaho's Bounty on Wednesday. If I find something good to do with pureed potatoes, I'll let you know.

Akitcheninbrooklyn.com is doing a roundtable on carrots for the month of December. For additional carrot recipes, click here for my Carroty Latkes.

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Sweet Gingery Carrots (as a side)